When DID black womens hair began to get short???

[Lila25]

I'd say the 1980's. That's when wave nuveau and the Jerri Curl busted on the scene. I remember my girlfriends got the curl, and they were happy with their hair growth, but they had to cut the curl out of their hair as the curl was very strong. Blond streaks had never been that popular in our community, but when Tina Turner was blond at the height of her comeback in the 80's, I think the trend for bleaching our hair started to become popular. By the 90's women started wearing the hair in straighter styles, meaning perms with heat..and the wigs our mothers and grandmothers wore in the 60's and 70's gave way to the weave.. The weave gave many black women the opportunity to have hair any color, length and texture without dealing with their own hair..

It seems that we are now coming full circle..many of us are going back to caring for our own hair and many of us are beginning to wear wigs and most importantly, weaves in a responsible way, meaning we know how important it is to not become dependent on wigs or weaves and neglect our own hair. Many women that still relax are realizing they can "stretch" their perm and not perm their hair every four weeks..My guess would be the mid 80's

 

[My Friend]

I think there were periods of short and long hair among African and African American women.

I have no doubt that first few generations of African slaves left white woman so insecure that they implemented excessive pain and grief to destroy their self esteem and beauty.


Mother Africia had beautiful long loc's or full, thick long tresses. She adorned her hair with shells, flowers and bones. Her body was similiar to the Halle Berry's, Pilar Sanders and Serena's of today.


In her country, she bathed in sea salt waters, oiled her body with natures natural oils. Her diet was clean consisting of fresh fruits and vegetables high in vitamins and minerals. Her protein was fresh fish.

Her skin was flawless. Her skin tone a dark golden brown. Her lips were full. Her eyes jet black. Her breast high and perky. Her bottom round like an apple. The ripples on her belly rivaled the muscle tone of her thighs and legs.


When white women saw them, they knew they were not the savage beasts that letters and stories had told them. They saw it then like they see it now......something so beautiful that it must be destroyed.


Slaves: Taken to a foreign land without any access to their native fruits and vegetables that were naturally high in vitamins and minerals. Can you imagine the stress of being a slave? I'm sure that caused early oxidation (grey), shortened terminal lenghts and breakage.

Most fabrics were made from cotton. The house slaves had to wear them so look presentable and not like savages. The field slaves copied the style and/or used them to keep their hair out of their face. Between the fabric and the hot southern sun, their hair became dry and brittle which caused breakage.


That went on for hundreds of years for women who were not raped by white men. The Africans who were raped by white men had children who texture could endure the horrible conditions.


After slavery, the Madame C.J Walkers came along etc.....

 

[Jewell]

Its so easy to blame relaxers but not everyone with a relaxer had or has jacked up hair. Its overprocessing the relaxer, switching between lye and no lye abusing heat and basically not knowing what the heck you're doing.

Can we seriously act like natural hair is the remedy? If it was the answer to long hair folks wouldn't be complaining about problems with retention. If it was the answer folks who have been natural for a decade who want long hair, would not still be at shoulder length.

Again its bad practices along with believing ignorant mess like dirt grows hair. Who came up with that?

This is VERY TRUE! When my mother and I didnt care for my relaxed hair properly, it was dry, split, shorter. But with the right techniques, my relaxed hair grew out very long. I see these ceramic stoves used for Marcel irons reach like 860 degrees Fahrenheit...WTH?

I don't know any hair on this planet that needs that kind of heat. There is jacked natural hair, jacked texlaxed/texturized hair, etc. (The high heat of those stoves is why I use electric pressing combs and flat-irons...VERY hesitant to go to a stylist and let them straighten).

When I was relaxed, I used lye only and the one time a stylist inadvertently put a no-lye relaxer in, the dryness was out of this world! I rarely used heat, and kept my hair moisturized and protected. This is something I still do, and have done for YEARS, since age 17, no matter what state (natural, texturized, relaxed) my hair is in.

It's all about balance! I have learned to care for my body and hair responsibly. And once I did, I have been natural, pressed natural, no-lye relaxed, lye relaxed, natural, texlaxed, natural (present), and through all those stages, I was able to grow my hair long, retain, and have it healthy! I say all this to say: no matter the state of your hair, you can improve it (in most cases), and have healthy hair.

We can theoretically say the relaxer is a large culprit because many don't know how to care for relaxed hair (but the same argument can be imposed about heat use, natural hair, and palm-rolling or twisting locs too tight--which leads to thinning and breakage).

