Are We Losing Our Black Hair Care Recipes?

There’s a smell I lovingly associate with Black hair care: Dax hair pomade and Ultra Sheen’s “green grease”. I can’t explain exactly what the pots of luminous green pomade smell like but they remind me of sitting in between my mother's legs on a cushion on the floor as she braided cornrows to my skull and smoothed the paste into my scalp. The old rituals of Black hair care can elicit a sense of nostalgia for those of us who grew up with hot combs heated on the stove, our hair being drenched in raw caster oil and experiencing hair relaxers out of the box. I can’t look at a tub of Eco Styler gel without thinking of my teen years, slicking my fringe over my entire forehead and causing years of forehead acne.

My hair care routines have changed considerably since the days of buying cheap imported hair products from high-street beauty supply stores. Upon the advice of modern curl specialists, I am trying to use my beloved raw hair oils far less and have reduced my wash days down to three products: clarifying shampoo, conditioner and a styling product (currently I am using everything by Cécred). I try not to leave my weaves and protective styles in for too long (but I am still very guilty of this) and I have improved my relationship with heat. While I have been embracing some of the new rules of Black and natural hair care, including solely using products by modern Black hair brands (ditching some of the old faithful brands such as Green Grease in the process), I can’t help but think about the engrained Black hair and beauty techniques we seem to be unlearning. Is it for better or for worse?

“Your hair was much better even when you were using Luster’s Pink moisturiser,” my mum told me recently, kissing her teeth with the ‘I told you so’ face mums do.“I’m telling you, the old ways are the best!” she laughed as she braided my hair for my next protective style covering me with caster oil to help regrow my damaged hair. I happily succumbed to the familiarity of glistening oily coils. Many of my friends and colleagues agree with my mum.

There’s a fear amongst many young Black people—especially those living and working in Western countries—that we’re losing our hair and beauty methods or rather “recipes” (including our cooking skills, languages and more) by embracing new modernised techniques, such as the divisive “no oils, no butters” wash day method, which rejects the use of heavy oils such as caster oil and coconut oil that has been used in Black hair care for generations. Popular curly hair specialists such as Acacia Breeze regularly face backlash from promoting their curly-cut techniques that move away from some of the practices that many of us have grown up with (even though the results of her clients and others are incredible). On the other hand, some natural hair creators, such as Youtuber StarPuppy,  have made public admissions claiming they are returning to what they say has always worked for the culture; clays, oils, butters and more. The goalposts to what effective natural hair care should look like always seem to be moving; natural hair communities online go back and forth between ingredients they stand behind and the ones that they now demonise as “bad”. It’s hard to keep up.

“It’s really trivial. Ultimately, you need to do what works for your hair, because trends can dictate what they like but the proof is always in the pudding,” says Jameila Donaldson, founder of wash day delivery service Treasure Tress. “If you're having success with using oils, use oils.”

Donaldson has published reports on the significant impact of Black women on total hair care spend and highlighted the importance of the Black Pound in the beauty market. Most recently, Donaldson partnered with Creme of Nature to examine why Black women have been overlooked in the fitness and lifestyle space. She understands the emotional connection between our hair and the products we choose to adorn it. 

“It’s so divided at the moment,” Donaldson continues over a phone call. “There's a camp that's hypersensitive to ingredients, and then there's another camp that’s like listen, if it works, I'm using it —even if the main ingredient is petroleum — and are happy to go with whatever has worked for them historically.”

For curl specialist Serayna Eldridge, founder of Mancunian Bounce, encouraging a new and simplified approach to complicated wash day routines is part of her in-demand curl transformation process. “I tell a lot of my clients who are a bit dubious to try [new techniques] to just give me a year, just give me 12 months. And stick to that and see if your hair is better. And it's always better because it is just a simplified routine.”

“I am not a super fan of the recipes that people are making at home themselves [for their hair],” she adds over Zoom. “There’s not an understanding of the scalp side of hair care and the trichology [that goes into formulating a product]. Normally it's like 20 different oils that they mix together that in my professional opinion, doesn't work.”

When I wrote the story, ‘Wait, Are We Not Supposed To Use Oils On Natural Hair?” back in 2023, I received a barrage of DMs slating me for abandoning my roots and culture. The debate even polarised Reddit, with one user writing, “ For thousands of years many Black people there seem to have had nothing against the use of clays and heavy, raw oils and butters in hair care (such as the ever popular Raw Shea Butter). Many Africans have been using all sorts of raw oils and butters and clays as part of their hair care for thousands of years with optimal results so what’s really tea?”

