100 Objects #18: Hair Relaxer

99% Invisible

This episode of 99% Invisible explores the complex legacy of the chemical hair relaxer in Black American culture—its role in building wealth

Key takeaways

• Hair relaxers were developed as a survival strategy during slavery, evolving into tools of economic empowerment for Black hairdressers.
• The industry built by Madam C.J. Walker and Annie Malone created generational wealth but also normalized the idea that natural Black hair is inferior.

Main topics

• History of Black hairdressing in the U.S.
• Chemical hair relaxers as tools of assimilation

Notable quotes

"If you can box assimilation, if you can put assimilation in a box and sell it on the stores of drugstores in America, that is the path to great wealth."

Conclusion

The story of the hair relaxer reveals how beauty standards are deeply entangled with

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) For many of us, going further isn't a choice. It's a feeling we can't ignore. Because ambition has a way of outgrowing where it began. Turning dreams into direction. Every journey brings us closer to the life we imagine. So, where will your journey take you? Etihad. Beyond Borders. Speaker 3 (0:32) Off a busy street in Brooklyn, New York, sits a storefront called Monica's Hair Salon. Speaker 7 (0:39) A Speaker 3 (0:40) salon our producer Priscilla Alabi visited a few weeks ago. Speaker 6 (0:45) I've been going to hair salons like this since I was little. There are places where people come for their hair, but also for advice, gossip, celebrations. Speaker 7 (0:54) Oh, I love us. I just love us so much. A woman pops in. What you want? Speaker 6 (0:59) Not for an appointment. Speaker 7 (1:00) But to Speaker 6 (1:03) ask for a birthday hug. Speaker 2 (1:05) Well, this young lady has been taking care of me since I was like 12. This Speaker 6 (1:11) is Lorraine Samuel's salon. She's been here since 1996. Today, she's about to give a customer a classic salon treatment, one I've been thinking a lot about lately. What are you doing to your customer's hair right now? I'm giving her a relaxer. I was nine, maybe 10 years old, the first time a chemical relaxer touched my virgin hair. That's the actual term for unprocessed hair. Speaker 6 (1:43) My natural kinky coils made hair grooming days very challenging. So my mom and I decided to relax my hair to make it more manageable. I was so excited for the possibility of long, flowy hair that a comb could easily pass through. Speaker 7 (1:57) So what does it look like, the actual physical object itself? Kind of like cream cheese, a little bit. It comes in a tub, usually a plastic tub. Speaker 6 (2:08) It kind of doesn't smell like anything, this one. Speaker 7 (2:11) This one doesn't. Speaker 6 (2:12) But it Speaker 7 (2:12) probably burns its own weight, Speaker 6 (2:13) though, right? Speaker 7 (2:13) It does, yeah. Speaker 6 (2:16) The first time I was preparing to get my hair relaxed, I was instructed very seriously, don't wash or scratch your scalp for at least one week before your appointment, because that would cause burns. Speaker 6 (2:29) In previous salon visits, I'd seen women yowl when the pain got unbearable. I didn't know it then, but I was being initiated into something much bigger than a hairstyle. Speaker 7 (2:41) And it burns towards the end if you leave it in too long. So you're just supposed to end it to the hair shaft and then keep applying it. The creamy crack. Speaker 6 (2:55) That's the relaxer's nickname, Creamy Crack, because it's said that relaxing your hair is addictive. Once you start, it's very hard to stop. If you stop, the hair breaks off where the new curly growth meets the already straightened dead hair. Speaker 7 (3:11) You see it? You see it getting straight? Speaker 6 (3:15) Oh yeah, there's no resistance in that hair anymore with the comb in the hair in the back where you started. Wow. You see the difference? Yeah. Speaker 6 (3:25) Today, somewhere between 85 and 95 percent of Black women in the United States have used a chemical relaxer at least once in their lifetime, as I did starting at age nine for years. Fast forward to 2023, while scrolling through Instagram, a targeted ad stopped me cold. Speaker 4 (3:45) If you used chemical hair straightener and were later diagnosed with uterine fibroids, contact our office today. A Speaker 6 (3:50) law firm wants me to join in a class action lawsuit. I'd just been diagnosed with fibroids, a condition that disproportionately affects Black women. Speaker 4 (4:00) The new research linking chemical hair relaxer to uterine fibroids may help explain this disparity. Speaker 6 (4:06) There are many ads like this. Speaker 7 (4:07) Did you or a loved one develop cancer after using hair relaxing or hair straightening products? If so, you may be able to sue the hair product manufacturer for damages. Speaker 6 (4:19) fibroids, uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, all implying that this thing so many Black women use, happening in so many salons across America and even the world, could actually be making us sick. From Speaker 3 (4:43) 99 % Invisible and BBC Studios, this is the history of the United States in 100 Objects. I'm Roman Mars. Today, the chemical hair relaxer, a ubiquitous American product that built black wealth and opened economic doors. But it also taught generations to see their hair as a problem to be solved. And now research is revealing a physical cost. This is a story of how those two truths came to exist at the same time. Producer Priscilla Alabi has the story. Speaker 6 (5:28) When I saw the targeted ad soon after my fibroid diagnosis, I wanted answers. How did we get here, where so many Black women were doing this to ourselves? Speaker 5 (5:38) My name is Lori L. Tharps, and I am a journalist and the co-author of Hair Story, Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America. So I reached Speaker 6 (5:50) out to Lori Tharps, a journalist and hair historian who spent the last quarter century asking similar questions about hair. So in your research, what surprised you most about the relationship Black Americans have with their straightening their hair? I think the thing that was the most interesting, Speaker 5 (6:07) and not in a good way, was how early the quest for straightening our hair began as enslaved individuals. And the fact that that yearning for straight hair as a source of assimilation is still with us. Speaker 6 (6:28) But Lori says starting the story with enslavement is like starting at chapter two. You miss a lot of context. And when you skip chapter one, Black people end up looking obsessed, even pathological about their hair. If Speaker 5 (6:42) you go chapters before Arrival, then we know that Black people have always been artistic and creative with hairstyling. There was a rich hairdressing tradition in Africa. That was a part of their culture. Hairstyling was fundamental to showcasing and sharing your identity. You had a hairstyle that connected you to a tribe, to a family, to a people. It's an ancestral heritage. Speaker 6 (7:12) So when Africans were enslaved and brought to America, their hairdressing traditions transformed. What used to be a way to express yourself that connects you to your people and your identity suddenly became a strategy for survival. Speaker 5 (7:27) Black people were interested in straightening their hair very soon after being kidnapped and brought to the colonies because they were told that their hair was inferior, that it was ugly, that it was more animalistic. We simply wanted to... Stop being treated like animals. And then hair straightening became a visual way to demonstrate our equality. Speaker 6 (7:56) So they innovated. They created new techniques and tools from what was available. They Speaker 5 (8:02) had to get creative because they didn't have the tools or materials that they had in Africa. So instead of something like palm oil that was very common in Africa to soften the hair, they would use butter. Speaker 6 (8:17) They turned cornmeal and kerosene into shampoo, baking grease and butter into conditioner. Butter knives became crude flat irons. They Speaker 5 (8:27) would wrap the hair in yarn to kind of pull the kinks out. Very inventive, very creative methods. Speaker 6 (8:35) They were so inventive that their techniques became legendary. So sought after that they became the barbers and wig makers of choice for white people. Speaker 6 (8:48) White people paid for their hands, their skill, their artistry, and that access to wealth, that became a pathway. Speaker 5 (8:57) They were able to make