Debra Moore of Hercules wants what she calls flawless hair. To achieve it, she visits the salon every six weeks for a chemical treatment that relaxes her thick, curly hair. Then, her stylist wraps Moore’s chin-length bob in crinkled paper similar to streamers, to mold and prepare the hair for the third and final step, a flatiron.
“Hair is my top priority, ” says Moore, 46, referring to looking and feeling her best. “If your hair looks good, from top to bottom, you look good.”
For Corinthia Peoples of Emeryville, hair is even more important. It is a spiritual reflection of identity. Peoples, 37, chopped off her dreadlocks, which had grazed the small of her back for eight years. It took her six months to emotionally prepare for the cut.
“I cut them off because I didn’t want to become my hair, ” she says. “I wanted to be free. It was a political and spiritual evolution of my culture and who I am. That’s what I took on with my hair.”
The relationship women have with their hair is like a complicated tangle. Regardless of their ethnicity, most women find hair affects their moods and even their relationships. They manipulate and willingly damage their hair with curling, straightening, extending or bleaching, all in the name of an unspoken standard that measures beautiful hair in terms of length, shine, and straightness.
The choices abound
Black women have an even more complex relationship with their hair and its texture. Styling options are infinite — everything from wigs and weaves to cornrows and Afro puffs — not to mention time-consuming (braiding sessions can take up to 12 hours) and expensive. Also, they often reflect cultural or political values. Historically, the salon and barbershop also have served as intergenerational gathering places for the community.
Comedian Chris Rock took on the subject in his documentary, “Good Hair,” which features dozens of African Americans, including actress Nia Long and Rev. Al Sharpton, discussing the procedures blacks endure to turn so-called “bad” or kinky hair into “good” hair that is straight. But, here in the Bay Area, many African-American women believe that these designations are outdated and perpetuate negative stereotypes. Still, the mention of the N-word — nappy — can send an entire Berkeley salon into an uproar.
“We prefer ‘overly curly.’ Nappy is offensive, ‘” says Glynis Bradsfield-Holloway of Berkeley’s Hair By Glynis. “I don’t believe there is good or bad hair. That’s a stereotype that messes with self-esteem from a young age.”
Ingrained anxiety
Of the dozen or so black women interviewed for this story, all grew up self-conscious of their hair, its texture and its susceptibility to water, they say.
“The deep seeds are planted extremely early in terms of how black children feel about themselves based on their hair, ” says Chris-Tia Donaldson, a Harvard-educated attorney and Chicago-based author of “Thank God I’m Natural: The Ultimate Guide to Caring for and Maintaining Natural Hair” (TgiNesis Press). “You know by the time you’re 3 if you have good or bad hair, because you will be around little girls with silky hair, and adults are talking about how pretty they are.”
Black women have been engaged in a historical struggle to bring their hair in line with what dominant American culture has perceived as beautiful, says Stanford University assistant history professor Allyson Hobbs. “During slavery, women wore bandanas to keep their hair clean and unexposed while they worked, ” Hobbs says. ‘But on Sundays and holidays, they would take their bandanas off and spend time styling their hair.”
Post-slavery, the messages became clear. “By the late 19th century, you start seeing ads for skin lighteners and hair straighteners, telling blacks to change their physical features to gain class mobility and social acceptance, ” Hobbs says. By the 1960s, blacks gained equality during the civil rights movement. Motown glamour was all the rage, and you didn’t have to look white to be successful, Donaldson says. “The birth of the Afro is out of that movement, ” she adds. “It was a very politicized hairdo worn by freedom fighters.”
Hurtful treatments
The Afro reigned throughout the 1970s, when it became a less politicized fashion statement, Donaldson says. However, with affirmative action in the 1980s came another period of assimilation for blacks entering corporate America. “Chemical relaxers, straighteners, and the carefree curl made popular by Michael Jackson dominated, ” Donaldson says.
Those beauty trends damaged a lot of hair, and it wasn’t until the neo-soul movement of the mid-1990s that artists such as Lauryn Hill, Jill Scott, and Erykah Badu broke off from the mainstream and celebrated Afrocentricism by wearing their hair in natural styles, she adds. Today, the black hair industry is estimated at $9 billion, according to “Good Hair.”
But for Leah Gregory of Oakland, hair is just hair. Gregory, who is 28 and wears hers pressed and straight, believes people put too much emphasis on the importance of hair. “People have come up to me and said, ‘You need to embrace your black heritage, ‘” Gregory says. “Just because I have a press doesn’t mean I’m not proud of my heritage. I wore an Afro for nine years. I think you can find a balance. Hair is about how you want to look from day to day. It’s about fashion, and personal expression.”
It’s also about time and energy. As a nurse, Gloria Johnson, 64, of Antioch, needs a style that is forgiving and easy to maintain. So, she wears it in a flat twist that she has done every six weeks at Oakland’s World of Braids. The shop, run by Costa Rican-born Sheron Campbell, specializes in braids and cornrows. “I take pride in my hair, ” says Johnson, who is anti-relaxer. “It’s not real, ” she says of the chemical straightener.
Braiding marathons
Campbell, who wears her hair in locks, admits that she’d like to relax her hair. Unfortunately, her hair is too fragile. “I would love the versatility of wearing it straight, but every single relaxer has made my hair break,” says Campbell, as she works feverishly on Rosemond Hayfron’s cornrows. She will use the cornrows as the foundation onto which she’ll sew a curly weave. Some weaves — and wigs such as those popularized by Beyoncé — are glued on. Braiding sessions can take four to 12 hours and run up to $350 every six weeks, she says.
That’s too much maintenance for Lorna Jones, who wears her long locks pulled back in a bun. Jones, of Oakland, relaxes her hair a few times during the year, gives it a red tint, and shampoos it every two weeks, like most black women, to preserve the natural oils. But Jones has had a plethora of styles in her 61 years. She recalls with mixed emotions the three-hour, “heavy-handed” process of having it pressed and put in Shirley Temple curls as a child. During her 20s, she sported a big Afro. She’s also worn head wraps.
“That is the beauty and diversity of African-American women, ” she says. “They can wear it all.”
