Various stores used to be full of nostrums for straightening the hair of black people; there were also products that claimed to lighten the skin color of blacks. I had thought that those things were sort of gone and forgotten in this age----there are a lot of things that I don’t and never have understood but I’ve never been black and I’ve never had curly hair; maybe I’d understand it better if I had had either of those characteristics.
The Valmor Products Company in Chicago specialized in cosmetic and hair products for various ethnic groups. Their packages were classics of graphic design, and director Terry Zwigoff is a serious collector of Valmor artwork. Valmor was so successful that the owner Morton Neumann financed a major expansion of the Art Institute of Chicago.
I remember some of those products and I know they were really popular way back when. I’m just sort of surprised to learn that hair straightening is still around.
I think what you may be thinking is that black people who straighten their hair are doing it so they can more closely resemble white people, but that’s not how I see it. I think a lot of women, of all colors, want different hair than they have; they also want to have options. My middle daughter is lily-white (truly, she could almost get a job as a nightlight) but has very, very thick, curly hair. Sometimes she just uses some products to “tame” the curls and wears it curly, but more often than not, she straightens it.
Women of many nationalities have their hair permed, dyed, straightened, relaxed, cut, trimmed, etc. It’s just about being able to switch up your looks a little.
MHO, of course.
Straightening is the Thing right now, even among white girls. My 15 year old goddaughter just had a birthday party, where they spent the better part of two hours straightening my son’s naturally curly hair, painting his nails black and putting black eyeliner designs on him. When they were done they proclaimed him “super hawt!” and said he looked like a rock star.
Then we straightened everyone’s hair. Even those of us who thought we had straight hair got it straightened with the help of a couple of flat irons the girls had on hand. The fact that one of the girls has super straight hair (and has since she was little) but also owns a flattening iron tells me something about how important straight hair is at the moment.
In addition to norinew’s point about options, scroll back up to PopeJewish’s ex spending an hour per day combing out super curly hair. Not because she wanted to, but because she had to. Imagine being a black person with the same kind of hair, and having to do that, then needing to make a couple of kids sit still while you do the same to their hair. There are tricks to make it easier, braiding it before bed so it doesn’t get matted for example, but it can be too much of a pain for some. Also, some people have been getting their hair permanently straightened since they were children. The only way to go natural is to cut off all the straight hair. Some people don’t want to lose that length.
This surprises me. When you see black women on tv (or real life) with straight hair, how do you think it got that way?
I’ve never given it any thought at all; straight hair is straight hair. I will admit that I have a long standing love of long straight hair but that is because it reminds me of my hippie days.
I suppose I somehow thought that the practice of straightening hair had died out with the Black Pride movement. I certainly intended no offense and I hope none was taken. Please consider my ignorance fought and, in this case, vanquished.
Pam Grier, before and after the conk.
The way black women wear their hair can have huge political implications (i.e. the idea that the choice to wear a particular hairstyle has meaning beyond simply that someone wants to wear that particular hairstyle.) See for instance Nappily Ever After? Not Quite… or Nappy love: Or how I learned to stop worrying and embrace the kinks:
It is quite uncommon for me to see black women with natural hair in workplace settings (or on television, for that matter) - most wear wigs, extensions, chemical treatments, etc. Women who wear dreadlocks or afros are not very often present in offices I’ve worked in.
White woman here with wavy hair who owns a flat iron, three curling irons in different diameters, hot rollers - who had permed in the past, colored in the past, highlighted. Who has a few hundred dollars in gel, mousse, de friz, curl enhancer, straighter, and plain old hairspray lying around in her bathroom - and by most measures I’ve run into - I’m not even bad.
Yep. If its straight, it could be curly. If its curly, it could be straight. If its straight it could be straighter. If its tightly curly, the curls could be looser. Redheads become brunettes, brunettes become blondes.
This reminds me of a school prom– all the girls with culry hair get it straightened, all the girls with straight hair get curls and waves. Almost without fail.
Wouldn’t you know it, Chris Rock is putting out an HBO doc about just this subject.
There’s also a musical theatre interpretation - Da Kink in My Hair by the incomparable Trey Anthony.