WHO INVENTED THE STRAIGHTENING COMB?

Born: Sarah Breedlove

1867-1919

Madam Walker was an entrepreneur who built her empire developing hair products and the straightening comb for black women. She claims to have built her company on an actual dream where a large black man appeared to her and gave her a formula for curing baldness. When confronted with the idea that she was trying to conform black women's hair to that of whites, she stressed that her products were simply an attempt to help black women take proper care of their hair and promote its growth.

With  decades and decades of improvements,  the hair industry is now at an all time high. Women spend so much time and money on hair, with BLACK women being the biggest consumers. A lot of the products damage our hair and some being very healthy for our hair...either way, good or bad, expensive or inexpensive, we'll try it.

There are so  many options out there now from braids, to weaves, to wigs, to ponytails, to perms, that is so exciting to see that so many of us are reverting back to 'our roots', being natural. It's almost like the same feeling I had when Barack Obama became president lol. . In my eyes it's a wonderful thing that we are converting back and embracing our own natural hair. The hair industry is a billion dollar industry, and as I mentioned black women are the biggest percentage of the consumers, yet 'they' (other races) won't let us in the business side of the industry.

Perms aren't moving off the shelves as fast as they were I'd say ummmm 5 years ago so now the hair care companies had to think how to stay relevant. They see that black women (again, the biggest percentage of consumers) are going natural. Well guess what? We need products for our natural hair. These companies are now coming out with a line for natural hair. I would've never thought I'd see Pantene with a line for women of color, or a natural hair care line from Isoplus....and there are more to come, trust me.

No one knows our hair better than us...There are small independent  black owned companies with there own natural hair products. We should patronize these smaller companies more rather than always supporting bigger and well known names......

Lata,

Chan, PJ1