Why Is Hair So Important To Black Women?

I think probably the worst subject I ever took in school was Statistics. I hated everything about it, and what made it worse was that no matter what level of education I made it to, I always had that class and it was always mandatory.

Even though I hated stats, as I affectionately called it, I understood why it was necessary and I understood the premise behind all the drama of Standard Deviation. The thing is, the way our brain works is that we need to prove that a phenomenon exists by using variables and techniques to justify it.

So if you ask me, ‘Is hair important to black women?‘, my answer would be a firm yes. And if you asked me to prove it, well for that I would have to go to the stats.

Firstly it is well documented that the hair industry in general is a multi-billion dollar industry, and of that figure 30% to 34% of the spending is done by African American women. Yes girl, they been watching you and your pockets!

There are a ton of other statistics like, 65% of the weave* industry is captured by African American women and also research done in the UK shows that black women spend up to 6 times as much on hair products than their European counterparts.

Now obviously black women are not the only ones who shop at Sallys (have they ever seen a loss?), and we are definitely not the only ones who think hair is important, people of all ethnicities as far back as recorded history will allow us to look have been obsessed with hair. Much like the acclaimed pop princess Brittany Spears and “miss popular” turned reality mogul Kim Kardashian, the ancient Greeks, Syrians and Egyptians also wore wigs* and hair embellishments.

Need more stats? Lets use YouTube for instance, Naptural85 a very popular hair guru has over 200,000 subscribers, and even though she has a beaming personality, let’s face it, that’s not why majority of them are watching her channel. There are over 200,000 people out there that wait for her next hair tutorial to hit their inbox, and she is just one of many. So yes, hair is very important to black women, the question is why?

There really isn’t one answer, but a pretty good reason is culture. African American hair has always been revered in many ways prior to slavery and before ‘good hair’ was considered a tell tale sign for your professional status i.e. where on the plantation you lived, the type of  food you must eat and how pretty you must be because you have a bit of European blood running through your veins.

African hair was celebrated in Africa and much like in slavery the more outrageous or elaborate your hairstyle was, the higher on the social ladder you were placed.

Hair indicated other things other than social status, it also identified you as part of a specific family or tribe, imagine your hair playing that much of a significant role back then, almost as important as your own name.

These deep rooted cultural phenomenons are hard to shake. Most of us these days are proud of it and as such if you have ever had the pleasure of attending the Bronner Brother International Hair show, you will see a celebration of that heritage every single year.

This hair celebration has some bad effects as well, its not all fairy dust and glittery feather extensions* in the hair community. Black women are known for jeopardizing their health for the love of the strand.

The Huffington Post reported just last December in this article that two in five African American women avoid exercise due to concerns about messing up their hair. They have linked this to rising obesity rates, disease and all sorts of health misdemeanors just because we love our hair.

Though this might have some truth to it, many of us cannot deny occasionally skipping the gym because of a cute hairstyle that you don’t want to ruin, times are changing. As women we recognize the value of a healthy lifestyle and have found ways to incorporate healthy living along along with having fabulous hair. No compromises!

Another reason hair is important, is because it is our crown and glory. In other words the aesthetics of hair dictates how we how we feel, when our hair looks good it translates to other aspects of our being. For instance, we feel sexy, happy, free, energetic, confident, rockstar-ish and a ton of other great adjectives when we are having a great hair day. Even if you decided to go bald and only had a few specks of hair growing on top of your head, people might describe you as bold, brave, radiant, and ‘good different’.

There is emotional and material value in how we wear our hair and how we take care of it. Even when things are bad and we hate our hair, we still love it enough to go on a relentless quest to solve our hair problems that will bring us back to that state of hair euphoria. Product junkie-ism being a very real side effect of this, it’s not uncommon to hear a black woman proclaim that she has tried every hair oil*, cream, lotion and potion out there.

Black women love their hair, there is no denying it, whether it is due to a cultural stain in our DNA, emotional attachment or just aesthetics we are without a doubt our own statistic. Just stand up raise your right hand and repeat “I am a black woman and I love my hair”.