It’s Time To Talk About Mixed Race and Biracial Hair

Let me begin by telling you the story of my hair, as best as I can remember.

I’m 6 and my dad has done my hair for picture day. He used water to detangle it, so by the time I get to school, the damage is already done. Then, they give me that little black picture day comb, because my school is mostly white and that’s the only comb they have available. The rest is history.

I’m 7 and, needless to say, Mom pulled my hair back neatly for this picture day.

I’m 9 and visiting a white hair salon with a relative, and even at that young age, I register the look of fear that overcomes the white stylist’s face as she stands behind her client with a big, circular curling brush in one hand and a blow dryer hanging loosely from the other. She ends up cutting my hair straight and doesn’t realize just how short the cut will appear in my hair once the curls bounce back up again.

I’m 10 and my Black hair dresser has been complaining about how difficult my hair is for hours. She’ll be late for her other clients at this rate. She should charge double. I smile apologetically, sweat springing from my scalp and rolling down my neck as she straightens my hair by tugging a hot iron through my curls.

I’m 11 and I’m watching TV, trying to figure out what “beautiful hair” is. White women are sporting perms, teasing and styling their hair as big as they possibly can. Black women are straightening their hair. Relaxing it, braiding it, making it sleeker. I have no idea where that leaves me. Scary Spice sports a big, curly ‘fro, but she’s much bolder than I am. I’m trying to blend in, not stand out.

I’m 12 and I’m realizing that Mom’s Black hair care products aren’t serving my hair well. They also make my hair too oily, which is bad news for the acne now plaguing my prepubescent face. I’ve gone to CVS to find the goopiest blue gel with the strongest hold to tame my hair. I pull my hair back into the tightest possible ponytail, essentially gluing it down all around my scalp. Frizz becomes my crunchy prisoner.

I’m 13 and walking my middle school’s hallways. I’m jolted forward, once again, as I recover from someone tapping “the poof” — the affectionate nickname for the tight ponytail I’ve created with the gel I still use religiously. People somehow feel they have the right to bounce their palm against my springy ponytail for their amusement. And though I don’t speak up about it much, I hate every uninvited and unwelcome touch.

I’m 17 and all of the other leads in the school play have their hair done by mom volunteers. No one volunteers to do my hair, so I take care of it with some help from Mom at home.

I’m 18 and the same Black hair dresser who always complains about my curls convinces me to get my hair chemically relaxed. (For those who aren’t aware, relaxers are a chemical kind of lotion that you work through your curls like a hair mask and set for a certain amount of time until you rinse it out. In my experience, it’s a painful process that can lead to chemical burns on the scalp.) I sit with the foul-smelling creamy white stuff all over my head while my scalp burns and my eyes sting. What comes from the discomfort is, quite literally, relaxed hair. My curls let out a deep sigh and loosen, mellow out, falling past my shoulders for the first time in my life.

I’m 20 and I’m done getting relaxers after the ends of my hair start getting weirdly stick straight. I’ve found the “perfect” mixture of drugstore products from CVS that seems to manage my curls. Garnier Fructis curl cream mixed with TRESemmé styling mousse becomes my go-to for many years. At some point, a college friend suggests a brand called “Mixed Chicks” which excites me, until I see the price.

I’m 24 and I’m the only biracial bridesmaid in a wedding party. The bride has hired a stylist to do all of the wedding hair. I take the hint that she won’t be taking care of my hair, so I style it myself in the bathroom without making a fuss.

I’m 27 and I finally get a good haircut from a woman who specializes in curly hair. She is white, but she knows what she’s doing with curls. She is so committed to curls, she refuses to straighten hair in her salon. I decide to stick with her for a while.

I’m 28 and for my wedding day, I’ve decided to have a stylist straighten my hair, and then re-curl it into bigger ringlets, because that is what I’ve decided is the most special and beautiful thing to do. It takes over 4 hours to do my hair (no exaggeration, ask any of the women who were in my wedding party). And the loose curls fall out and frizz by the time dinner is served.

I’m 29, and 30, and 31, and in most theatrical productions I’m a part of, the person in charge of hair and makeup has a specific vision for the white actresses. For me, they say “what you’ve got going on today looks great. Just do that.” In one production, the stylist tells me they “don’t do Black hair” and leaves it at that.

I’m 34 and I’ve got time because I’m stuck at home during a pandemic. I’ve finally done some real research and started using hair care products that are meant for hair like mine. My curls sing and rejoice.

I’m still 34 and now that I’m playing with volume in my hair, I ask my white stylist to give me a bit more. She doesn’t know how to “do that.” She cuts some fun layers into my hair, but she can’t help me achieve that big curly look I’ve seen on mixed women on Instagram (now that I know to follow along there for mixed hair care tips).

I’m 35 and at a fitting for a commercial shoot. I ask the producers what they’d like for me to do with my hair. They look at each other and I see the confusion ricocheting between their faces. I explain that my hair can go up once it’s down, but it can’t come down nicely once it’s up. They nod, and one of the women asks for me to just prepare my hair down so we have more options.

