When Did the Fake Hair Cutlure Begin?

Solitude said:
Is this something that you have actually seen? That's really hard for me to imagine.

Now, crochet braids...those were "sewn-in" and I had them as a kid. But, a head full of sewn in hair?? BTW, I have seen lots of little black girls at my son's elementary school with healthy long hair. A lot of them have "shrinkage," so it's hard to see, but you can see how long it is when they get their hair pressed. My niece (age 6) has APL-length hair and most of the girls on her cheerleading squad have long hair (relaxed & natural).

We really need to stop talking about how everyone's hair is unhealthy. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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In the area that I'm in now (Rochester, NY)...it's an unfortunate reality. I was working on a project at an elementary school recently observing 4th and 5th grade classes and I'd say 75% of young black girls were rocking hair that wasn't their own. 45% of that 75% were wearing sew-in weaves- I kid you not! The rest were wearing some form of braid extensions (micros, etc). As a natural, I totally understand the concept of shrinkage, but the majority of the girls were not natural but relaxed bone straight. I only saw 6 girls in the entire building I could say were definitely natural (I may have been mistaken and I can not account for the girls who had sew-ins or micros who may have been natural underneath).

I'm not saying everyone's hair is unhealthy, but it is a much more conspicuous problem than I remember 10 years ago and it's starting at a much younger age. Normally, girls' hair would began to get screwed up when they started taking care of it themselves. But now I'm seeing 4 and 5 year old girls with relaxers, tight ponytails, and no edges....consistently. I don't remember unhealthy being this prevalent; even when short or relaxed, the hair was healthy.


When I'm in the South, I do not see this nearly as much. But I lot more young girls are relaxed now than when I was in elementary school.
 
LaidBak said:
Yup, this is what I remember from the early/mid 80s. If you wore fake hair of any type you were suspected of being "bald headed". And being called bald headed was the biggest insult to a black girl. When I was in high school (86-90) I remember seeing phony ponys and not knowing they were fake. I kept wondering how these girls had ponytails but no visible elastic band. Those were my first memories of fake hair being used among young Black women. I didn't see my first sewed in track until my Senior year. This girl had one put in with green thread. LoL!
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:yep::yep::yep:. Most of the teasing came from the girls with the long hair.
 
I think late 90s early 2000's were when everyday people started wearing fake hair more. I was in college from 95-99 and only knew a couple of girls who wore extensions/ponytails. Now it seems like everyone has some kind of extensions.
 
chiprecious said:
I've thought the same thing...I was watching old school videos and 90% the women had their own hair! It seems like it all started around the late 90s when it became soo widespread. I think women have always worn fake hair, but it was the "wear everyday all day full head of weave" until maybe the last 10-15 years.
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Agreed. When I was growing up, the only fake hair I saw were wigs that older ladies wore. Then in the 90's braids were really popular. Now chicks are just all out with it. You can know a person for YEARS and never even know what their hair looks like.
 
There's no real way of saying, IMO. Hair pieces and artificial hair have been used for centuries. In the victorian era many men and women wore powdered wigs and that was considered en vogue back then. Even during the time when Egypt was a dominant world power it was common for people to weave fabrics and the like into their hair. And it's very common in African tribal regions to add things like clay, feathers, twine, etc...to beautify the hair. Perhaps it's gaining a resurgence in popularity today.
 
