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"Some beauty salon owners complained that afros would ruin their business, while others rushed to accommodate patrons desiring the style." History stays repeating itself.

Can we talk about how hard it is to get a perfectly round fro! Some actually think it’s an easy hairstyle

i went natural in the 10th grade and my longtime white friend saw me in a sew-in i wore for senior prom. she said she liked it and i looked so "feminine" with straight hair. i didn't tell her at the moment but that hurt my feelings because that confirmed she didn't see me as feminine with my natural hair

I was told by my black female boss that my hair was too "urban" and needed to be changed. This was crazy having another black person say this too me.

Girl this could’ve been 3 hrs long and I would’ve enjoyed every minute of it.

I wish we as black women could learn to just let everyone have their hair however they want. Especially each other.

I went natural in 2013 also omg. It saddened me how we criticized gabby Douglas and blue ivy hair. I remember watching gabby and being so inspired. I didn’t think about her hair at all. Racism has definitely done a number on us.

i wish more non-black people knew how much we go through with our hair. we've spent decades hiding it so i think they should know what we've felt pressured to do! two stand-out moments for me: - i was once almost suspended from school for wearing braids bc it "wasn't fair to the other [white] girls" until my dad threatened to sue - i forgot my wig on the way to my third round of interviews for a job and was almost convinced they wouldn't hire me because of it (thankfully, i did get the job, but i dont think i was their first choice lmao). that's the first and only time i've been hired without straightening my hair or hiding it under a wig the first time i went without a wig and stopped straightening my hair in public, i was terrified. it's sad. why can't i walk outside with my hair the way white people do?

I remember regrettably shaming my sisters for going natural in 2014. I would tell them they looked unkept and thought they legit were going crazy. 😵‍💫 Instead of fighting against European beauty standards, I was one of those that bowed to them. Thanks for this deep dive.. helps me self reflect.

Any natural hair journey takes a lot of time, commitment, experimentation, and money. It is at the same time rewarding and very frustrating. Congrats on finding something that works for you. Good luck on your natural hair journey Elexus!😊

My hairstyle hero is my mothers lifelong friend names "Seven". She literally would hype me up about my natural hair in a time where it was frowned upon by my own family. She proudly wore her hair and eventually would rock natural dreads around our white peers and not flinch when someone insulted her. Set such a good example for me and was my inspiration for the big chop in middle school. I was severely bullied for it but you cant tell me anything about my hair today.

I don't have a hair style hero but sometime after college, wearing anything that doesn't look like my natural hair felt really wrong. I also believe that a lot of the blBlk Women Empowerment (BWE) KZfaq channels on here have pushed blk women into looking at themselves in the mirror and accepting ourselves for who we truly are. Embracing our natural everything is hand in hand with blk women feeling empowered and that nothing is wrong with our natural state.

In the UK, little boys and girls are sent home or excluded from school because of locs and braids, it's sickening. This doc was amazing🎉 as usual

I'm a white, cis male irish immigrant. I'm marrying a black american woman soon. I'm trying to educate myself. This is fucking heart breaking. This shit sucks

What a fascinating topic: Black women in hair, I have had it all, Jheri Curl, press n Curl, relaxer, Virgrol relaxer, lost hair to chemo treatment, now growing my hair back been natural 13yrs now

Having thick 4C hair wasn’t celebrated in my black family. I was often criticized for it, whether it was too thick, too nappy, or told I have black hair, even though we’re black. My family didn’t know how to take care of my hair because of its thickness and didn’t share any hair care, regiment, or routines. I often had my family members, straighten my hair with a hot comb or curl it with the curly iron. Through my natural journey with my hair. I went through relaxers, perms, Jheri curl, weaves 1 wig, and now I’ve been natural for several years thank god! Now that I’m older, and I know how to take care of my hair through trial and error (having friends to teach me along with KZfaq videos) My family loves it. They particularly love it when it’s in a certain style (when you can see the curls) and they often touch it (without permission) and ask when am I going to straighten it. I do get ask at times when am I going to do my hair when is already styled 😩 Even though several years has passed There’s still so many stigma about 4C hair and textureism. My hair texture and type is often excluded from many natural hair conversations.