The following day I walk in and see that the hair stylist is a mixed race woman. Black and Latinx. This woman has specific products for my hair in her bag of tricks. She works her hands through my curls without any hesitation, complaint or fuss. She pulls individual curls apart, scrunches sections of hair together, and shakes my hair from the roots to give it the perfect amount of volume and definition. For the first time in my entire life, I experience someone who knows exactly what to do with my hair. Again, I am 35 years old.

Why Is This So Hard?

I’m certainly not qualified to give real hair advice, or to educate on hair in any meaningful way. I’m also fully aware that “biracial hair” and “mixed race hair” are not the best terms for describing any one mixed person’s specific hair type. As displayed so beautifully in the book “One Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race” by dr. Yaba Blay, (a treasured book gifted to me by my sister), mixed people with Black identities have a wide variety of hair types, from wavy to kinky. I know other mixed women who have the “same mix” as I do. And while we are all curly girls, our curl patterns vary.

Knowing your curl type is the most helpful way to categorize your hair. That being said, I didn’t lean this until my thirties. It took me that long to learn about the curl chart, and to discover that I have 3C hair.

As I sat in the chair getting my hair done on that recent commercial shoot, I spoke to my stylist, at length, about how relieved I was when I saw that she was mixed like me. She was so happy to hear that her presence made me sigh with relief, but she also told me some fascinating stories.

She told me that in cosmetology school, students weren’t required to learn the hair types. And white stylists certainly weren’t required to learn how to do Black or mixed hair.

She told me that production companies were bringing her in to do hair on shoots where there were Black, Latinx and mixed models and actors because the other white stylists they employ don’t have the knowledge or skills to work with those hair types.

She told me she was thrilled for the extra work with the focus being on diversity in front of the camera (a topic I will absolutely dive into another day). But she also felt a bit icky about it. She could do “white” hair. Why couldn’t the white stylists learn how to do hair like hers? Like mine?

Our conversation got me thinking more about my hair than I ever had. How wild, how unjust is it that hair styling is (or at least was, at the time of my stylist’s training) divided up by race? I mean, it made perfect sense to me when I considered my hair journey. The only white woman I’d ever met who could do my hair properly was a curl specialist. She knew about the hair types and the hair chart, but one look at her website would show that she had no clients with tighter or kinkier curl types than mine. A few mixed women, but no Black women with type 4 hair.

And on my many occasions in Black salons, I don’t know that I’d ever once seen a white woman. There’s a very obvious and understandable reason for this (again, a topic for another day), but it is something of note in the conversation about hair.

I think on my (very informal) experience styling hair. When I was the captain of my high school’s gymnastics team, I used to be the one to braid everyone’s hair the night before competitions (mostly white girls, some Asian girls, and one other Black, biracial girl). I’ve been my husband’s unofficial hair dresser for years (he’s white), and I’m now my son’s official hair dresser (since his hair is 3C like mine, so I can claim more expertise there). I also style Mom’s beautiful 4C hair on occasion. And funny though it seems, since I am by no means a hair care professional, I’m the only one I know who is familiar handling all hair types, from the straightest type 1 to the kinkiest type 4.

My unique position as a mixed race woman with a mixed family has exposed me to all of those different types of hair. So why aren’t professionals being encouraged to learn about different types of hair? Why are we still styling by race?

Enough Is Enough, Right?

My people pleasing often butts heads with my frustration over what a mystery my hair seems to be to professionals. Still. To this day. Just a few weeks ago, I worked on a shoot where there was no clear direction on my hair. So I just zipped my lips and styled it myself. Nobody said anything about it, so I assumed it looked fine.

As the only bridesmaid of color, one of the only Black, biracial actresses working on a show, or as a mixed model surrounded by a sea of white production staff, I’ve grown all too accustomed to that wide-eyed look of horror at the prospect of working with what’s on top of my head. That familiar feeling of otherness that creeps over me. And because I am who I am, I dive headfirst into people pleasing.

Oh, no worries! I’ll just do my own hair.

Do you want me to just come in with my hair styled and we can play with it from there?

Oh, you just like the style I have today? You don’t need to do anything to it at all? Okay!

But the more I learn about hair, about my own hair and about the beautiful mix of hair types in my own family, the angrier I get. Just as with checking boxes for race on forms, I’ve never fit into a single box. The single box for Caucasian and the single box for Black/African American can’t hold all of my identity on their own (and that’s not for lack of trying). And I’ve yet to find the right fit, the right box to check, for hair styling. I can’t ever just pick a salon based on looks without doing extensive research to make sure they are familiar and comfortable working with my hair type.

I think I can speak for all mixed, biracial curly girls when I say that enough is enough. I’m sick of trying to squeeze myself into boxes that weren’t created with me in mind. This shouldn’t be so hard anymore, and there needs to be more space for us. It’s past time for us to accept the notion that stylists “don’t do our kind of hair” anymore.

I think it’s time for professionals to learn. I am not an enigma. I am a human being with curly, 3C hair. And there are a lot of people like me out there, and many, many more on the way.