Saturday, February 9, 2008

Looking At Black Hair from Different Angles

There was a bit of talk recently about haircare and the propensity of black women to straighten their hair to be more accepted. Here are a few pictures that show the range of diversity in the media.

The cast of Half & Half. Thelma Hawkins has naturally long curly hair. Rachel True wears her natural thicker curls, Essence Atkins has naturally straighter hair and Valarie Pettiford wears wigs which is the joke on the show.
See textures up close in large picture.







On another popular show, Girlfriends, Traci Ellis Ross wears naturally textured hair, Persia White naturally long curly hair, Jill Marie Jones has relaxed hair and currently it is worn really short. Golden Brooks wears a weave.






Ladies of color on The View. Whoopi? Those are dred locs and Sherri Shepherd has on a faux pony. But, if you look at a lot of Sherri's pictures she wears it natural, wet and curley, flat ironed or weaved.














I love this picture because it shows identical twins Tia and Tamara Mowry with totally different hairdos. Straight or curly they both look good!









What about singing sister sensations, Mary Mary (Erica and Tina). If you are not familiar with them they are walking billboards for the many ways a black woman can wear her hair. This top picture is definitely a tight, tight fro.

In the picture below with braids or flat ironed their voices are amazing. Check out some of their hairstyles.















On the younger scene here is Tiana Taylor (left) a new singer who is about 17 years old. Doesn't seam like she feels the need to go straight. Maybe she is channeling soul sista number one Erykah Badu (right). Now I think they call that a "natural" an "Angela Davis" or a "J-5" fro. Check out Eryka with dreds, wrap, natural, and shaved head. Now that is versatility.








Someone asked me about magazines for black hairstyles for older children. Here are a few that you may want to try.

Black Hair Magazine - Every issue has 100s of hairstyles and expert advice.
Sophisticates Black Hair - They show long, short, and natural styles.
Hype Hair - Contemporary hair and fashion with celebrity profiles.
Black Beauty Magazine - Find a variety of styles in the hair gallery.

5 comments:

graceling said...

Valarie, you are my hair hero!

Anonymous said...

Only a "true" researcher would go to such lengths to make her point. You go!

VALARIE said...

If it took more than 15 minutes I wouldn't bother. Well, maybe I would. I hate people putting stereotypical messages in children's head and reinforcing them to a broad community of transracial adoptive parents. I love Google images. You can get a picture in seconds.

Tami said...

Great pictures! Love it! I love that I have someone to make a point with me. LOL

Anonymous said...

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