We must have balance and use proper healthy hair, scalp, and body practices to keep our hair in the best shape!

The chemical relaxer and texturizer itself CAN, of course, be applied responsibly and that is why I don't knock people who aren't natural. I've been all of it except Jerri-Curled and Loc'd. Different strokes for different folks, and sometimes people just change their hair and lifestyle at different periods in their lives!

I believe all Black women can have healthy, long, beautiful hair if that is their desire. Like anything else, you must put in the work and learn the trade!

@Lynnerie : Thanks for your post!

 

[Reinventing21]

While I think the MISUSE of chemicals is def a factor, I think bad practices period are at fault. I remember a friend's relaxed hair being way longer than another friend whose whole family did press curl. Both of them had healthy looking hair but the relaxed girl never made it to waist length and the pressed girl and her family never got past top of shoulders. So overall, I think it was due to lack of knowledge. Just my two cents!

 

[virtuenow]

I tried to figure that out too! None of my aunts or my moms hair was short? And they didn't have the so-called "good" hair. They had long kinky, thick, lush hair. This is mostly the 60's to 70's era and so on. When did black women start having such widespread breakage. I can name the long, healthy haired people on one hand that I know is not a weave.

 

[virtuenow]

Its so easy to blame relaxers but not everyone with a relaxer had or has jacked up hair. Its overprocessing the relaxer, switching between lye and no lye abusing heat and basically not knowing what the heck you're doing.

Can we seriously act like natural hair is the remedy? If it was the answer to long hair folks wouldn't be complaining about problems with retention. If it was the answer folks who have been natural for a decade who want long hair, would not still be at shoulder length.

Again its bad practices along with believing ignorant mess like dirt grows hair. Who came up with that?

Nah, its relaxer.

 

[laurend]

Chemicals and applying them when someone is young. When I was growing up little girls wore braid(pigtails) and didn't get a relaxer until they were a teenager or older.

 

[LongLeggedLife]

Its so easy to blame relaxers but not everyone with a relaxer had or has jacked up hair. Its overprocessing the relaxer, switching between lye and no lye abusing heat and basically not knowing what the heck you're doing.

Not everybody with a relaxer has jacked up hair, but imo, the vast majority do. There is a reason that it does not assist in growing thick, long, and or healthy hair for that very large majority.

Why do so many of our stylists "not know what the heck they are doing" after applying it on heads for many many years? I would say this is because black hair simply does not respond well over time to that particular chemical process.

I do agree that having natural hair is not the be all solution for having heatlthy hair, but contrarily, relaxers are usually what is causing the most damage across the boards.

 

[leona2025]

In my family only my grandmothers had long hair. One grandmother had 9 children and one had I think 11. None of the girls were relaxed and all only pressed when younger. I do recall my mom had a curl for the longest time, but her hair was never shoulder length. She kept it short on purpose.

I got my first relaxer when I was about 12. I was natural WL and all my mother used on my hair was pink oil moisturizer and grease and she put me in ponytails and took them out everyday. My mom did the same exact thing to my sister's hair and she could barely get to apl.

My hair became damaged/broken/dry and terrible when I started taking care of it myself. My mom maintained my hair up until my sophomore year in highschool. I went from wl to ear length in 2 months from self styling.

As has been mentioned I think it is bad hair practices that causes short hair and not only that I think the quality of hair products is better now than it was before. There are lots of different products for different hair needs. When my hair was breaking my momma didn't know to use aphogee or protein or whatever.

Also we have more access to different products when before we would write them off as being for white hair. We have more knowledge where before all we had to go off was old school myths. But as you can see with today's children it takes more than just knowledge you need the motivation to actually do it. There's a lot of knowledge out there for those who want it and we still see folks walking around with ate up hair.

 

[JayAnn0513]

In general I would say the 1980's was a very bad time for black hair. In my family I'd say the sane thing. My generation was the first to have hair issues, but that was only after our moms let us start doing our own hair. We've all recovered pretty well though.


Sent from my iPhone using LHCF

 

[HauteHippie]

Yeah, 1980s sounds about right. That's when we all became scientists, right?

Jherri curls, just for me, Rio, all that jazz

Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using T-Mobile G2

 

[keepithealthy]

For my family it was definitely the introduction of the relaxer and the jerry curl. We was just slapping stuff on our heads with no idea of what were doing.....

