Is Natural Hair A Back in the Day Thing?

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I see so many natural girls embracing their natural curls, kinks and coils these days, that I sometimes wonder if I'm going to pinch myself and wake up. Everywhere I turn, I see curls and fluffy hair -- on blogs, on YouTube vids, on commericals and especially in real life.

It's a welcome change, from the 90s, when we wore our hair wrapped, fried, died and laid to the side. Straight was the order of the day -- whether it was a wrapped bone straight like Aaliyah or the pump waved, french rolled and gelled up styles that ushered in the 90s.

Natural Hair Icons in the 90s
Not everyone wore their straight, though.

My hair crushes were actresses Cree Summer from Different World and Lisa Nicole Carson from Ally McBeal. They both rocked gorgeous curls, but I didn't think that my hair was anything like theirs.

I would have laughed at you if you told me that I'd have any kind of curl in my thick hair, which stood out in the stick-straight hair of the 1990s. I thought the only way I would get a curl would be to wear a wig or a weave. How wrong I was! Who knew I had curls that I could coax with just water, oil and gel?

Straight Hair Ruled
Maybe straight hair was a natural hair phase back then; after all, we had just lived through big hair of the 80s. Bigger hair was better then -- but those Dallas-like hairstyles were usually reserved for white girls. Black women wore Jherri curls, flips, shags and layered cuts,big curls, and a few afros sprinkled in.

The straight hair of the 90s was about as far away from the huge fros and afro picks of the 70s as you could get. To appreciate the styles we have today,  it's important to remember the styles of the past.


How have styles from the past influenced you?