Is A Healthy Hair Relaxer Ever Possible?
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Loading... - Anastasia Gabris
- 04 Jul 2022
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The kitchen used to be my stepmother’s makeshift salon; it was where I got my first hair relaxer. I was 13 and knew nothing about the process of this hair treatment, all I knew was my hair was finally going to be bone straight like some of my white classmates and would soon swing across my shoulders freely.
So, there I sat as my uncertified stepmother applied a cream that stunk of chemicals I couldn’t pronounce nor spell. Vaseline was placed haphazardly around the border of my head in an effort to ensure the relaxer didn’t burn me — the irony of this is almost laughable now. As the cream was being applied, I wondered how this little cylindrical tub was going to take my ‘naps’ away. Imagine, I was 13 and I knew what ‘nappy’ meant and fully understood the negative connotations of the word for kinky afro hair like mine; I had it hurled at me in the past by classmates and I wanted no parts of it. At first, I didn’t feel anything but eventually, a small tingling sensation started around my head that then escalated to a feeling akin to my head being on fire. I was told to sit with the cream in my hair until it was ready to be washed out, the stinging continued, but I didn’t say anything — I thought the longer I held out the straighter my hair would be.
I couldn’t have been more wrong, the process of relaxing my hair went on for as long as my hair could take it. Eventually, as if to say I’ve done too much to it, my hair broke off, my scalp succumbed to the stinging and produced scabby patches that itched like no tomorrow.
It pains me to think that these moments are a distinct part of growing up for many Black women, sitting in our mother’s kitchens letting them play beauticians in an effort to try and ‘fix’ our hair. Black hair in its most natural state is political, it’s over-questioned, it’s overlooked, and it has always struggled to find its footing on the beauty spectrum. And it seems the girls are tired of this and seeking solace in an old friend: Relaxers are back. Browsing the addictive yet annoyingly entertaining app TikTok for the slightest of seconds will show that Black women are reverting back to the creamy crack in a new phase of the Black hair narrative I’m dubbing ‘F—it, it’ll grow back’. Women on the app can be seen proudly exclaiming their return to relaxers and even showing the process of applying the relaxer.
While the rise in hair relaxers' popularity could suggest natural hair movement has run its course or simply, Black women are looking for ease when it comes to hair, concerns about the safety of chemical relaxers have not gone away. Yet as modern hair technology gradually improves for Black hair types, is a healthy hair relaxer ever possible?
What exactly is a hair relaxer and how does it work?
Remember that scene in Legally Blonde where Elle steps into her lawyer bag and wins the case by name-dropping ‘ammonium thioglycolate’ and its importance when getting a perm? Well, it’s the same story but for a different audience. Hair relaxers are creams or lotions formulated for use on tight natural curls to chemically straighten them. Once a relaxer is applied you can temporarily kiss all remnants of your natural hair pattern goodbye. The chemically straightening process is aided by chemicals such as Ammonium Thioglycolate, Lithium Hydroxide, Calcium Hydroxide and, controversially, Lye (also known as sodium hydroxide) — a heavy-duty chemical used to unblock drains. These agents work together to deeply penetrate the hair shaft until it reaches the cortex to attack ‘disulphide bonds’ which are partially responsible for the shape of our hair. Read More...
