In this reported feature, associate editor Aiyana Ishmael dives into the long history of the silk press hairstyle and how it's shaped young women years after its first introduction to the Black community.
Jana Henson, 27, remembers the day she had her Mia Thermopolis Princess Diaries moment. She was 12, wearing a coral-colored v-neck top and a pair of skinny jeans. It was picture day, a monumental day for any sixth grader. It was also one of the first times she’d gotten a silk press treatment on her hair.
“A lot of [Mia Thermopolis’s] makeover had to do with the hair,” Henson tells Teen Vogue. “Yes, she was a princess but for me, it was the fact that she had her hair straightened and she hid it under a hat because she knew that's what people would fixate on. I was like Princess Diaries five times a year for exactly three days before I sweated [my hair] out, and the humidity got to me.”
Henson grew up in a mostly white suburb of Florida, which reinforced the idea that straight hair was more desirable — straight hair would make her more pretty. “I'm a tall Black woman, I'm pushing six feet,” she says. “I have a fairly deep voice and I played sports my entire life. So I grew up with this fear of being masculinized. That was the bullying that I experienced. So having that silk press was my last line of defense. If I can't prove my hair is long during those points of the year, if I can't prove and assert my femininity as a Black girl in this mostly white space, what am I going to do?”
In 2024, a silk press, or non-chemical straightening technique, is regarded simply as a beauty splurge, usually saved for the cooler months of the year. It’s a chance to eye the growth of your natural coils or to trim the dying ends you’ve avoided while wearing protective hairstyles. And while straight hair for Black women has always been politicized, recently; the silk press has gotten literally political.
From the moment Vice President Kamala Harris took that infamous “We did it, Joe” phone call, history was made; we had a Black woman second in command — and soon, possibly in the White House. She happens to famously wear her hair pressed, something that has become fodder for discourse — her hair now an inadvertent talking point for her supporters and naysayers.
“I think it’s so typical for hair to become gossip surrounding a woman of Black heritage even though she’s running for, arguably, the biggest job in the world,” 23-year-old Dinobi says. “I think it’s quite annoying being reminded of how politicized and policed our hair is. I hate being reminded that the way people treat us will almost always be based on our appearance and our hair.”
While we don’t know much about why the VP wears her hair the way she does (we do know that the "how" via a round brush), the conversation around Black women’s hair and regaining that autonomy predates all of Harris’s runs for candidacy.
Straight hairstyles for Black women have a complex and emotional history that dates back to the 1800s. For nearly 400 years, roughly 12.5 million Africans were forcibly removed from their homes and sold into the transatlantic slave trade. One of the first things that slave traders did to enslaved Africans was shave their heads, an act meant to dehumanize and strip them of their identity. However, in the 18th and 19th centuries, formerly enslaved and other free African Americans also found that non-Black people were unprepared to accept their hair and it was and still can be a source of discrimination.
“When it comes to Black women's hair, history has been both a guide and a hurdle,” Psychologist Dr. Afiya Mbilishaka says. “From the cornrows of ancient Africa to the complex relationship with European beauty standards during chattel slavery, hair has been a silent narrator of Black women's experiences. For many Black women, hairstyles like the silk press serve as a coping mechanism, a shield against judgment, or a balm for stress. In times of hair discrimination, changing one's hair can be a comforting ritual, offering a sense of protection.”
A “hierarchy,” now known as texturism, was thrust onto Black hair, with straighter hair thought of as more desirable. Emulating European features provided enslaved women with more opportunities, which is why many tested out varying methods to achieve the look. From covering their hair with bacon fat or butter to using lye mixtures on their hair, Black women did everything they could to survive — even if those methods left them with burned scalps.
In the post-emancipation era, many Black people utilized straight hairstyles to ease their integration into a society that subscribed to Eurocentric beauty standards. Before the silk press became a common practice, other techniques were prominent, like hot combs, which Madam CJ Walker popularized within the Black community in the early 1900s. While it’s believed the tool was invented in France, stateside, it was regarded as one of Walker's key business pillars.
“Walker’s desire to care for and style African American women's hair has been passed down for generations and is something we as a community still incorporate into our daily routines,” Tyriana Evans, 27, says. “In a society that does not prioritize the needs of Black women, especially regarding beauty practices, the process of getting a silk press is just one form of self-care.”