My defining hair moment: I was around 7 or 8 yrs old and I decided to take down my box braids by myself when no one was paying attention. I quickly got impatient by how long it was taking and got the idea that if I just cut at the root it will be faster😩. Not realizing I was cutting my own hair lmaooo. My mom was sooo upset. Not angry just sad lol. And I ended up getting a shaved side and braids on the other side and I loved it😭

I would love to see the evolution of black makeup

“If your hair wasn’t done it meant something is wrong” - for some reason this really resonated with me.

I'm so glad you're saying aloud how conflicted we can be about our hair. And how it's political even though none of us asked for it. I constantly go back and forth about whether to cut it off. 💜 Stay strong!

The next time somebody say “It’s just hair”, I will send them this video. Thank you 🙏🏽

Three defining hair moments for me: 1) I was young, maybe 5, not old enough for relaxers yet, and my mom, trying to detangle my hair to hot comb it, full on BROKE A HAIRBRUSH off in my hair. It was probably just a cheap brush, but I felt embarrassed at the time and didn't know why. Like my hair was a problem. 2) A hairdresser left relaxer in too long when I was 11. It burned through my skin and I had scabs and bleeding for weeks and damaged scalp for years. I knew I wanted to stop then, but felt like I didn't have any other choices except braids, which took 4-8 HOURS and because I'm tender-headed, could be excruciatingly painful. 3) Getting locs at 19. My mom had gotten them a year or two earlier and encouraged me to try it, but I was afraid of not liking them and having to cut them off and have- GASP: short hair. A fate worse than death, I know, but I was young and still under the influence of the "good hair" thing. But in the end, I got the locs and when I say I almost cried, I am SERIOUS y'all. Realizing that THIS is what my hair had been trying to do my entire life and that hair I pursued with braids and perms ("straight," lays flat, and the unreachable INEXPENSIVE and EASY TO MANAGE) was what my hair already was all along, it blew my mind. I still have those locs today, never cut them except to trim and shave one side, and I love that my hair feels very personal to me now. I'm the one who washes it, twists it, and styles it. When it gets rough, I go to a loctician, but that has been rare. I still think people should do what feels right for them, straight, natural, however, as long as you feel good about the relationship you have with your hair and enjoy and appreciate how it makes you feel.

Same story here with the Bantu Knots. It was 5th grade I felt so cool ! Sure enough I was made fun of . I took them out a day later and had cute curls then two girls from my class came up to me and asked why I took them out and they liked them. Yeah, childhood 🙃

I remember when I was a kid and my some girls where perming their hair. I asked my mum for a perm and she said “no, your hair’s long and healthy, you’ll just damage it”. ‘Long’ these days was that your hair was at neck length. My mum would always complement my dark type 4 hair. Saying i looked cute, and that ‘i would thank her later for it’. Relatives often complimented it too, and my mum would always do her best with the limited information she had in the mid 2000’s to style and protect my fragile strands in ways i see them being done on TV! As the natural hair movement became more popular, i was becoming more exposed to hair that looked like mine, and I can’t lie. I fell in LOVE with my hair. I’ve always liked it before, but these times I was really starting to appreciate it for what it is! I would definitely say my natural hair icon was Zurie from Jessie on Disney channel. I’ve always wanted my hair to look as full, long and bouncy as her’s! I still remember in secondary school when waiting for my bus in the morning these blonde white girls in a red car, roof down shades on and everything literally stopped in front of me and marvelled and expressed how ‘pretty’ i looked with my afro hair in space puffs. That amongst many other compliments definitely did influence my positive view on my hair! I’ll admit, i’ve had a lot of good experiences around my natural hair. And my mum has always been a pillar of encouragement of my appreciating it as it is. Plus my dad never made any remarks to it, which I know affected some young girl’s view on afro-textured hair not being ‘feminine’ growing up. Maybe if I had more negative experiences it could have been different. But i’m so blessed to have been surrounded by my family’s encouragement and appreciation of my natural. Looking back at it, my mum always complained how she wished her mum never permed her hair, because it was so damaged. I guess she wanted me to love what was unfortunately taken away from her. She still deals with the damage of all those perms she had to this day! Her scalp is burnt, and she also deals with benign-growths in her uterus (which i suppose now with the research done _may_ have been a result of the relaxers). While at 19 years old its safe to say that I’ve gained a lot more knowledge on natural hair than my mum, if it wasn’t for her, i may have not become as curious and loving to my hair as she was to it! So, I guess she was right, thanks mum!

