I was a long-haired 4C natural at a time when being natural was frowned upon (1980s/90s). Kids would call me nappy, hairstylists would tell me to get a perm, and so on.
I always thought it was strange how the kiddie relaxer models had gorgeous, full, healthy hair, but most relaxed girls IRL had breakage, hair no loss, and damage, and could never retain length. Hence, why my parents didn’t allow me to get one.
So when I read up on this, the mystery was solved. These kids were actually naturals with press and curls!
These relaxer companies sold us a pipe dream.
Glad my parents didn’t drink the Kool-Aid.
Best thing about being natural is getting my hair wet idc
I never wear a shower cap, lol!
Same, I didn't even realise that they're unnecessary until I stopped pressing my hair.
Lmfao I got that rainfall shower head so I’m still a shower cap mami. However, I don’t worry about my edges getting wet anymore! 🙌
Sometimes wet edges help make particular hairstyles look cuter to be honest.
Yup! if my edges get wet, it doesn’t matter since they won’t revert, since it’s already natural. Used to be so nervous after getting my hair done that id ruin the straightened edges in the shower.
Every time it rains I smile. Thinking of all the times I had to wear a grocery bag when it rained or when I swam. Like I'm free to enjoy it.
Right I feel so free in the rain now it dosent bother me I do swimming and all sorts without fear
A nice misty day makes my bun shape look much nicer I once told someone.
Church 🙌🏾
The humidity that the grocery bags and plastic caps produced had to be way worse than the rain anyway lol.
Throwing out that shower cap and learning to swim was so liberating
IKR like I legit love washing my hair idc idc!!! I take great care of my scalp now with medicated shampoo and follow up with scalp serum; it's **chef's kiss**
Details, please ... 🙏🏽
Coal tar shampoo and Derma-E Scalp Relief Treatment! 💯
Only time I'm bothered by my hair getting wet is when I'm trying to get it to fully dry in the first place! Once it's set, rain feels like a little hydration treat
Just big chopped again, after living the straight natural life for a while and this was the #2 reason lmao. My natural curls are just so practical for me long term.
I had hair like this up until it was permed. Looking back Now, as an adult, I could see parents thinking "my daughter's hair looks like this, and a perm will make it easier to maintain" but in reality it just ruins your hair. Misinformation at its finest.
It sure does! And, it made Blacks girls feel like the only way to be beautiful was to be relaxed. Running away from pools, avoiding exercise, so ridiculous.
I’m so glad things are changing!
My 8 year old daughter doesn't even like to get her hair straightened. I love how much she loves her natural curls.
That’s beautiful!!
Yes! I think wearing mine out while she was growing up helped, now she doesn’t like straightening unless it’s once in a blue moon, my sister however, is not happy. She’s one of those, and whatever I guess do you, but she also doesn’t take care of her hair and damages it often. But she won’t take my advice because apparently I’m not feminine enough to take hair advice from 🤣
That’s beautiful. Way to go Mom. You gave her that gift.
Relaxers cause ovarian cancer so if you're a non-melanated mother research your products as a certain population of folk find ways to subtly poison the melanated community. This is fact research it on your own - relaxers and cancer. Also synthetic braiding just passing along information so don't take offense.
I am making an educated guess but just a guess haven’t done the research but the relaxer was created first to relax the hair of another ethnicity that was not Black who had very curly to coily hair. A group of people who wanted to fit in who did not advertise that they used relaxers. Probably created by the scientist that created early prescription drugs I may be totally wrong, only guessing.
But it’s the worst thing we could have done to our hair, and body. I see young Black women who were taught how to take care of their natural hair as a child no relaxing or very little straightening with a glorious hair down their back healthy kinky, coily, curly hair. So glad things have changed.
Love that for her. Way to go mom!!
I grew up in the 2000s and 2010s and my grandma tried to convince me to get a perm. She told me I can't swim if I do and I quickly said no and never got one up to this day. The risk just wasn't worth it to me (plus I enjoy exercise).
You know I have to say, my mom didn't have me do all that growing up. I swam, played, rode bikes etc. My hair didn't get bone straight, it was just more manageable for my mom. And I don't blame her. 1) she didn't know it was harmful. 2) She was single working 2-3 jobs, she just didn't have enough time to deal with it without the kiddie relaxer. It took up an entire night between shampoo and deep conditioning/oil treatments and styling. Would I do it to my kids? No. But I know better.
Now as a teen when I got the adult relaxer, I was running from water and I just decided to eff it and wear cornrows because I was in sports and got tired of trying to straighten my hair all the time.
Same. I have 3a,b and c on my head. Stylists told me to get a perm too. It definitely ruined my hair. I wish there had been a curly stylist around back then. So glad they are here for generations to come. Love your hair folks. It’s all beautiful.
