Lolly Bowean writes that every black woman has a hair biography. Hers includes an aunt with “growing hands,” a cousin who straightened her hair against her mother’s wishes, and a disastrous teenage Jheri curl. Eventually, she comes to realize that for black women, finding the right hairstyle isn’t about looking like everyone else — it’s […]
Hair
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Kimberly, No Longer With the Good Hair
How one woman finally styled her hair in a way that determined who she was and demanded that her loving grandmother accept her decision as a sign of strength.
Posted inFeatured, History, Nonfiction, Quotes
Is That a Pillowcase Full of Human Hair, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?
Annie Correal’s story on the last New York wigmakers has a little bit of everything: celebrity gossip, religious scandals, and of course, wigs.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Last of New York’s Master Wigmakers
At a time when wigs are increasingly popular, the New York artisans who make them by hand are a vanishing breed.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Locks and Lore: Siri Hustvedt on the Cultural and Literary Significance of Hair
I began the fifth grade with long hair, but at some point in the middle of the year I chopped it into what was then called a pixie cut. When I returned to school newly shorn, I was informed that the boy I liked, a boy who had supposedly liked me back, had withdrawn his […]