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By Dr. Edward Tony Lloneau

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Hair relaxing is for the most part an Afro thing, generic viagra help but over the years has evolved as the method of choice by other cultures to release natural curls and kinks.  The methods and product formulas vary, illness but the end results are basically the same.

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Based on my limited research, I found that hair relaxing really began in Africa long before slavery in this country.  There were no chemicals involved, but was done with mud and clay.  Using the shear weight of mud or clay to straighten the hair then left that way until rinsed out.  This was generally done as part of a ceremony or other special occasion and also showed recognition to distinguish one tribe from another.  The French people also straightened their hair by doing the same thing with heavy petrolatums until the invention of the first flat and curling iron by the French inventor “Marcel”.

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It was during slavery in America that chemical hair relaxing began.  No single person is credit with the invention of hair relaxing, it just evolved over a period of time.  Chemical hair relaxing started with the old fashion “lye soap” that was used primarily to wash clothes was made from lard with crystallized lye added then blended by heating and stirring, then cut into cakes when cool.  This formula was ideal at the time for getting ground in dirt and grease out of work clothes.  By chance, the slaves tried washing heavy grime from their hair with the lye soap and discover that it left the hair straighter than before.

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They then found that by combing the suds through the hair that this further enhanced the straightening.  The problem was that they had no knowledge of neutralization; therefore the results were sometimes disastrous.  The hair would turn red, hair would fall out and scalp sores developed.  Later they found that by rinsing the hair with lemon juice or vinegar greatly reduced these side affects (neutralizing).

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It was not until the mid 1940’s that a commercially manufactured relaxer was marketed. It was used mostly in black barber shops and was nick name “The Konk” Black celebrates of the time were the catalyst that gave rise to it’s recognition and popularity.  The neutralizing was added to a shampoo and a black rinse was added to the system to over come the red condition. Base oil was added to reduce scalp-burning sense that time; hair relaxing has evolved and is now more popular in beauty salons then in barbershops.  The reason that it started commercially in barbershops was because men wore their hair shorter and was in better condition to accept the harsh chemicals.  The hair of black females was more likely to become damaged by relaxers because they were pressing & curling their hair, and the longer it was the weaker it was from this constant heat treatments usually every two weeks or less.

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In the 1950’s Johnson Products Company in Chicago, marketed the first relaxer designed for use by women.  It was a milder formula that worked slower but effectively for longer and somewhat weaker hair.  Here following is more information on the evolution of hair relaxing.

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Over the years sense the early 60’s relaxers and relaxer systems have been reinvented over and over again.  First came the NO BASE relaxer, then the NO LYE relaxer that were milder and less damaging to the hair, but still irritated the scalp and dried out the hair.  The No Lye relaxers did not penetrate as deep into the hair as sodium base relaxers did and had to be retouched more often then sodium.  Next came the thio-based relaxers that grew out of the curly perm market.  This type relaxer was first known as a break down cream, or rearrange used on extremely curly or kinky hair prior to a curly perm in order to render the hair easier to rod for the curl.  This led to the TEXTURIZERS that would remove about 50% of the natural curl in order to render he hair more manageable.  Other forms of texturizing were to use sodium relaxers with a lower PH then normally used in relaxer.  Next came the CONDITIONING RELAXER SYSTEMS.  Although there were no Organic conditioners in the relaxes there were conditioners in the follow up products that were a part of the total system.  Most notable was a method called NORMALIZING.  This was a system of applying a Keratin protein rich conditioner into the hair prior to the neutralizing shampoo step.  The purpose was to get the conditioners deep into the hair before the active ingredient in the neutralization closed down the cuticle locking out the conditioners.  This created a new level of softness, silkiness, and manageability and less breakage later.

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When hair relaxing first became popular, it was referred to as a REVERSE PERMANENT.  This term was associated with this service because for years prior to the introduction of relaxers to permanently straighten curly and kinky hair, there were products that were designed to put a permanent curl or kink in straight hair.  These were Ammonium Thioglyclate “cold wave” products that were simply referred to as Permanents.  So, when relaxers came along that were designed to do just the reverse on curly and kinky hair, they were just referred to as REVERSE PEMANENTS for purposes of identication.  The term reverse permanent soon gave way to the term HAIR STRAIGHTENER.  When it was discovered that so called hair strengtheners did not straighten hair in and of themselves, without a certain amount of physical manipulation on the part of the person applying the straightener, the terminology was changed to hair relaxers.

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