One of the highlights of recent years was certainly the item about kinky hair on @rtlnieuws, three years after my book, Kinky Hair What you need to know and more, was released. I was in Suriname for the Sabi Wiri Dei 2006 when Nina Jurna, international correspondent for RTL Nieuws, approached me about making an item on kinky hair.
The packed hall at Sabi Wiri Dei sparked the journalist's interest, but Nina herself also seemed to know a thing or two about "bad and good hair". Whether it was from personal experience or through her daughter, wasn't entirely clear to me. Nina herself has fairly straight hair with some wave and a little curl, but her daughter had a wonderful head of kinky hair. In any case, it turned out to be a nice segment.
With Nina Jurna
We went into the city to interview people about their hair. In salons, but also just people on the street. What's fun to see, looking back now, is that Sharda Moira Johnn, who is currently making waves as an international model with her kinky hair, also briefly appears in the video with her hair in twists. I didn't know her back then.
The segment aired on March 12, 2006. A lot has changed since then. Now I'm curious what you think of the segment when you look back. Do you think a lot has changed?
Relaxing, straightening, curling iron, wet or dry curly. In Suriname, women do everything to make their kinky hair as smooth and straight as possible. Because straight hair is the beauty ideal in Suriname, yet not everyone agrees with that.
Walking through Paramaribo, you encounter the most beautiful and ingenious hairstyles. Braids, curls, dreadlocks, straight hair, Surinamese believe that life has no meaning without beautiful hair.
"I have a different hairstyle now and will have another one soon, so I'm constantly busy with my hair."
At the hairdresser, people spend an average of twenty euros per week. With monthly salaries of 200 euros per month, that is quite a lot. Among Creole women, straightening and relaxing are popular. The original kinky hair is then smoothed with chemical products and curling irons. Strongly kinky hair is generally considered ugly and not representative in the workplace.
"I had two job interviews and they kept complaining about my hair, saying: why is your hair always so bad. For example, if you have long hair with curls, they always complain, which means you don't qualify."
Mireille Liong-A-Kong, a hair specialist and author living in America, is angry about this aversion to kinky hair.
"Can I touch your hair? "Yes, those are real curls, this is kinky hair."
The fact that chemical hair products are selling like hotcakes in Suriname because many Surinamese want straight hair, she believes, stems from the colonial era.
"It has to do with the perception today, all the commercials, all women have that really long, flowing hair. That's beautiful hair too, but it's not the only beautiful hair. Kinky hair is also very beautiful and people need to start seeing that."
"Well, I myself have rather mixed hair, a bit curly, a bit kinky, but my daughter Leila's hair is much more kinky. But even with small children, it's hammered into them here that it's not beautiful, because you even have people who will say that Leila's hair is wrong or even bad."
With her website kroeshaar.com and her book Born Natural, Mireille Liong fights for the recognition of kinky hair. That her struggle is starting to bear fruit is evident from the well-attended information evenings where more and more women with kinky hair are coming.