I think the kiddie perm is/was the biggest travesty of the 80s and 90s kids. Not only did it cause breakage, but it also damaged the scalp causing permanent hair loss in little girls. I think the natural movement saved a lot of little girls from permanent hair loss, best of all they grow up with their natural hair and they will learn how to take care of it and style it. Not easy to learn when you have a professional life.
I'm glad these girls weren't exposed to that carcinogenic mess for the sake of the people looking after them making money.
We were bamboozled
led astray!!
Hoodwinked
Pipe dream indeed. I did get kiddie perms but my hair never looked liked girls on the boxes. It really affected my self esteem. I truly believed unless my hair was bone straight I wasn’t beautiful. But this whole time they were natural…unbelievable.
This 😭
Yup! I remember the rapper Yung Baby Tate coming out to confirm that she was a perm box girl and she only had a silk press 😭‼️
I had a Just for Me relaxer for the first time when I was 3 or 4 years old…
I had my first one at age 2 for my cousin's wedding 🫠 how my educated mother thought the damn chicken pox vaccine wasn't safe but put all these damn chemicals on my baby head is beyond me
Me too. I see those boxes and have war flashbacks 🫣
You were just a baby!
People just didn’t know it was so harmful.
Same here! I was 3 years old when my mother put a relaxer in my hair. The relaxer was Beautiful Beginnings by Dark and Lovely. I’ve spend most of my life getting relaxers from 3 years old up until I was 32 going on 33 years old last year. My last relaxer was April 2024 and I had transitioned for 8 months with the help of my current beautician. I’ve big chopped on 12/6/2024. A year later, I do not regret it at the current age of 34!!!! Best hair decision I’ve made!!! I love my natural curls and I’ve been wearing it in an afro (Wash n Go) since I’ve big chopped. I wished I’ve went natural when I was younger. When you know better, you do better. ❤️❤️❤️
I agree! And I’m glad you have a good relationship with your beautiful hair 🙂 everyone should have that.
I think mine had been stunted during childhood but once I became independent, I learned it was beautiful and I deserved to have my hair taken care of. I don’t have it all figured out, but there’s so much out there to help, like this sub! Now I can say , I wouldn’t trade my natural hair for the world.
Thank you so much!!! I know your hair is beautiful as well! ❤️❤️
We are definitely blessed to gain as much knowledge as we can from the Internet when it comes to natural hair and how to take care of it. Back in the day, resources and hair care brands for natural hair was extremely limited. I agree with you, I wouldn’t trade my natural hair for the world as well. It’s here to stay! ❤️👍🏾
do you remember that tape that came with it? with the just for me jingle on there?
Pisses me off to the core.
Same. I had a lot to unlearn and unfortunately I didn’t get to unlearn it until after I had permanent damage and texture change. Bless this post.
You’re welcome!!
Aint that some bullshit. I’m so glad to be natural as an adult, even if it took some pain to get here.
When I found this out from the (now grown) models on the box because Twitter was asking where they are now, I was FLABBERGASTED but it all made sense. My hair silk pressed looked so much better than when it was permed
My mom refused to perm my hair (and is literally a skilled braider who did my hair for me weekly as a kid!) but when I started middle school I thought the braided styles looked too "childish" (mind you I was 11) and I begged and begged to get a perm and she finally gave in. By 9th grade she convinced me to grow it back out and I still remember the day in 11th grade when the last bits of relaxer were trimmed off. Just the smell of ammonium thioglycolate makes my scalp tingle like I have chemical burns all over again. Now at 28 I wear the same "childish" braided styles I hated before and if I want straight hair I put on a wig!
The kicker was my hair was permed and then curled and styled in such a way to have "big hair"....whole time I naturally had big hair!!
I’m so thankful everyday my mom fought tooth and nail with my father’s mother to not relax my hair. My mom literally refused to let me go on vacation with them as a child because my grandma kept insinuating “well I’m getting all the girls hair relaxed and done for vacation, she’ll be left out” I didn’t even like my hair straightened as a coily child.
I wasn’t able to use the kiddie relaxer for that reason. I had the adult olive oil relaxer until my junior year of college when I went natural.
I kinda figured this cause i always wanted one of the styles on the box as a kid and it NEVER came out that way smh😭
Ngl this revelation slyly pissed me off, cos why did so many of us get sucked in 😩 It’s mad what these companies will do for profits- straight up lies. Glad I’m no longer a customer and haven’t been for years
A great friend of mine was one of these models, she was always natural!
The flashbacks I got from just the sight of these boxes 😭 I wanted my hair to look like the girl from the Just for Me one with the curls soooooo bad.