I am learning my hair everyday. As a black American because of our history I believe we as women were not able to cherish or prioritize our natural hair. So we are still learning while people criticize. I use to wear my hair straight, as I've gotten older I embrace my curly hair.

when i was in the fifth grade my sister who was 3 years younger than me rocked an afro since she was the only sibling my mom didn’t put a relaxer on and when wearing it to a family gathering she was confronted by a lighter skinned aunt who proceeded to tell her she look ugly and like my mom hadn’t combed her hair and berated her to the point of tears. This event leaded to me deciding to relax my hair and i went bald a year later from the breakage of the relaxer

I broke down crying watching this video. It makes me so emotional. Our hair is so beautiful! Thank you so much for this showing so much representation for black hair. This video felt like coming home🩷

Our local newspaper ran an article for black history month about a couple, both escaped enslavement, who established themselves as a successful "fashionable barber" and "ladies' hair dresser". Turned I had lived around the corner from their home and had worked in the same building as their beauty parlor for years. A century later the closest "ladies' hair dresser" I could find at the time was more than an hour away and the story has been completely forgotten. Still not sure how I feel about it but I do love that their legacy includes their fashionable and stylish work which apparently drew clients from all over.

Quick hair story: I've always been natural, mostly because I have really soft hair, but my cousin, who is around the same age as me got her first relaxer at 3. All my aunties and even my mom would rave on about how she had beautiful long hair and I would never get any compliments. There's this rule in a lot of Nigerian primary (elementary) schools where your hair has to be in cornrows and you can't use extensions. All the girls around me had relaxed hair so my mom would get my hairdresser to sneak little bits of synthetic hair into my cornrows to make my hair look relaxed. One day I was at a family gathering at my aunt's house and I had my natural hair out. My aunt proceeded to ask why I cut my hair and say that it looked better before I went natural (she thought my hair was relaxed the whole time). I ended up practically begging for a relaxer but of course, my mom said no; having 'nappy' hair was better than being bald. I went to my cousin's hairdresser once to get my hair done with her and she assumed I was there for a relaxer. I, desperately wanting relaxed hair, didn't say anything until my aunt came in and said I couldn't get one without my mom's permission.

India Arie visited my college and there was a Q&A. I didn’t have a question, I told her that her song, “I am not my hair” really helped when doing the big chop in middle school (2011-2012). I cried and everything. Now, I am the most confident with a low cut.

Learning that the girls on the Just For Me boxes by and large had their hair just pressed, not relaxed makes me weep for the 5 year old me who thought my hair would finally look like theirs with each application

Ugh I didn't want this one to end! So many memories... The hot comb, perms, finger waves.. I remember burning my hair off trying to straighten it myself at my grandma's beauty salon. Remember those hot combs and curling irons that went into the metal plates? Well I forgot to let it cool off 😂🤣

Growing up dominican with any hair texture besides straight was hard. Going to the salon in Washington Heights became like a monthly routine for me before I was ten years old. I spent pretty much ten years throughout my tweens and teens with my hair straightened, blow dried, rolled up etc. I didn't start wearing my natural curl pattern out regularly until I was 17, and was slowly teaching myself through youtube university how to style my hair with its natural texture. On a visit to my non black family in DR in 2020, I feared that they would give me grief if I went to go see them with my natural hair so I went to a salon in Santo Domingo to get my hair blow dried. Needless to say, the hair dresser chemically straightened my hair and caused me major damage and breaking. I was panicking because my curls were not reverting when I ran water over it and it smelt BURNT. I had to do the big chop and I was devastated. A month prior i was rocking box braids in the same fuchsia color and was feeling super good about my natural hair journey. Thankfully I was still stuck in the house when I was bald due to quarantine, but shaving my head was an experience that made me feel a range of emotions. Good news is that its been two years since the big chop and my hair is longer than it was when i first cut it again thanks to protective styles especially cornrows omgggg. Still struggling with accepting my hair when it doesn't fall into the super shiny defined curls that are so praised. My hair is frizzy, dry, and unruly, but im still working on loving it despite allll my traumatic hair history. Of course Lexual blessed my youtube feed with another STELLAR historical video!! Great work yet again!!

