African American Hairstyles Through The Decades
An arduous task still done today that can take hours to straighten the thickest hair only to meet frizz again the minute it rains or gets too humid outside.
African american hairstyles through the decades. While activists and musicians such as jimi hendrix and angela davis still sported one many young people in the african american community turned. From box braids to dreadlocks and afro shape ups many of the most iconic black hairstyles can be found in drawings engravings and hieroglyphs from ancient egyptwhen the painted. After all african american women spent previous decades straightening their hair with the pressing comb. Charles teenie harris photographed the african american community in pittsburgh pennsylvania from 1935 to 1975 and his archive includes beautiful pictures that show the hairstyles of the day.
The introduction of chemical hair relaxers were during the 1950s were welcome by women allowing for straight styles event after washing or wetting their hair. Afro picks became very important during 1965 and continued to be as it was all most african americans would need to fix their hair. To put it simply as more people started sporting a fro especially caucasian ones too the afro hairstyle lost its political edge. Women of color find a new ideal of beauty when actress diahann carroll becomes the first african american actress to star in her own television series julia in 1968.
You might remember a video of a model going through 100 years worth of hair and makeup trends in just one minute. Other products they used were combs and blow out products.