Article: Karen B. Roberts Photo: Evan Krape September 3, 2024
For Black women, the process of maintaining hair can be difficult. To set texture and curls, many women spend long hours in the stylist’s chair or apply powerful chemical relaxers to their hair to achieve a smooth, shiny finish. These approaches create other challenges for Black women. This includes things like how to protect your natural hair from constant stimulation and processing, or when to fully embrace your natural hair.
This conundrum made Joycelyn Brown, a University of Delaware art and visual communications major from Bear, Del., interested in Black women’s experiences with natural hair. Were they taught how to care for their natural hair at home? Where did they get information about products and approaches to condition and manage their natural hair? Are the products and processes safe to use? How did you decide whether you could do it?
As part of her undergraduate research at UD, Brown surveyed a variety of Black women to understand their experiences with natural hair care. Specifically, we wanted to understand what attracts people to the different hair care products in stores and salons to inform our approach to visually communicating product safety in hair care product branding.
It’s a timely topic. The safety of hair care products for Black women has recently been in the news after a group of women sued hair relaxer manufacturers in federal court over potential health risks associated with their use.
With advice from Katie Leach, assistant professor of art and design, Brown spent time in local stores and salons, perusing hair care products and discovering how different brands communicate their brand identity. Compare and decipher.
Why did you want to pursue this? What attracted you to this topic?
Brown: I wanted to pursue this research because I am passionate about natural hair. As Black women, it was common for our mothers to use relaxers when we were children. This is to make your hair easier to manage. However, I was never properly taught how to care for my hair and had to teach myself. There’s a lot of information out there about hair products, but not all of that messaging is designed to benefit Black women, which puts us at a disadvantage. I love graphic design, so I thought it would be interesting to find a way to convey information visually using brand design.
