The people who leave Africa are also emigrating the haircut to other parts of the world. There are salons for African hair not only in Nairobi, but also in Baltimore, Lyon, Frankfurt, Zurich. Everywhere the same smoothing creams are applied and similar wigs and extensions are sold.

Black people who show their frizzy hair are still a rarity. They are thought to be drug addicts, political activists or, at best, for artists. When the black weather moderator Rhonda Lee defended herself in December 2012 on Facebook against insults of her hairstyle, she was fired by her transmitter ABC in Louisiana. When Bill de Blasio wanted to become mayor of New York, his campaign leader used the Afro-Krause of his son, Dante, who had an African-American mother to position his father as a progressive politician. Many commentators thought the strategy was risky as the Afro was still a sign of black aggression. De Blasio won - also because he had the African Americans on his side. When Barack Obama was the first black man to run for the office, the magazine "The New Yorker" published a title story about how his opponents tried to denigrate him as a terrorist. The caricaturist drew him in the Taliban cape with turban and sandals. In addition, Michelle Obama, with Kalashnikov and wild Afrokrause. Natural African hair as a sign of backwardness, crime, danger. Not only do the people of Nairobi think so, but many white people also think.


When young Africans like Yvette fight against this stereotype, it is not just about different interpretations of beauty. It is also about racism, identity and a lot of money. The African market for cosmetics and hygiene products has a volume of 8.3 billion Swiss francs, according to Roland Berger. By 2017 it would grow to 12.7 billion Swiss francs.

Yvette was nineteen when she first washed her hair herself. Three years ago. She had no desire to go to the hair salon every second week to make a haircut. Why can not I just wear my own hair? She asked herself. On a Friday evening, she removed the artificial hairpins, placed herself under the shower and massaged herself with water and shampoo the scalp - for the first time ever.

"The next day was the worst of my life," says Yvette. When she woke up, her hair was knotted and stood off from her head in all directions. She had never seen herself with Afrokrause before - except in the hair salon ponytail wig, where someone is nearby to solve the problem. She would have liked to go to the hairdresser immediately. But she had to go to school. The eyes of the classmates, all with smoothed hair, wigs or artificial hairpins, met like needles. What happened to you, did you get into the rain? She was asked. "I felt so unsafe," she says. "Is not that crazy? I was unsure because I was wearing my own hair. "The bus driver asked cheekily," Are you on the way to the hair salon? "When Yvette, a few months later, did an internship with a television station and refused to accept her frills like the other presenters A wig, she was not allowed to face the camera. Natural hair is not adequate for a message, it said. Nevertheless, she made the decision: I am an African, and I stand by!

"Everything I do on my hair, I can eat," says Yvette. She is standing in the kitchen and cooking water. African hair must be carefully maintained. Because of the zigzag form, the fat from the scalp does not penetrate into the tips, the hair will dry and break easily. Large cosmetics companies hardly offer products for natural hair, so Yvette has to touch them by themselves. On the work surface in front of her stands a small glass bowl. Coconut oil is hard at room temperature, so it first heats it in the water bath. In the liquid rinse from the supermarket it mixes olive oil, which is the most similar to the body fat, then castor oil, which prevents hair from becoming brittle, and for the scent of rose oil. From the refrigerator she brings aloe vera juice, which moisturizes, pours a sip into the bowl, stir with the spoon until the mass becomes creamy.

In the evening she will spread the emulsion on the hair. Then she will wrap a silk cloth around her head, because silk keeps the moisture in her hair instead of absorbing it like cotton. In the morning she will only arrange the strands with her fingers, instead of combing them with comb or brush. Because combing draws and breaks the hair.

All this she has brought to herself. She has watched Youtube videos from the USA, from Naptural85, Kimmaytube and 4cHairChick. She has read blogs, such as "Naturally Curly" and "Black Girl Long Hair", written by black Americans. "In the US, the trend towards natural hair is much further," says Yvette. "The African Americans, because of their history as slaves of the white people, are more intensely different in their identity than we Africans. And hair is central to our identity. "

The Afrokrause was the hallmark of the black civil rights movement of the 1960s. In his biography, Malcolm X called on black Americans to be their natural hair. The "Fro", as the hairstyle is also called, was central to the "Black is beautiful" movement.

Yvette finds it ironic that the best blogs about natural hair are written today by Westerners. But the trend is also picking up on Africa. The result is a movement of natural hair, a natural hair movement, a new movement of women. Two out of ten women in Nairobi now wear their real hair. Just like other African cities, in Johannesburg, Accra, Lagos. Men have it simple: they circumvent the problem by shaving their skulls.

Yvette's mother, a cultured woman of the upper class, has smoothed her hair for years. Until the seventies, most Africans had natural hair, as did Yvette's grandmother. Then suddenly new products came onto the market. First, artificial hair, which is braided as long narrow braids into the natural hair. Then wigs and extensions, hair extensions that stick to natural hair. And then smoothing agents. "We all smoothed our hair," says Yvette's mother. "This made them easier to maintain. We did not know yet how harmful the products are. "The new fashion was an expression of prosperity and modernity. Soon, only those women wore Afro, whom the regular visits to the hair salon were too expensive.

Today wigs, extensions and smoothed hair are no longer a question of the wallet. Everyone - even the slum dwellers - can do it. Women who wear their hair naturally do not do it from lack of money, but because they deliberately opt for it.

"The white oppressors have started the trend of smooth hair to humiliate the blacks," says Yvette. "It's a very sad story." Maybe she'll write a blog entry about it. From the 16th century, when the White began to hold blacks as slaves in America, dark skin and frizzy hair were regarded as inferior. The slaves punished their bodies by pressing their heads into the washing-bag. The soapy liquor burned in the eyes, etched the skin, but it still had an effect: it made the hair smooth. The blacks realized that their white masters preferred those of them who had lighter skin and smoother hair. And because they depended on them, they began to dive their hair voluntarily into the lye. This is how it is said. Perhaps it was also different. Perhaps the slaves, when washing the clothes themselves, have found out that the alkaline broth makes their hair smooth. Secured: In 1913 C. J. Walker, a daughter of former slaves, brought the first smoothing cream to the American market. Based on alkali. The product was so successful that she became the first African millionaire.