CF

Age: 30-64

Occupation: Hairstylist

CF is a hairstylist, certified associate trichologist, and healthy scalp and hair expert. She runs a beauty salon in New York City, dedicated to helping clients achieve healthy and strong hair.

Through her work, CF has seen firsthand that even though the media and cultural narratives teach that all Black hair is the same, “no one head of hair is the same, and no one strand on one person’s hair is the exact same.” There is vast diversity among Black hair — different curl patterns, different textures, different porosities, etc. — which means that there should also be vast diversity among hair care. Different products work for different hair, and some people even require certain foods or other products for healthier hair.

“I think that’s the biggest thing, that we are such individuals when it comes to our hair, and we don’t get marketed as that,” CF said.

Moreover, CF remarked that Black women are taught that their hair is “the most unruly, difficult hair to manage, and it’s simply not true.” She knows that this perception of Black hair takes root in slavery and systemic racism.

“Because of racism and segregation, no one understood what to do with our hair, so we as people did not understand what to do with our hair,” CF said. “When you see hair that is matted and not curly because it hadn’t been taken care of, it’s automatically thought of as being unmanageable, and that’s what we’ve been trained to learn until the natural hair movement became really prevalent and we started figuring out how to do our hair.”

CF said that even beauty schools taught students how to do only one type of hair, until very recently. Hair stylists in the entertainment industry would press Black women’s hair (“destroy it”) or make them wear wigs (“cover it”). Teaching Black women that their hair is all the same and all unruly minimizes Black women’s individuality, beauty, agency, and free expression. CF wants Black women to know that their hair is beautiful, manageable, and versatile.

“Our hair is so manageable, but we’ve been taught to dislike our hair because it’s ‘unruly,’ it’s ‘unmanageable,’ ‘there’s so much we can’t do with it’ — but there is so much we can do with it,” CF said.

CF knows that with patience, care, and appropriate attention, Black hair can grow long, be thick, stay healthy, and look beautiful.

“Your hair is so easy, it just needs that TLC.”