This is superior content. This could be running on PBS, Netflix, Prime, Hulu, you are talented, thorough yet engaging. I didn’t even realize an hour had passed. My hair trauma mainly was middle and high school. So frizzy. I was regularly called Tina Turner (which now that I am grown I realize should have been taken as a compliment). I stopped relaxing my hair while in college around 1994. I chopped it off. I rocked finger waves. I would do a side part and just slick it down. I would wear it wet and curly. I would rock a fro. Eventually I got into color doing red, platinum blonde and then on to pink, blue and purple. I am just about ready to go with my natural grey hair.

My mom straightened my hair when I was too young to understand, and not knowing what was happening, I picked some of the product from my hair and swiped on my brother's head. He was a newborn at the time and got a burn so severe that 36 years later he can't grow any hair in that area. This is one of my earliest memories. Took me 30+ years to stop with the chemicals and go natural

Can we get some bonus sections on the double standards and hypocrisy from men and religion? I do love the focus on black women perspective, but I remember my father questioning my support for liberated hair ,"bald headed" in this case, in the women I date. Telling me he'd divorce my mom even though they've been married 20+ years for such "behavior". Going on to quote the Bible about how men and women should present themselves. This man literally called out a child in church while leading prayer

My defining hair moment: My third grade teacher (who was white and extremely racist)sent a letter home with me about my box braids. She wrote that my hair was preventing me from learning because a few braids kept falling in my eyes. I remember going through a phase of wearing headbands until my mom eventually took them down.This was also my first hand experience with racism , performative politics, and microagressions. There were other incidents where she targeted me. I.e being forced to pull a conduct bear without any explanation to even once being laughed at for overdoing an assignment. I was the only student who completed the assignment over Thanksgiving break.The principal escorted me to class several times due to complaints and me not wanting to go to class. Eventually, she was removed from her position before the school year ended.

I always had mid-back length hair until I got a fresh perm and got in a chlorine pool, and ignorantly didn’t wash it out. ALLLLLLL my hair fell out. It was traumatizing. I didn’t achieve that length again until 8 years later when I went fully natural at age 19. I’ve never looked back. My hair has never felt, looked, or been as healthy as it is now. It was astonishing how quickly and fully my hair grew back.

I got in early on the natural hair movement back in 2006~2007 when I was in college. I didn't even know about the movement at first. I went natural because I went to a very white college and didn't have any black friends to help me. My whole life my mother did my hair or forced me to go to the Dominican salon and get my hair relaxed/blown out. So, in college all my relaxer started to grow out and I just let it. I started putting my hair in curlers to hide the texture and the few black people in my school would actually make fun of me. I still remember passing by a student council office where a group of black girls were hanging out. When I went out of view to the next office they thought I had left but I overheard them saying that I my hair looked like their grandmothers. I was so embarrassed I quickly left but after the whole natural hair movement started up I felt vindicated. Sometimes I like to pretend I had started the trend from those girls seeing me lol.

I was natural my entire life until I became a sophomore in college in summer of 2006. My mom like so many in the 80s and 90s had relaxers but didn’t want me to grow up with low self esteem for having natural hair. So she grew her relaxer out and wore her hair natural from that point. I didn’t like sitting to get my hair braided for it to be flat under my hijab so at the tender age of 8 yrs old looking up to Lauryn Hill I asked my mother if I could loc my hair. So all throughout our middle and high school under my hijab I wore my hair in locs. When I became a freshman in college I got tired of never really exploring what my hair can do so I combed out my locs and got box braids with weave. Then I got a relaxer. It wasn’t the worse decision ever as far as my hair health because I took extra care of my hair during that time but I was spiritually and ethically conflicted because I was natural so long. So I grew the relaxer out and big chopped in 2013. Now at 35 I’m returning back to locs. Black women have such a love hate relationship with their hair. But it’s apart of our journey.