Black folks across the diaspora have passed down a wealth of traditions and techniques to help us care for and adorn our unique hair texture — from the red clay hair masks of the Himba Tribe of Namibia to Madam CJ Walker’s hot comb. Whether cornrows and braids, bantu knots, loc-ing, press and curl and sew-in weaves and more, to have afro hair is to know and understand a very specific language of beauty that is entirely different to the practices of European and Asian hair. Ingenuity and entrepreneurship in the Black hair space have helped radically transform how Black women living and working in Western countries understand our beauty, especially given we have long been ignored by European salons and brands. It’s an emotional subject for many of us, and I understand why some Black people resist letting go of our tried and true recipes. But is there a way to embrace the old with the new?

“I wouldn't tell mumsy to not use DAX [hair pomade],” says Eldridge. “Using Dax will probably be more about the nostalgia and it's part of her identity. [The products you choose to use] is about assessing the situation and where your hair is at. If [a product] is part of you, it's not breaking your hair,  it's not damaging your scalp and there’s no side effects, then there's no harm.”

“I do think that texturism and the hair hierarchy that the hair typing system perpetuates has a lot to do with [the debate]” says Donaldson. “I just don't think that we can make umbrella statements like ‘stop using butters and stop using oils’ when women have been using these for centuries and it's been working for them. And equally, some people have stopped using [these ingredients] and they've figured out that their hair actually thrives without it. But ultimately, hair journeys are exactly that: a journey, and they're so personal. You have to be wary of just following trends instead of paying attention to what actually works.”

Both of the women I spoke to shared that their personal hair routines have evolved significantly over time but they still hold a nostalgic fondness for the routines and rituals they were taught in childhood.

“As a child, we’d shampoo, blow dry, grease, get my hair conditioned and that was it, no maintenance whatsoever until the next wash. When I started researching hair care, the first thing I realised I had been missing out on was a good deep conditioning treatment,” shared Donaldson.

“I remember my mum greasing my head with Vaseline,” laughs Eldridge. “And creaming my body and aiding cuts, and shine up the wheel on a car — it was multi-purposeful! But looking back, it was [because of a lack of] finances. Now me and a lot of my clients that come to me, we've got McDonald's money now! So we're looking to invest in [better products] now.” 

“When I started simplifying my hair routine, my hair grew. Life was better,” adds Eldrige. “Every seven days, I cleanse it, I hydrate it, I use my stylers. And that is it for seven days.”

On social media, there’s not just a divide between new and old-school products. There are clear divisions between new-school and old-school hair stylists and salons and the varied services they provide. In 2022, Unbothered wrote about the gradual return to traditional African braiders after multiple horror stories about Instagram hair stylists— from last-minute cancellations to charging extra for women with 4C hair.

“My auntie braider has been holding me down — she doesn't do trends but she will give you some good, small, neat braids,” says Donaldson. “But equally, I just feel like there's no simple answer because as much as some people have a really hard time with Instagram stylists, there are girls who are extremely well educated. There are Instagram stylists that can do the trends and they also care about [ the health] of your hair.” 

Donaldson adds: “Do they moisturise the ends of your hair? Do they know about traction alopecia? [African Braiders] may not be aware of these things and an Instagram stylist may so I just don't think we can be that simplistic [to determine one is better than the other]. I think both of them have their strengths, but I think that the best stylists are definitely going to be the most well-rounded ones.”

It’s clear that there’s a fine line between dissuading Black customers from the myths of Black hair care and completely disregarding the methods that have worked for generations. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all method.

It’s also important to note that Black women have a legitimate distrust of major beauty conglomerates. Black hair and beauty products such as hair relaxers have been accused of being endocrine disrupters, increasing Black women’s risk of developing fibroids and uterine cancers. The sad reality is many of the brands and products we relied on were harming rather than helping us. It’s no wonder why many Black women are turning to traditional recipes and ingredients to feel secure.

Nonetheless, the Black hair market is always evolving—and it should!—we want and need continued innovation in this space. This means also fighting for the opportunities we weren’t always afforded with mainstream hair products: real investment into safe and effective products, changing discriminative hair laws, and petitioning for afro hair types to be included in scientific research and product innovation. As momentum gathers (albeit slowly), some of the ways we did our hair will inevitably change — hopefully for the better.