Hair has always been a very important part of the female identity, but for African American women in this country our path to loving this part of ourselves has been a difficult one. From the time we were kidnapped by or sold off to our oppressors, how we’ve felt about our God given characteristics have been diminished, disregarded and nullified. It has taken the strength of courage and conviction as well as the acceptance of our own natural beauty and individuality to overcome centuries of intentional abuse by others and even ourselves to reach the current point of constant evolution regarding our hair.

As a child born in the late 60s growing up in an African American home, I know all too well how important it was to ALWAYS present your best self when leaving home as you are a representation of your parents and family to the world. I remember vividly every morning getting up extra early for school so that my mother could “do my hair.” That process consisted many times of getting my hair pressed or straightened by use of an iron comb that is heated on the burner of the stove. Once the comb is heated to the desired temperature (I have no idea how that was determined as there was no thermometer on the comb) my mom would proceed to carefully comb through my hair. The purpose was to get my hair as straight as possible because back then in the black community the goal was to have straight hair as that was considered “good hair.” Most days I would emerge unscathed but sometimes she would get a little too close to my scalp or ear and I’d end up with a small burn from the comb. It wasn't unusual to see family members or schoolmates sporting the same “badges of beauty” on their ears or neck as the result of an overly ambitious mom with an over-heated hot comb. For us that was the norm.

The straightening comb, pressing comb or “hot comb” as it was more commonly known, has unclear beginnings as it is not exactly known who actually invented the device. For many years Madame C.J. Walker was credited for this invention but it has since been determined that this isn’t true. Mrs. Walker was however responsible for creating hair care treatments to help with her own scalp disorder which caused her to lose much of her hair. The treatments that she developed, along with cosmetics, became a big hit in the African American community and as a result the Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company helped to make her one of the first black female millionaires in the United States (Biography.com, 2014). Credit for the “hot comb” has been given to Frenchman Marcel Grateau in the late 1800s, to Walter Sammons in 1920, as well as to Clara Grant of St. Louis in 1925 (James & Smith, 2019). The process of straightening the hair was not only for aesthetic purposes in the African American community, it was also deemed a sign of status because if you could have your hair straightened to be more like white Americans you were considered to have an improved social status.

As time progressed people began looking for a way to straighten the hair that would have a longer lasting effect, enter the lye-based relaxer. The first hair relaxer was invented by Garret Augustus Morgan Sr., the child of former slaves. Garret invented many things such as the three-position traffic signal, the safety hood (predecessor to the gas mask), and smoke protectors just to name a few. The hair relaxer came about as the result of repairing sewing machines. Mr. Augustus found that the chemical used for sewing machine repair would also relax the curls of kinky hair. His first live subject was an Airedale dog, which happens to have very curly hair. After having success on the dog, he used the relaxer on his own hair and found it to work. The G.A. Morgan Company was founded in 1913, and it produced the “hair refiner” as well as other hair care products such as dyes and processing creams. It wasn’t until 1971 that the lye-based hair relaxer would be produced commercially (Richard, 2017). By this time black women going to the salon to have their hair straightened was commonplace. As the relaxer gained popularity due to it’s longer lasting results versus the hot comb, African American mothers began getting their daughter’s hair relaxed. The relaxer not only gave them the sleek and smooth look they wanted, it also made daily combing much easier since all of the natural curl had been chemically eliminated. This so-called “price of beauty” did not come without a cost. Sometimes the chemicals in the relaxer would be so strong that it would cause chemical burns to the scalp and or skin, and in some cases there would even be hair loss and permanent damage.