Woodard said another cultural factor pressuring women with curly hair to get chemical relaxers is the common misconception that natural hair is unprofessional. She said that growing up, people would ...

Jasmine Green sat in the kitchen one afternoon in 2003, getting her hair done by her grandmother. Her curly coils were being parted in sections with a slender comb to reveal her scalp. Vaseline was ...

ATLANTA — For years, there's been a lot of controversy surrounding women using hair relaxers. One study suggests it could actually cause cancer in Black women. Our VERIFY team went to experts to find ...

(Boston)—Chemical hair relaxers are heavily marketed to, and commonly used by, Black women to straighten curly or tightly coiled hair. These products are only loosely regulated and are known to ...

Maria Loren Ackies remembers the first time she went to the salon to get her hair professionally straightened. “I was 14 and I was so excited,” Ackies, 49, of West Hempstead, recalled. But her mood ...

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 ...

My mother was a teenager in the late ’70s when big poofy hair (see Donna Summer and Tina Turner circa 1978) was all the rage. And like many teens, she wanted to fit in, so she asked her mom: “Can I ...