Little did I know I had natural curls the whole damn time and not just poofy frizz.
This photo is so triggering 😂😩 lmaoooo
Edit: I am biracial and got relaxers a lot as a kid. Damaged my relationship with my hair and my hair lol. One of these boxes lived under the bathroom sink for I don't even know how long.
This summer, I cut off all my hair and have been in braids ever since. I can't wait till it's long enough where I can wear it curly and funky again 🫶🏽
Lol sorry!
Your hair will get there in due time. Before you know it, you’ll be back here asking for tips on how to manage all the long, thick, and luscious hair you got.
Did they get sued to hell and back for false advertising???
I went to middle and high school with a girl who was a kiddie perm model. We’re now in our mid 30s and to this day she still has the most beautiful, healthy, thick hair and has never had a relaxer.
My mom used the regular perms for me because she knew the kiddie ones broke your hair off. We were a Hawaiian Silky household 😂
Same. I got regular ones as well and it was always done in a salon. My mom didn’t want me to have one but my dad’s girlfriend took me to get one from her salon friend when I was 13. My mom wanted to beat the brakes off her and my dad.
Rightfully so!
I know I’m an outlier but I actually did have hair like this when I had a relaxer I even got accused of wearing wigs/weaves constantly. That being said my hair only got relaxed maybe twice a year and I know there are others that’s did it more often. I had friend who use to get them monthly but I don’t know if that’s the norm or not. That being said never again, I hated getting relaxers with my soul. When I decided to stop officially I was 17 and my mother told me that I could get a relaxer or shave my head and I went to sit in the chair to get shaved. Needless to say she was very upset but it’s been almost 10 years since my big chop now
My mom used Just for me on me starting at 5 years old and my hair was still long and thick and down my back. However, I would get burns in my scalp because she used the perms for course hair and I still have damage at the front of my head til this day. I stopped perms when I was 21. Been natural ever since. We are blessed to have the products and resources we have now for natural hair care. Some of our parents didn’t have that and didn’t know how to take care of our hair unfortunately. I’m just glad my daughter has never had a perm and will never know what it’s like.
im the same way. i had a perm my whole childhood, had chemical burns, but my hair was full and down my back. i think it’s really genes and how you care for it.
Yes that’s true. I went to a modeling casting call for a relaxer box in 2008ish but they only wanted virgin natural hair models. (Never been relaxed).
Hypocrisy at its finest!
Fr. I was like well I’ll be damned (thinking I had a real chance because I actually used that brand relaxer).
Smdh!!!
I had really nice hair and then my mom drank the Kool-Aid by listening to my aunt. My aunt was the one who told her to take me to get a relaxer. I wish she had never done that. She even put the relaxer in a few times for me. The last time I got a relaxer it was done by my aunt, and I had a bunch of bald patches and broken hair patches throughout my head. I didn’t know this until I went to a natural hairdresser for the first time and she told me. It sucks when people push their insecurities on you. My aunt and mom were always insecure about their curly hair when I was growing up and they straightened it, so that’s why they did it to me.
Relaxers can cause cancer. I had surgery to remove fibroids. It's definitely not worth it.
🤯
I was on a box! But I had “texlaxed” hair. Looking back I don’t think anyone had fully relaxed hair like you said.
Just pressed out
We know
Ofc everyones experiences are different, but my hair genuinely looked like that after my mom would relax it for me as a kid, maybe it’s cause she didn’t leave it in for super duper long, but I have really thick hair and I look back at pictures and it was still super thick when I was getting my hair relaxed
Oof. My mom used this on me when I was 2 and couldn’t figure out why my hair fell out
I remember a model who was on a relaxer box in the 80s (Oil of K? Pressing Comb In A Jar? 🤔) saying she didn't have a relaxer. They just gave her a blowout. 😡
Wow I always assumed their hair was relaxed. I feel betrayed! 😂😭
Sadly, my mother used to KEEP me in perms (because she didn’t really know how to do hair and hated her hair; still does, honestly). My hair was a mess and wouldn’t grow much past my ears until I refused to get perms and started doing my own hair. Who knows what kind of damage years of it did to my body, because it certainly had my hair damaged. Shoot, I used to think I was horribly “tender headed”… but I think it was years of chemical burns because I stopped being tender headed a few years after no perms.
A shame what they sell black girls and women at the expense of our literal health to try to make us assimilate, knowing they’d never actually let us do that, anyway, lol.
There was a girl on TikTok who was the model for one of these Kiddie Perm boxes and she confessed that not only did they NOT use a perm on her hair before the photoshoot, she ALSO doesn’t even have 4C hair- She had 3b (or 3C?) hair and they just flat ironed it for the photo. It really is just false advertisement.