And while for many it is a form of self-care, it also still sits as an identifier. Dr. Mbilishaka says that socioeconomic status and education often intersect with hair and mental health in surprising ways. “Certain hairstyles are viewed as more ‘professional’ than others and hair discrimination and dress codes have been a strategy to eliminate Black hair creativity in corporate spaces and spaces of higher education,” she says. And while change is happening, moving away from that narrative takes a lot of traumatic unpacking that isn’t always easy or fair for Black women.
“We’ve historically been conditioned to believe that our natural hair texture isn’t worthy of special occasions, that we need to straighten it to look polished or fancy or to be taken seriously,” 23-year-old Tanisha Cherry says. “It’s like we have to be overly groomed. I’ve definitely fallen into that scam myself. I’m a natural hair girl that likes to wear her hair straight sometimes but that doesn’t mean I hate my hair or my Blackness. Our hair is beautiful and magical.”
The 2023 CROWN Workplace Research Study, commissioned by Dove and LinkedIn, found that, despite some progress in recent years, race-based hair discrimination remains a widespread issue for Black women at work. Black women were over 50% more likely to say they felt like they needed to wear their hair straight in a job interview to succeed and roughly two-thirds reported that they had changed their hair for an interview.
If this is how several Black women in America feel about their regular day jobs, it’s only gratingly obvious why a Black woman going for the largest job in the country would see an influx in conversation about her hair. But perhaps, it's also a moment to consider where this conversation sits now, especially when we are potentially going to see Harris sitting on the main stage of the world for the next four years.
Arial Robinson, from North Carolina, believes that generally, most people are coming from a good place when speaking about VP Harris’s hair. “But I personally believe we should have a greater conversation about respectability politics and what the silk press will mean to future Black political workers,” she adds. “Even if that style is VP Harris’s preference I believe that she shouldn’t be pigeon-holed to just that style because of society and the industry.”
For some, just having the conversation around the Black hair process be consistently demystified is great to see on such a national level. “I love how the conversation around Kamala Harris’s silk press is getting more people talking about hair care, especially with the fall season and the upcoming presidential election boosting interest,” Brittany Thompson says. “I’ve noticed so many people on TikTok and Instagram embracing the trend of saying, ‘I don’t use a curling iron; I use a round brush.’ Having someone like Kamala rocking a silk press makes it feel so much more relatable, especially for women who want to celebrate their natural textures while keeping that sleek vibe.”
Anele, 30, from Austin, Texas is one of many Black women who grew up getting relaxers. Before the famed silk press took over in the early 2000s — after scientists found links to higher chances of uterine cancer — she recalls getting “hit with the Just For Me” as soon as her hair could tangle. “Any other hair treatment was considered a luxury,” she says. It wasn’t until she was about 17 years old did she get her first silk press. Her grandmother paid for her to go to a beauty school to get her hair done. It was a birthday gift.
“There weren't many available stylists at the beauty school, let alone Black ones, so I was paired with a woman who — bless her heart — clearly had never experienced textured hair,” she says. “The poor lady was flummoxed. At the time, I had choppy home relaxer hair, so it was kinda straight, kinda wavy, with tightly curled new growth at the root. She kept calling over the instructor, who advised her to use the hot comb, and eventually stepped in to help so my hair would be done faster, explaining that my hair was ‘so curly it needed extra time.’”
The team of stylists rushed through her treatment — the school was getting ready to close. They ended up burning her temple with the hot comb. Her hair lasted two days; the scar lasted a few weeks.
Now, as an adult, Anele is strategic with her silk presses. She only gets them in April, November, or December, using it as a time to trim her hair. “I hope that young girls aren't being pressured into straightening their hair like we were, and are no longer getting bamboozled by the girls on the Just For Me boxes posing with fresh presses and not relaxers,” she says. “Instead, I hope younger generations are being encouraged to practice autonomy with their hair.”
That autonomy has taken shape in the last fifteen years. The silk press, while still a popular selection in the Rolodex of Black hairstyles, is just one of many styles after the natural hair movement superseded the use of perms. According to Mintel, things took a turn in 2008 with a 26% decline in relaxer sales. Perms once compromised a fifth of total Black haircare transactions. The natural hair industrial complex slowly took over. And the launch of the CROWN Act in 2019 helped shape how women began to view their natural hair.
The conversation around Black hair has been a pervasive and instrumental part of Black culture for well over 500 years and it's shaped our identities — forcefully and willingly. Whether it's the fact that it's the style of choice for the Vice President of the United States or a core memory from childhood, these days, a silk press is a conversation starter. Most Black women have a story or two about their first trip to the salon, the conversations heard, friendships built, and community felt. It’s so ferociously ingrained into our story that its cultural relevance will always be important.