Queen Latifah was my hair icon. Every time she got a new hairstyle, I’d find the magazine article with it and show my hair dresser

I am 74 yrs old and I wear my hair natural. I have gotten a lot of compliments because it’s turned white. I remember those days with that straightening comb. Lawdy that was a time. I’m glad I watched this video because I didn’t know Carol’s daughter is now a new owner. It amazes me how as black women we are turned down jobs because of our hair. But you see a lot of “others” wearing the styles back women wear with no issues on their jobs. Braids, dread locks etc…They don’t lose their jobs. It’s sad to say but we can’t seem to have anything that’s ours. This was a great video!

Hairstyle hero: Donna Summer. I thought her long, wavy hair was natural and not a wig or extensions and I begged and begged my Mom to let me go natural. I have thick 4c hair so she would let me. I went natural at 18 and haven't looked back.

Just finished watching, I'm 51 and grew up with a terrible time with my hair, my mother didn't know how to do my hair so went to so many beauticians trying to grow my short hair, I got Jheri curls from like 5th grade until high school when I got my first relaxer. Went natural in 2010, grow out to BSL , lost it all in 2019...now it's almost as long as it was 4 yrs ago...I can remember in the 90s taking tracks and setting them with rollers in the microwave so many stories

I didn't know the "big chop" was a normal part of hair journeys 100 years ago... and we still haven't accepted it. I remember thinking my wife was so brave when she cut out her relaxed hair in high school, ignorant of the struggles most girls learned to expect

I live in Japan and have for several years. My defining hair moment was, several years ago, going all the way to a military base to get a relaxer (which was done by a Japanese woman) and having all my edges break off. I remember taking a photo of myself with my damaged hair, then I went into the bathroom and did the big chop. I've been natural ever since, and that was over a decade ago. I mostly wear buzzcut, especially come summertime, but I have let my hair grow out several times. I don't often do braids, and I never do weave. I did wear wigs for a time years ago, but it wasn't a constant thing, and I was always switching the style up.

i would love a video on black women in STEM and their progression through science/tech based careers. think “hidden figures.” one of my favorite movies as an astronautical engineering student myself. many of my black female friends have spoken to me about their crushed desires to pursue higher education and occupations in STEM due to their fear of being “out of place” or not being recognized for the effort they put in. all too often black women have to RUN to keep pace with white women at a leisure strut in the world of career. white women latch on to misogyny and inequity in workplaces; while it may still be an issue, we do not experience a fraction of such that black women do from ALL parties- not just white men, but white women, black men, etc. we as white women have largely finished our fight for equity. it’s our job to utilize our privilege to raise all other women up to the standard we’ve set for our own treatment. it breaks my heart that so many intelligent, competent, and dedicated black women are pushed away from higher education and STEM fields because they are deemed unable to suffice.

I was so mad at Carol's Daughter & Shea Moisture for selling out so quickly

I honestly love your video essays focused on black culture history and issues! I love this discussion, and it’s unfortunate that there is still texturism and issues with black hairstyles in professional areas.

My hair is currently in faux locs after i shaved all my hair off last year and now its long enough to cornrow My boyfriend has a mohawk, so its so cute seeing black kids see this black man w a mohawk and be so fascinated by how big and tall it is (hes a punk) Black folks hair, especially black women is truly beautiful and versatile. Im finally gonna go on my actual loc journey after May (Momocon in ATL is happening and im wearing wigs for cosplay ofc) This video was informative and great as always ❤

I work in the german version of Child Protective Service , we had a girl that was a product from a one night stand of an drug addicted mother and a dad from Camerun. Managing her hair without it looking like she licked an power outlet or tried recreating a nuclear blast was a major issue. Especially since we could take her to a nearby hairdresser but not to the even closer Afro shops. In the end a french friend let me do her hair for a few weeks and gave me an unbelivable amount of tips. Her father moved here , she lives with him now and yesterday he came to our group and asked us hairdressing tips which was a surreal expience but everyone is happier now .

