BlackMan Time

It took a BBC documentary to make singer Jamelia realise she shouldn’t wear human hair extensions and weave-ins anymore.

Like thousands of other keen fashion-conscious women she believed extending her hair with strands of hair from unknown origins, usually taken from other humans, was just the best way to enhance her beauty.

Indeed as a schoolgirl she, like many other young Black teenage girls, used to rise early to ensure she had enough time to do her hair before getting to school. For these kinds of girls doing your hair is a ritual rivalling any religious practice. They do it because a woman’s hair is considered a key part of her beauty.

In the Black households having ‘good hair’ or hair that is straight and easy to comb, is not only a great benefit, it is also a cultural and social sign of status. The thinking goes back hundreds of years into the slave era when slave masters found they fetched better prices for female slaves who had straightened their hair.

Shun Bird’s Nest!

Jamelia