Hair Thursdays - Afro Hair? Don't Care!

Nandi is ready to break the stereotypes about afro hair. 

When I was confronted by the myriad of doll African American doll choices, one of the most popular options was having a girl with afro hair. Now I've never had an afro in my entire life. The closest thing I've had to that was having a friend with an afro. None of my family members have afros either. When you don't know anything about something, you're kind of scared of it. It's human nature. So I decided to bite the bullet and invest in a doll with an afro for the first time ever. 

"Afro" is short for "Afro-American" but this style is also called the natural because it doesn't require straightening out your curly hair or adding weave to it (... unless you want to, nothing wrong with that). During the times of slavery, most owned Africans would straighten their hair out to match their white owners because the white owners thought of their hair as ugly. And some people, hopefully of their own volition and not because of what the media says, still straighten their hair. The civil rights movement led to a "Black is Beautiful" phase. The afro was a symbol of unconformity and African pride. The afro's popularity waned in the 1970s before coming back briefly during the 1990s and 2000s where it stays somewhat popular today. 

I thought Nandi's afro would just collapse it on itself or get turned into a frizzy ball of hair. The afro is basically a bunch of curled hair tightly put together to form a ball shape. I would follow procedures of curly hair that American Girl suggests for styling or combing your doll's afro. The afro itself can be turned into several hairstyles: twin afro buns, afro puffs or even a triple bun style like Rey's (from the newest Star Wars). I tried the twin afro buns on Nandi for her Hello Kitty photo shoot and it was actually very cute! In fact, Nandi's hair has been the least frizzy out of all my fashion doll's hair. 

So next time you see an afro-clad doll at your store, don't shy away from it!