Elexus this video was amazing. I loved seeing all your pictures 😍I, like you and so many other Black women, have struggled with my hair all my life. My mom relaxed my hair when I was young and I stayed with it until a few years ago when I was just done with the hassle of having to her new growth touched up. I wear my natural hair now, but there are days when I don’t like it. I think the most tragic part are the beliefs that get planted within us about what we “should” look like and what’s “professional, appropriate” etc. These days, at 38 almost 39 years of age, even though I have off days with my hair, I refuse to internalize my hair texture as being difficult or ugly or undesirable. It grows out of my head this way, and that can’t be wrong. I do enjoy my hair vacations though (braids, wigs, hair pieces) 😉. I wrote a children’s book called A Book for Black Girls and made sure the illustrator showed all variations of Black hair on the little girls. 🥰

As someone who has never been to America, this still affected us. Growing up as a black daughter of a white mother who didn't know how to 'dea' with my hair was not a smooth journey. My mother started using 'Just for me' relaxers on my hair when I was 6. She was happy with the results that to her I was finally beautiful and accepted among her family members, but it was all short lived when my hair started to break off. As a narcissist too, she often blamed and shamed me for my hair looking like that and she never asked any of our black relatives for help or advice when it came to managing my hair. Lucky for me she gave up on my hair by the time I was 12 and left me to deal with it. I continued to use a mild relaxer and heat up until I was 16 but the damage was already done. I permanently lost hair from both sides of my head. And since I was a Muslim I found liberation in covering my hair for good, yet she would constantly tell me that no one would marry a bald girl!! After 16 years old I decided to stop using heat and relaxers and learned how to braid my hair myself. As someone who went to an African school, most of the kids around me had braids so I tried to mimic them. Over time I got really good at doing 'Mushat' or cornrows as Americans call them and that helped me maintain and grow my hair. At the age of 18 I went to my home country and that was where my hair was celebrated for the first time in my life. My cousin gave me some box braids and that was my pivotal moment. I never stopped getting braids ever since. I also learned how to do them myself so I could section and style them however I wanted. Since my hair was still dead and damaged, and it never passed my neck length for as far as I remember, I decided to battle my fears and end my trauma and shave it all off. I stayed bald for 3 years and finally decided to grow it back at the age of 28. In just a year and half my hair grew back to the length that I had before shaving it but it was a thousand times more healthy and full and luscious. I'm rocking faux locs while keeping my hair protected to grow. I also take biotin and keratin supplements since I started growing it and I never added a drop of product on it since, yet it's as beautiful as it has ever been. I'm now 29 and I am continuing to grow my hair. I don't cover it anymore but celebrating it's every strand. I still have no sides but it doesn't bother me at all to go out in public with them, yet I'll still get them inplanted. I have a loving Portuguese fiancé who get excited with my hairstyles more than me. I am healed from the hair trauma that was not even my own, but enforced in me by my mother and her community.

we went natural at the same time

Mom's hairdresser did her hair until Mom passed away several years ago. Their friendship was in place my entire life, and Miss Sadie came to school events and funerals, we knew her kids and her siblings. Really important relationship. I have a really complicated relationship with my hair, but can relate to so many of the things in your video. The most important thing I did was to cut it all off, which was a huge deal in the 1980s. All of a sudden, I had a bunch of confrontations from all sides, about sexuality and gender.

