“Hey Curlfriends!”: Hair Care and Self-Care Messaging on YouTube by Black Women Natural Hair Vloggers

Abstract

Black women with tightly coiled hair are faced with the unique health challenge of abstaining from exercise or other self-care behaviors to maintain hairstyles that are often expensive, time consuming, and conform with Eurocentric standards of beauty. However, recent YouTube natural hair vlogs have emerged to provide a counter-narrative on “do it yourself” hair care practices for highly textured hair. Through a thematic content analysis of the top 20 viewed natural hair YouTube vlogs, findings suggest that Black women vloggers demonstrate product selection through detangling, shampooing, moisturizing, and styling their tightly coiled hair on camera, using their own lived experiences, as both peer and expert to viewers. These vloggers took the role of digital storytellers to describe their personal experiences with self-care in the forms of exercise, eating healthy food, drinking water, medication use, and stress management while maintaining healthy and stylish natural hair. Black female natural hair vloggers disrupt the myths about tightly coiled natural hair and are credible conduits for the distribution of health information aimed at reaching large masses of Black women through sisterhood supported wellness.