My mum just wanted something manageable. I remember having back length hair when I was about 5-6 but it was very thick and the difference in our hair texture made it difficult for my mum to know what to do with it all.
She had more dense curls and mine was dense but had the added weight to pull it down a bit along with the continuous downward brushing my great grandmother would do. I think she just had enough and wanted something manageable, it all came to a head after a comb broke in my hair at the hairdressers and then the relaxer came out...
I've texturized it as an adult but haven't for a few years now tbh because the damage just isn't worth it. I either cut it or just do vintage inspired buns.
I had a kiddie perm and my hair was fine. I would only perm my hair 2-3 times a year though. Perms from 96 to 2003. Washed weekly. Only complaint I had was that my scalp would flake easily but it does that in the winter when my hair is straightened now sometimes.
I got my hair permed at 14 and I've never recovered after 12 years. Ive desperately holding off on the big chop.
Dang no wonder cuz I used to wonder the same thing
My hair was so long it was silly before perming it. It was still long, but fragile. It was so frustrating watching other girls hair handle a perm well and mine was thin af..
I always forget about this! It's insane that this is the biggest scam ever. Was there ever any repercussions?
If there's one thing my mum did correctly raising my sisters and I is keeping us natural and teaching us how to style it. Crazy to think I wasn't always happy about it due to bullying. Even then though, I always had just barely collarbone hair most of my teen/young adulthood, but had to learn so much the past few years to bridge that plateau. I hope if I have a daughter I'm able to teach her so so much. 💙
It really is crazy!
I know a lot of relaxer companies are being sued for health concerns and false advertising of product safety, but not sure about the model issue.
They should have been required to disclose on the box that models did not use the product. The fact that they only hired virgin hair models shows how messed up their product was.
Not that my daughter has ever had a relaxer, or even really had her hair pressed out - but! my hair was super thick and down back as a kid, and all my mama ever used was Just For Me, a roller set, and time under the hair dryer!
Once my parents divorced, my dad didn’t know a damn thing about hair care. He started taking me to beauticians who thought my thick hair needed intense strength relaxers. Hair broke off horribly!!
Perms ruin your hair and contribute to fibroids!!!
I sure will be!!
My mother permed my hair herself from an early age. My hair is 4C and very very thick (thanks dad😫) I didn't have these perm issues that you speak of. I mostly wear protective styles now, I haven't had a perm in over a decade.
The problem isn’t relaxers, the problem is people using professional chemicals at home. I had a standing hair appointment from 6 years old on, the only person who ever relaxed my hair was a licensed cosmetologist.
That definitely was the case. Most Black families probably couldn’t afford to send a kid to a salon on a regular basis.
And, even a lot of hairstylists weren’t trained properly. So many hairstylists would relax edges first, put relaxer on hair that was already relaxed previously, and leave the relaxer in for too long.
That's what my mom did to me starting around 3 or 4. Relaxed root to tip every 4-6 weeks. I never had a chance😭
See that shit?! This makes me wanna fight!
Im 40, and a lot of kids went to my salon. And I lot of my friends went to salons. Im from a medium sized city in the midwest if that helps.
Im natural now, and have been since 2016. My hair stays healthy in either state because I search for good professionals. Yes professionals can mess up, I had that experience more than once.
But the alternative to a bad stylist isn’t me in my kitchen.
Professionals can also mess your hair up too. Ask me how I know 😭
I know they can - but I prefer my harsh chemicals to be handled by professionals.
Source?
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/black-models-hair-relaxer-box-natural-hair.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/16/1129368784/it-turns-out-the-models-for-many-relaxer-brands-in-the-90s-didnt-use-those-produ.
It was a big thing on twitter during covid. The kid models (now adults) would post the relaxer brands that they modeled for, and revealed that their hair was natural. Just basically a silk press
It’s been confirmed by the models themselves
That's not natural hair. It's not chemically straightened, but it's straightened. Therefore, it's not their natural hair textures. People want to redefine terns to make themselves comfortable and make them fit what they want them to be instead of what they are. The reason their pictures are on the boxes with their hair like that is because their hair wasn't natural, and it wasn't supposed to be understood as natural. The whole point was that it did not look or act or made people feel like it was the hair that grew naturally out of those girls heads.
Duh. They're born with that hair.
A lot of Black little girls could’ve had healthy long hair, if it hadn’t been damaged by relaxers. Long 4C hair is possible, if you take care of it. Black hair grows, no matter what you believe.
In the 1970s there was a relaxer called The Kiddie Kit. My friend had long ropey hair. Her mother put the Kiddie Kit on her hair and took it ALL OUT. Your 4C hair is NOT going to be silky straight, sorry! Love yourself.