For me, im not even black, but seeing the curly hair movement mainly lead by black women has been revolutionary for me. Cause parts of my family had always put me down for my curly hair bcs while im mixed, im the kid with the most curly hair. So learning to style it and to love its curls has been a recent thing brought on by you women. Love all of yall

My defining hair moment was me begging my stylist to cut my hair shorter into a bob for months when I was about 14. My mother would take me to get silk presses like every 2-3 weeks, and my hair was relativity long (like right passed my shoulders) because it just always grew fast. She wouldn't do it, and I had a very hard time speaking up for myself back them especially with authority figures. At one point I cut it myself with regular scissors and I remember texting my friend after, crying for like hours after the rash decision. It was fine though, because since I messed it up, she HAD to cut it how I like. Eventually shaved the bottom half of it off when I turned 16, and then the whole thing when I was around a freshman in college. As a college student, I didn't have the money to maintain the hair cuts after my brother stopped clipping it for me lol, and I started to grow it out since then and wear it natural. Now its longer than its ever been. A lot of people place more value on my hair then I do, and I only grow it out because it is cheaper to do so. I wish my womanhood would be recognized no matter what length my hair is. Though I loved the short hair, the harassment I got from everyone because I was not fitting a women's beauty standard was ridiculous.

My mama lost her job back in the 90s for having braids. I'll never forget that as long as i live

I actually knew most of this but it was a great video. I remember at age 16, watching an episode of the Tyra Banks show, the show was about black women and natural hair. At that time. Natural hair was a new concept to me. Every black woman I knew had perms or weaves and I myself got my hair pressed every two weeks ever since I was a little girl. My hair could never take perms. Anyway. I remember saying after that show that I wanted to try to go natural. My dad told me "Amelia. You don't have the right kind of hair for that." Other people told me I'm already light skinned so why would I want to go natural and look black. Yes. People. I got comments like that. Still. I never knew what my natural hair looked like. So. I cut it off and went natural. At first I didn't like my 4a/b or just coily hair. But that hate didn't last long. Soon. I saw how my afro framed my face and how my hair got use to a certain routine. And now going on 30. I've been natural ever since and all of my sisters and my mother are now natural. And we all have big from. And now I get praise. I get called Angela Davis or Chaka Khan often. ❤

I never comment but this was SOOO good. That hot comb...OMG..lol... Do you remember getting told to let the relaxer BURN so you knew it was working? So crazy. I'm natural now and fine with how it is, love playing with braids, wigs, twists, and whatever might be on trend. So much love! Please keep doing what you're doing!

Just hearing the word hot comb in the Garret Morgan section made me flinch. So glad I'm done with that mess, great work as always!

Yesss! I wasn’t even expecting a new lexual video

Thank you so much for sharing this and for being so open about your own hair journey

I have quite literally shaved my head twice during the pandemic, so I FEEL you. My inspiration for going natural was seeing a picture of my mom in the 70s with a fro. I stopped getting relaxers at 14, and people at school called me Macy Gray. I decided to get locs after spending all of college with natural hair, and I loved them. Shaved my head in 2019, but am starting to grow them back now. Great video!

This was fantastic, so we'll presented and structured. Really enjoyed learning new things about the history of our hair🙌🏾

This was AMAZING!!!! Thank you for making a video on this particular topic....

Thank you for putting all of the time and effort into this! This is both fascinating and sad

not even a second into the video and i automatically liked it, i can tell this video is gonna be good and the effort in it is top tier

Shoutout to Ms. JoAnn for doing my relaxers during my childhood and preforming my big chop back in 2012! She is one of my grandmother's childhood friends, had her own beauty salon (licensed) attached to her house. I cherish those moments of my hair evolution. I hated sitting under the dryer pre-smart phone days but loved to flip through the black hair magazines she had. This video essay was a eye-opening and informative trip down memory lane. I loved seeing your hair journey during this video as well, Elexus! I appreciate all your hard work!

This is absolutely beautiful and very informative!!! Thank you for making this video!!!

You did this video!!!!! Thank you so much! I’m a licensed Cosmetologist Educator and will be sharing this in my classes. Salute Queen!

Thank You Lexi, for another banger and for enlightening us with another Historical piece!❤❤❤

I love your content so much. As a protective stylist, this is a huge deal to me!

I don't know that I've ever been more excited for a video!

Friend this was such an amazing video. I’m from Mexico and moved to the States two years ago; everything I know about black history is because of you (they don’t teach us that in my country) Your videos are always so well organized and enriching. Thanks for another great one!