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Junonia said:
When I was growing up it was okay to wear braid extensions. Weaves on the other hand, was a :nono:. I remember this girl was teased all the time because she wore weaves. It was okay for the celebrities to wear weaves but us non-celebs, we paid the price:lol:

I was reading on a blackbeach.com a few years ago, a subscriber blasted someone because she did not wear a weave or piece during some black beach event. She was like who goes to these events wearing their natural hair. I guess times have changed.
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Whoa! Being blasted for NOT wearing fake hair? Times really have changed.:nono:
 
People have been wearing fake hair for thousands of years. Just probably don't look as bad as today
 
LaidBak said:
Yup, this is what I remember from the early/mid 80s. If you wore fake hair of any type you were suspected of being "bald headed". And being called bald headed was the biggest insult to a black girl. When I was in high school (86-90) I remember seeing phony ponys and not knowing they were fake. I kept wondering how these girls had ponytails but no visible elastic band. Those were my first memories of fake hair being used among young Black women. I didn't see my first sewed in track until my Senior year. This girl had one put in with green thread. LoL!
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Lmao @ green thread:lachen::lachen:
 
i would say in the 90s was when the average woman felt comfortable to wear weaves but kept it on the dl.:grin:
then in the late 90s to the 2ks it was ok to say, yeah its real, i paid for it!!:lachen:
 
Junonia said:
When I was growing up it was okay to wear braid extensions. Weaves on the other hand, was a :nono:. I remember this girl was teased all the time because she wore weaves. It was okay for the celebrities to wear weaves but us non-celebs, we paid the price:lol:

I was reading on a blackbeach.com a few years ago, a subscriber
blasted someone because she did not wear a weave or piece during some black beach event. She was like who goes to these events wearing their natural hair. I guess times have changed.[/quote]

That's some messed up ish.
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Well, i'm dating myself. But in the 50's and 60's weaves were installed with the aid of a weaving pole that held the thread. It was a funny looking contraption. But similar procedure to today's weave. Your hair was cornrowed, then the thread was added with loose hair that built up the foundation. Lastly the tracks were sewn to this. It was very tight and took hours to put in. But amazingly there was very little damage. And it looked natural. Your own natural hairline was left out around the perimeter. You could keep it a long time. By just putting a 'warm comb' on your hair or a little Vigorol on your own hair to touch up the ng.
Good thread.

aloha_bef said:
This is probably a question that some of the older ladies can answer. For some reason, I can't imagine people in the 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's wearing weaves and braid extensions. Even when I look at pictures or watch films from these periods, I don't see the fake hair thing. I've been trying to figure out when it all began, especially the styles listed. I'm assuming it really took off in the 90's but there must've been a starting point earlier on when women started wearing fake hair. I doubt everyone just woke up one morning with a weave glued to their head. . Did you notice a big increase in women wearing fake hair when you were younger? Or was it a gradual change? Did it startle you? Did people make a big deal when this was happening? Just Curious. If there was a thread on this, please bump it, because I couldn't find one.
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AtlantaJJ said:
I got my first micro braids with curly human hair extensions in Los Angeles sometime in 1983. I was the only one I knew with them at the time other than my friend in the entertainment industry. She had them and I like them so I got some.
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Was it difficult to find someone to do them or did you just go to your friend's stylist? Were people like "what the.." when they saw you? Were they intrigued like you were?
 
Weaves, fake hair and wigs have been worn for centuries. In Egypt having a wig was a sign of nobility. Even children were given those wigs. Wigs were worn because head was shaven to stop lice infestations. In Africa, hair was always adorned with fake hair or jewelry (cowerie shells, etc). Now, as an African growing up in the States, I was one of the first to wear braided hair extensions in my neighbourhood. It was not because I did not have hair it was because young African girls were expected to keep their hair braided and extension hair gave the style more volume and more protection. I was teased so much by African-American and Carribbean-American kids for wearing fake hair but in my group of Africans it was pretty much the norm. When I was in college, I was also one of two girls who also wore braid extensions and pretty much got teased until the movie Poetic Justice came out and then it was okay to wear braided extensions.

However, I mean all of these black actresses in the States wore wigs. I think the only non-wigger was the mother from Good Times. On Solid Gold, the black dancer wore long extension braids as did Peaches from the group Peaches and Herbs.

I think the difference is that today, the weaves and the wigs reflect the standard of beauty epitomised in the States. The long straight and light brown weaves, braid extensions and wigs are in effect.