 

[regina07]

I think it was bad hair care and lack of knowledge. My mom and her sisters preferred the stylish hair of the 40-50's and they got them by press 'n curls. My mother and her sisters still have heads of strong thick hair -- most of them do the weekly press & curl.

My dad's sisters were more old-fashioned and they all had MBL or longer, wearing their hair in buns or single braid. They've passed now and my cousins have embraced the relaxer/flat iron practice. SL is the norm.

As a child my hair was WL/HL because of low maintenance. It was moistened, combed and greased once a day then braided. It wasn't until I was older than I had it pressed, relaxed or let down. And I lost length.

I didn't grow it back to MBL until I stopped doing anything to it -- wash, condition, put in hair clip. And it LHCF I'm aiming for TBL because I'm taking care of my hair.

 

[My Friend]

I vote for hot combs. 500 degrees Before hot combs, women used hot towels

JeterCrazed

Please tell me more.

 

[candy626]

Definitely when relaxers, straightening combs, and at home hair dyes became popular. Also when unhealthy hair practices in general were rampant, which to me was really up until the early 2000s and when hairboards like this became popular (that's not to say that there still aren't a lot of unhealthy practices going on but I think it's definitely less than before. I seem to see a lot more healthy relaxed heads )

But prior to that time period, I think there was a lot of misinformation about proper ethnic hair care and poor practices going on like rough combing and brushing of the hair (which I still see some people do. This drives me nuts), using grease on the hair and scalp, not caring for the ends of the hair, and overprocessing/overheatstyling. All of that contributes to breakage and low growth retention.

 

[greenandchic]

I also remember in the '90s people started using hair spray or spritz (harder than hair spray) and a curling iron to set curls. Remember those waterfall, ponytail, hard-as-a-rock curls? That type of styling also did a number on hair.

 

[Ladybelle]

I think it was combination of bad stylist and do it yourself-ers. I learned just from LHCF that a lot of stylist, even current day, don't truly know how to care for black hair. they just wanna slap a relaxer in it every six weeks. I've only met ONE who really knew about hair health. I wonder if they even learn about hair health in beauty school.

 

[manter26]

Relaxers took the hair out and weaves kept it short. Everyone could have long hair in a matter of hours so weave has played a huge part in perpetuating the ignorance when it comes to hair care.

I think we are on the tail end of the period our hair has been the worst. Even with a jerri curl, my family's hair never looked as jacked as the dry, crispy, broken off, stiff, almost ponytails girls have these days...relaxers and weaves did that, not hair color or curly perms. It's slowly getting better though.

No, natural hair is not necessarily the panacea but it sure isn't the culprit that's snatching hair out of the heads of black women en masse.

 

[Solitude]

I vote for weaves. Then again, nobody in my family ever had dried up/broken off hair and my aunts and mom were natural most of their lives. Nobody in my family wears weaves, unless you count occasional braided extensions.

Relaxers don't have anything on the weave industry.

 

[Renewed1]

Weaves, relaxers, jheri curls....But I would have to say back in the 50s men did some sort of home made relaxers. Because I remember seeing alot of black men with straight hair in pictures.

When women were pressing their hair with the straighten comb.

 

[Your Cheeziness]

I also remember in the '90s people started using hair spray or spritz (harder than hair spray) and a curling iron to set curls. Remember those waterfall, ponytail, hard-as-a-rock curls? That type of styling also did a number on hair.

Pump It Up hair spritz and freezecurls were the debil. But I rocked the heck out of both.

 

[grownwomanaz]

Chemicals and applying them when someone is young. When I was growing up little girls wore braid(pigtails) and didn't get a relaxer until they were a teenager or older.

Right , I'm about to be 44 and I was 12 or 13 when I got my first relaxer. Getting a relaxer under that age was unheard of back in the day.

 

[greenandchic]

Right , I'm about to be 44 and I was 12 or 13 when I got my first relaxer. Getting a relaxer under that age was unheard of back in the day.

And if you had a weave (at least in the '80s - '90s), you were laughed at to no end - at least in Jr and high school. It was better to be bald than to walk around with "horse hair". Braids were OK...

 

[DDTexlaxed]

I've always had long hair until my battles with multiple BCs. I say relaxers and chemicals aren't always the culprit. All the women in my family are relaxed and have long hair. I say black hair got short because lack of proper care. My hair thrived when I had a jheri curl. I think my hair just loved the juice. My hair thrived relaxed and now it is thriving as a natural. I had to learn how to care properly for my hair and be patient with growth. Most of the products marketed towards AA hair care is not beneficial for it. I had to learn how to nurture and moisturize my hair. Most women throw in pink oil and call it a day. They don't have time to devote to hair. They don't properly process their relaxer and they use the highest heat to blow dry and flat iron. No wonder their hair is damaged or short.

