The thin paperback manual was among a group of cookbooks I had picked up at an auction. I bought the lot because it contained a copy of a book I already own called “Parasols Is…
Tag: madame c.j. walker
Hair perm machine leads to black female inventor
Posted in African American women, Beauty Products, and Hair
The monstrous machine with the painfully looking tentacles was the first thing that captured my eye when I entered the auction house. It looked like a lamp with a round dirty globe, but I wasn’t…
Vintage human hair pieces
Posted in Style
The sandy-colored braid and hair piece on the auction table seemed like an anachronism. It was in its original box and on the inside top was written: Mdme. Pauline Kohlerman Manufacturer & Importer of Human…
My black hair’s not kinky, it’s curly
Posted in Style
“Your hair has a lot of tiny curls,” the reporter said to me. Her name was Rosemary and she was a white colleague at the paper where I worked in Tampa, Fla., some years ago.…