Great video! You took a long time and did great research into Black hair. Loved this ❤

I had noooo idea how big was the history about hair, thank you so much for making these videos!!! Im learning a looooot

absolutely beautiful video!!!! so affirming to hear your stories!

I love all your videos but listening to you talk about your own personal experience is the best. Awesome video, thank you.

your hair stories are so relatable oh my god. i was lucky to avoid hot combs for most of my life I was terrified of them. I'm still lowkey scared of flat irons around my ears even though I don't use heat on my hair anymore.

This is some of the best and most important content on KZfaq today. Bravo! Please keep up the excellent work!

I finally got a chance to finish this video while retwisting my locs! I'm so thankful for this. I had been getting relaxers from the age of like 6 to high school. I resonated with everything you said about the trauma from hot combs lol. I used to be mad when I didnt look like the girls from the Just For Me box. I've been natural since 2011 and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Beautifully done video. I love Black historians so much 😭

This made a great companion to the last video about hygiene! As always your presentational style and incredible knowledge made for a captivating video, and those little autobiographical tidbits really grounded the discussion. (Seriously though, I'm one of those "put on a video and do something in another screen while looking back at it occasionally" people and I just find myself watching the video straight through whenever you release one!)

Required watching for everyone! Honestly I loved this so much. I'm in Aotearoa so lots of this was completely unknown to me, I adore your work, it's so thorough

Your videos are always so full of historical information! It's great

Once again, Lex, thank you for taking the time to educate me.

I love seeing videos about black hair history and culture. I have straight/wavy hair, but my daughter, who's part black, has very curly hair. Learning how to care for her hair is a process and I often have so many questions about how to style it. But also trying to reinforce that she is beautiful and valued with her hair fixed and with her hair undone. Thank you for an informative video. I need to do some more research on black/curly/coily hair care products. Im always trying to do the best for my kids. And this video gave me some much needed cultural context.

Alllll of this!!!!! As soon as I stopped using weave glue and relaxer, there was no more dandruff or irritation! This natural journey has been an adventure, because I'm still learning even after 10 years!

This was so fun and educational to watch. I never get sick of learning history about Black/ African hair and just general conversation about it. As it is important, always relevant and just yeh fun. I have locs myself and it is legit a personal journey and it's taught me how to fully embrace how my hair just grows when I leave it alone. I especially appreciate the fact that ion have to comb the knots out my hair anymore thank goodness. 😭 I also believe your hair your choice..the point is to have the power to choose wtf u wanna do with what grows out your scalp. Of course I'd rather we just ditch relaxers altogether for the benefits of our health but u win some u lose some. At least there's more research and info out there for folks to access if they wanna come to the decision to ditch em. Overall Brilliant video!!👏🏾👏🏾

From Canada here. Love love love your content. History within the medical field and black people 😊🙏🏾

I’m so excited to see this video! I just started my micro loc journey and really embracing my hair, wish me well🫶🏽🙏🏽

Worth every minute of watching! I don't know how more of us aren't supporting your platform. I've been tuned in for years. Hope more people get to learn from your work.

Omg I just discovered this page about two days ago and it’s been having me in a chokehold 🙌🏽 loveeeee it!

This video is 💯🔥🔥🔥! Thank you for taking the time to create it.

Lexual! Dope video, thank you. I enjoyed so much of it from the origin of why we wear head rags, the hot comb and the shot out of Queen Latifah! I enjoy all your videos and appreciate your work.

Black hair sure has come a long way since the early civilizations of Africa, but we have a long way to go with experimentation in the 21st century & beyond. Reading “Hair Story” was a connecting & enlightening insight on Black hair in the context of African societal identity to the Middle Passage to slavery/Reconstruction/early 20th century & beyond. Thank you for this deep dive! 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

Thank you for this well thought out and informative history of black women’s hair. The braids in the pre colonial hairstyles were so stunning and creative. I hit that subscribe button so hard.

This was really informative and interesting. I knew some of it but this was really eye opening. Thank you for sharing and I'd love the ten hour version you mentioned on day!

This was intense, thank you so much for this.