Weaves are just an improvement on the wig and braid extensions. Like how lace fronts are an improvement on the sew ins.

Best,
Almond Eyes
 
i think it really became popular in the black community when extensions became cheap and accessible to us. beauty supply stores started popping up all over the place in the late 80's and early 90's. we started getting really create with the pro-style gel and the weft hair.
 
And yes, now the difference is that everyone has access to fake hair while as before it was only the rich and famous. Fake hair like everything else comes and goes in and out of fashion. I mean in France they were wearing white wigs and powdered faces. If you did not have that look you were not considered to be with the in crowd. On another note, those white wigs and powered faces with black beauty marks were to hide the lice and the bad skin. In those days people hardly bathed so it was all about appearances.

Best,
Almond Eyes
 
shortdub78 said:
i think it really became popular in the black community when extensions became cheap and accessible to us. beauty supply stores started popping up all over the place in the late 80's and early 90's. we started getting really create with the pro-style gel and the weft hair.
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:lachen::lachen: Takes me back to finger waves, pineapple waves, and freezes!!:lachen::lachen:
 
Google would work! I was looking for hair styles for a period costume, and learned that a lot of women would buy curls to pin into their hair back in the Victorian times. I also learned that Egyptians removed pretty much all of their body hair and wore wigs quite often. "fake" hair has been around forever really, at least among "upper" classes
 
People been wearing wigs since the beginning of time lol. Ancient Egypt, the Victorians, right on down to today. I remember in the 80s though, you would be laughed at if ppl knew you wore weave. Today, it's de rigeur. No one cares (or they shouldn't) :yep:
 
Ok, younguns, listen up! Fake hair has been around forever! Women entertainers like Dianna Ross and the Supremes, Martha Reeves, Aretha Franklin, wore wigs on stage in the 60's! White women wore them as well, on TV shows, like Lawrence Welk, and gospel shows. My mother was an avid wig wearer in the 70's. She had a nice head of hair, but wigs had become main stream for black women who were short on time and/or hair!! :lachen:I'm sure wig wearing goes way back before then...remember the men used to wear wigs in the 17-1800's! It was fashionable back then. Extensions and braids have become popular over the past 30-40 years. The first time I saw Ashford and Simpson singing together as a husband wife team in the early 70's they both had braids! They were way ahead of their time!! It took the world another twenty years to catch up with them! So yes, false hair, wig wearing, hair weaving is not a new concept by any means.
 
I thought the OP was merely asking when did they become so commonplace in the black community in the U.S. I knew a few people who had wigs when I was a child, and my mother had a hairpiece for her wedding hairstyle, but most ordinary people I saw (e.g., not entertainers or others in the public eye) had their real hair on their heads, whether relaxed, pressed or natural, until the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, people suddenly began asking me whether my hair was a weave. No one ever asked me that before 1990, and my hair didn't change, so I think of weaves/wigs as they are being worn now - essentially by anyone with access to a beauty supply store - as becoming popular (again) in the 1990s.
 
the supremes had a person in charge of their wigs while touring..(I read that just last week)..so I would say the celebrities started it....and people always wore wigs...in the 70s they started braiding hair with extentions but it blew up with the introduction of hip hop videos...:) and newer techniques were developed in stuff:)
 
yamilee21 said:
I thought the OP was merely asking when did they become so commonplace in the black community in the U.S. I knew a few people who had wigs when I was a child, and my mother had a hairpiece for her wedding hairstyle, but most ordinary people I saw (e.g., not entertainers or others in the public eye) had their real hair on their heads, whether relaxed, pressed or natural, until the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, people suddenly began asking me whether my hair was a weave. No one ever asked me that before 1990, and my hair didn't change, so I think of weaves/wigs as they are being worn now - essentially by anyone with access to a beauty supply store - as becoming popular (again) in the 1990s.
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That's kind of what I was going for. Probably should've worded it a bit better. Nonetheless, the history is interesting.
 
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