 

[yorkpatties]

This is a good thread. I wonder how much of a factor our diet has played on this as well. I've seen many documentaries about food and nutrition, but last night I watched Knives over Forks and they got deep into depth about how the American diet has changed over the past few decades. From farm fresh foods before WW2 to the drive-in's of the 1950's, to the pre-packaged foods of the 1960's to the fast food boom in the 1980's, poor nutrition is giving us weak hair to start off with and THEN we're abusing the wrong products. Birth control and many other medications can affect our hair. In current times, women are abusing alcohol in record numbers. Most of us REALLY know what is in a relaxer (where the pH factor falls), combining that with excessive heat, lack of moisture, and products that lock the moisture out, it's a miracle many women have hair at all.

I hope that we're all taking such an interest in the things we're putting into out mouths as we are the things we're putting in our hair. Happy HHJ everyone.

 

[lboogie2679]

Well I blame it all on Oprah! She was the one talking about don't moisturize your hair and she doesn't use anything on hers and we all jumped on that bandwagon. Even back in the day people weren't walking around with bald edges and weave glued to their foreheads!

Seriously though when I was growing up we used Ultra Sheen grease, curl wax, and were dying our hair Ash blonde and it still wasn't a widespread epidemic of 5 yr. olds wearing phony ponytails with no edges. I think the overall misconceptions have plagued us more than anything. Somewhere during the mid 90s we all started relaxing, not washing, gluing in tracks, and not moisturizing our hair. It seems that now its all about hiding your hair and buying new hair. Sometimes when I watch Youtube videos about weave the ladies talk about the weave like they are in love with it. All that love for store bought hair but none for what we were blessed with?

 

[Junebug D]

Relaxers, the spread of cheaply-made petroleum products (at least in the 80s they used glycerin), overly tight braids, weaves. Worse physical health definitely plays a role too; Black women were much slimmer 20, 30 years ago than they are now.

And also it seems like women would help each other and do each other's hair. I don't recall the last time I saw black women sitting on the porch doing each other's hair. Now it's all "go to the shop, be fabulous, blahblahblah". Seems like we cared for each other's heads more back in the day; we would spend the time and care for our kids' hair, our sisters' hair, cousin's hair, etc. Nowadays everyone's so busy and think that throwing money around, going to the shop, buying weave, is a solution.

 

[Britt]

Relaxers took the hair out and weaves kept it short. Everyone could have long hair in a matter of hours so weave has played a huge part in perpetuating the ignorance when it comes to hair care.

I think we are on the tail end of the period our hair has been the worst. Even with a jerri curl, my family's hair never looked as jacked as the dry, crispy, broken off, stiff, almost ponytails girls have these days...relaxers and weaves did that, not hair color or curly perms. It's slowly getting better though.

No, natural hair is not necessarily the panacea but it sure isn't the culprit that's snatching hair out of the heads of black women en masse.

I'm relaxed and I have to admit this. While there are plenty of relaxed healthy heads of hair, I honestly can't say it's the majority and many of the relaxed heads I know that have a healthy head of hair irl and online stretch out their relaxers to limit the usage of chemicals and don't do too much to their hair.

 

[Raspberry]

Seriously though when I was growing up we used Ultra Sheen grease, curl wax, and were dying our hair Ash blonde and it still wasn't a widespread epidemic of 5 yr. olds wearing phony ponytails with no edges. I think the overall misconceptions have plagued us more than anything. Somewhere during the mid 90s we all started relaxing, not washing, gluing in tracks, and not moisturizing our hair. It seems that now its all about hiding your hair and buying new hair. Sometimes when I watch Youtube videos about weave the ladies talk about the weave like they are in love with it. All that love for store bought hair but none for what we were blessed with?

Wow.. curl wax brings back memories. I used to torture my overprocessed hair during college with that stuff. My hair was so damaged it could barely hold a curl and I would oil it to death, apply curl wax, and use a curling iron over and over on the same pieces to try to eek out a style .

 

[JeterCrazed]

JeterCrazed

Please tell me more.

They would heat towels in a pan or on the stove and smooth the towel down sections of the hair and repeat as the towel cooled. It didn't straighten like a hot comb, but more like a hot blow dryer is what I'm told.