Although her career as a professional hairstylist never took off, Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o still has a penchant for braiding hair, as evidenced by a video shot by Vogue Magazine in which she styles bantu knots and dreadlocks for some of her friends.
Disappointed by the African salons in New York, the actress purposefully learned the trade. When she returned to her native Kenya one summer, she asked her aunt, who owned a hair salon, to teach her how to style her frizzy hair.
Although she had already made posters, the idea of making money with braids never got off the ground. Once back in Boston, where the actress studied film and theater, she didn't have the heart to charge people for her services as a hairdresser. She did, however, refine her talent, if only by spending hours on the weekends doing free hairstyles for her friends.
The way Lupita laughs while braiding hair and talking about African hairstyles is more than amazing to watch. The love for her own natural hair really comes across in those 2.5 minutes. The care with which she makes the hairstyles and treats her hair is not only a delight to watch, it also conveys a message. A message that the Western world will hopefully finally understand.
Hairstyles like Bantu Knots, dreadlocks and cornrows are seen as exotic and unusual in the fashion industry. The rare times we see these natural, kinky hairstyles, they are created on models with straight hair because models with kinky hair like Lupita’s are rare in the fashion world. A world where models born with beautiful kinky hair like Lupita’s are convinced that they will never succeed if they wear their hair naturally. An industry that is hard on women anyway, let alone women for whom there seem to be only a few places reserved.
What people often miss is that as exotic as the hairstyles in the video may seem, these are very normal hairstyles for people born with African hair. Braids, cornrows and dreadlocks are the way Black people care for, style and wear their hair.
What companies and institutions like Howard University and the military fail to understand is that these hairstyles are not extreme nor a fad, nor are they comparable to a mullet or a mohawk.
Just as extreme as an afro is for straight hair, just as extreme is a straight haircut for frizzy hair. Straight hair naturally grows downwards, frizzy hair naturally grows at an angle. It is therefore unfair to apply rules based on straight hair to frizzy hair simply because the genetic structure is different. The African hair roots that have silently endured this injustice for generations are now paying the price.
An overwhelming 73% of African Americans suffer from what experts call “relaxer induced alopecia,” hair loss as a result of using relaxers. While Black babies are typically born with a head of hair, far more than other ethnic groups, Black teens are the first to experience hair loss. Driven by the straight-haired policies that are deeply ingrained in our society, many Black girls are de-frizzing their hair before the roots have fully grown. This alone should be reason enough to be thankful for this video.
Finally, the world can see natural hairstyles in a different light, hopefully creating more understanding and less stereotyping. The way Lupita shares her love for kinky hair and kinky hairstyles will have more girls writing letters like the one she read at Essence Magazine's Best Breakthrough Performance Award.
Lupita, who herself had prayed to God for a lighter skin tone for a long time, read part of a letter from a girl who had refrained from buying bleaching cream because she saw Lupita, the dark-skinned beauty, was so successful in Hollywood. With this new video, young black girls will no longer pray for smoother hair texture and will be much less likely to defrizz it.
The way Lupita chooses to wear her hair like a fashion icon, supported by the images of Vogue, is a picture that exudes black beauty. Lupita’s honest, simple words are as effective as her actions. Girls will be touched by watching this video when she hears the actress say, “What I love about the texture of my hair and afro hair in general is that you can create all sorts of interesting and angular shapes with it. Braiding tells a story. ‘Your hair is your friend.’”
Lupita braids curly hair
This article is translated from Natural Hair and Black Beauty; Lupita is paying them forward