Daring to be Us: why natural hair matters to Black women in Germany

I began by asking Abina what is considered natural hair. “Believe it or not, there is a huge debate within the natural hair community,” she said. “Some people say she is natural because she’s not wearing a wig, or she can’t be natural because she has this ponytail in her hair.” But despite the controversy, there appears to be a consensus around the view that wearing one’s hair naturally avoids using chemicals that change its natural texture. For Abina, this change began when she was just five. “My dad wanted to relax our hair, and he did it with DIY home kits,” she recalled. “We did not know what was happening to us, but I remember my sister and I were looking at the packages, and there were girls with straight hair, and they looked so cute, and I remember us saying, ‘oh, we want to look like this!’ But of course, we never looked like that.” In later years, celebrities like Beyonce and Aaliyah bolstered this home influence from the outside. “I mean, Aaliya, with her long Black hair, everybody loved it, right?” she quizzed.

But as Abina would soon learn, those influences of her childhood years did not happen in a vacuum. Beauty and professionalism are qualities that society rewards. But when what is commonly set as an example of beautiful or professional-looking hair is something that grows naturally on the heads of Europeans, non-Europeans are forced to make their hair European-like in order to fit in. In places like the United States, hairstyles associated with Black people, such as afros, locks, and braids, have a long history of being policed in schools and workplaces. But Abina reminded me that this is not entirely an American problem. While no one is explicitly told their natural hair, and by extension their natural self, is unacceptable, the type of appearance they are asked to keep may force them to compromise their natural hair. “They don’t come to you and say you have to change this,” she said of experiences in Germany, “but they will let you know what type of hairstyles are allowed. I know a few years ago, braids weren’t allowed.”

Given the societal pressures to conform, especially in the 1990s, one could understand why Abina and her sister were introduced to hair relaxers as early as they were. But the JONA brand began as an idea in 2011 when Abina started questioning the effects the relaxers she had been using for much of her life were having on her hair and was desperate for alternative solutions. In Germany, a common reason why many young Black girls struggle with their natural hair is they lack a care system for it. Many parents, especially those with mixed kids, do not know how to deal with their children’s hair, and training programs for German stylists do not prepare them to care for curly hair. “I started to do my research and found out there were no German things about African hair at all.”

At first, Abina narrowed her research to Black female Youtubers with long straight hair. “In Hamburg, I used to see a lot of girls with relaxers, but they never had this length of hair. So that was something I admired.” However, this admiration would soon be replaced by questions, including why it seemed so many hair products were exclusively marketed to Black women. “My research started to get deeper, and I started to realize, okay, there is more to it,” Abina recalled, “it’s not just the aesthetics or the beauty part. And I started to research the historical backgrounds because I was never taught.”

In Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America, authors Lori Tharps and Ayana Byrd chronicle the culture and politics that influence the ever-changing state of Black hair from 15th century Africa to present-day United States. There were robust Black hair traditions in Africa before the transatlantic slave trade. “A person could tell who they were talking to simply by looking at the hairstyles,” says Lori in an interview. “Your family, your tribe all had their own specific hairstyle. In addition, your hairstyle would be more elaborate if you held a higher place in society.”

But the transatlantic slave trade wiped away these traditions. As Lori explained, “the hair was one of these physical attributes that was very easy to point to and say, ‘Look at their hair,’ it’s more like an animal than it is like our hair. That’s what makes them inferior.”

A body of research, including a 2020 study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, has revealed that the colonial era view of Black hair as evidentiary of Black inferiority is still widespread. Bldayack women with natural hairstyles continue to be viewed as less professional and less intelligent compared to Black women with straight hairstyles or white women with straight or curly hairstyles. This has negatively impacted the ability of Black women with natural hairstyles to get or stay in jobs or, in the case of Black children, participate in competitive sports.

Alarmed by the disturbing influences of the altered state of her own hair and the health and self-esteem damages that it caused, Abina was determined to gain as much knowledge as possible so she could do two things: teach herself and others how to care for their natural hair and help normalize Black hairstyles. That determination has, since 2018, blossomed into a successful business and movement.