FEATURE: Pandemic Hair!

By Nicole Manning

After being in quarantine for almost two years—and still going through the effects of a pandemic three years later—I joined the club of treating and taking care of my hair myself…albeit quite unsuccessfully. As a Black girl with 4C hair, I also categorize myself as one of the many other women and girls of color with curly hair who struggle to find products, styles, and tools that work for our hair while not damaging it in the process.

Now as society continues to return to some form of normalcy, and in light of women’s history month, I have been thinking a lot about women and their hair. Not in the cliché sense, but specifically about the correlations between women of color, their hair, and the pandemic.

After three years and a failed experience at a hair salon at the beginning of the school year, I discovered Miss Rizos. Miss Rizos is a salon that focuses on natural hairstyling, and through the whole appointment makes women and men feel more confident in their natural hair and being able to take care of it. Miss Rizos is a Dominican salon that just opened in New York City, and was originally started in the Dominican Republic by Carolina Contreras. In every way possible from the stylists, to the products, to the salon itself; Miss Rizos has helped many men, women, and children learn how to embrace, love and celebrate their natural hair. After my recent experience at this wonderful hair salon, I reflected on the other women that came into the salon with stories and hair experiences similar to mine. It was our mutual struggle to keep up with the demands of curly hair during the pandemic that we had in common, along with tales of how our pandemic hair strategies first resulted in damage, then in the silver lining of hope that our hair can be salvaged by the the talented stylists at the Miss Rizos salon.

Women and men of color have always faced the question, ‘What should I do with my hair?’, however the pandemic made that love-hate relationship people have with their hair more prominent. As many salons and beauty supply stores were forced to shut down, due to the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down all non-essential businesses, many people who still had to work during the pandemic struggled with taking the basic steps of natural hair care, while still looking professional and respectable on-screen, which started to feel like an addition to the already tideous. Especially as many had to break away from day to day practices such as weaves and chemical/heating styling, since many did not want to take the risk of making house visits.

The struggle to embrace natural hair is not new. Quite frankly it’s normal, with the history of stereotypes and stigmas placed on people of color, especially about their hair. In a study by Dove it was shown that a black woman is 80% more likely than a white woman to change her natural hair to meet social norms or expectations at work. Black women and men have always had to adpats themselves socially and empotionally, and especially physically to be accepted into society, “ …The invention of products like hair relaxers, chemical treatment and hot-combs were used to straighten Afro-texture hair, in order to mimic Eurocentric hair.”(McClay,2019) Which can today be seen as a way for people of color to gain more respect and taken seriously at work, school and other social events.

A few years ago Gabrielle Union came out to say she was fired from America’s Got Talent because her hair and the hairstyles she chose were too “Black” for the show. Furthermore, a recent article from the LA Times conducted insterviews on women about their natural hair and the pandemic, in which one woman highlighted the route of her insecurities, “Delaney, 50, said she’s not uncomfortable with her natural hair but also would be self-conscious about trying out a new hairstyle at work… “I think people in my generation, we still fall under that stigma as to how is our hair looking and how does it represent us,”(John,2020) These are just some of the internal and external experiences that women and even men of color face because of the hisotriical stereotypes placed on people of color. Senator Cory Booker in 2019 introduced the CROWN Act which bans discrimination based on hair textures and hairstyles that are commonly associated with a particular race or national origin, though this provided some basis in schools and especially in the workplace, the pandemic was just the push women and men of color need to release themselves from the pressure of stereotypes and stigmas placed on them for centuries.

The many factors and complexities of hair have turned into a 87.9 billion dollar global industry that continues to be influenced by the idea of self-expression. With the pandemic and closures of salons, the hair industry continued to grow even more as we started to realizes the true power and influence of hair, I believe that many of us started to also appreciate our natural hair as, “ Hair brings us closer to our idea of our ideal selves, whatever that may be.”(Abad-Santos,2020)

Yet one cannot talk about an industry without highlighting the people that have taken the time to embrace a community of people from all walks of life who are learning or continue down their journey of natural hair care. On Tik Tok, Youtube, and other online resources creators who are trying to share with the world their hobbies and interests, have started a movement that many of us, forced into the woes of embraceing natural hair, are thankful for. Many women have been inspired to take on the consuming challenges of natural hair care and form a better relationship with their hair as they started to watch these videos, especially on the social media platform TikTok, which has shifted their attitude towards it in a more positive light. On these social media platforms there are various videos that show people how to identity and properly care for their hair type, emphasized on various tags such as #naturalhair and #curlyhairroutine and #4CHairCare. That allows many the space to realize that their hair may actually be curly, or their go-to hair care practices may not actually be beneficial, or how transforming the right product can be for their hair and their hair care routine.

Even though I realized long before COVID how damaging and emotionally draining straightening my hair was, I was still going to the salon and putting extensive amounts of heat on my hair every other week. I truly appreciate the pandemic for pushing me to take that step in learning how to naturally care for my hair on my own, instead of always relying on hair salons and so forth, even though my natural hair care routine was not always successful.

Before, I thought if I straightened my hair I would look better, and just more presentable to my peers, teachers, and society in general. However, I think embracing my natural hair and seeing how beautiful and healthy my hair is now after I take my braids out, or wash my hair, makes me know I made the right decision.

I strongly believe we can thank the COVID bad hair years for teaching black and Latinx men and women to embrace their natural hair, and thereby free themselves from the toxic beauty standards and racial stereotypes bequeathed them by older generations. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a very personal, emotional, and revelatory experience during quarantine for women and even some men, who already have various anxieties about the pandemic. We are now taking a step back to look at our hair in a new light.

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