Mixed Race Hair? Stories? Tips? Rants? Bring it here!

[CurlyCap]

Hi All.

I was looking for a thread for people to post their stories about dealing with their mixed race hair.

Many people I've talked to think "mixed race" is some mixture of AA hair (4a/b/c) + other, but there are lots of other combos. I have a friend who is half Chinese and half French, and hates the way her hair is. She says it's too coarse to lie her mother's but too fine for asian hair dressers to cut properly. I'm completely entranced by her hair woe stories because they're like a whole other world!

I'm sure others have heard similar stories. Tell us about them! Share your tips/tales/woes!

I know that growing up, it wasn't fun trying to piece together a haircare routine with parents who set very different examples. It all eventually came together for me around 25, but I guess I got some interesting school pictures out of it. I smile when I see products targeted toward mixed hair, but the I also shake my hair because everyone's hair is different, even those of us whose hair is an interesting genetic smoothie.

I think my hair is an extreme example. My mother is asian (1c, f, i) and my father is black (4b/c, f, never long enough to tell). I tend to think of my hair as like my mom's but with my dad's curls injected into it. Both of their hair grows extremely quickly and so does mine. Oddly, neither of them have dry hair and mine is ridiculously so.

As I said in another thread, my childhood hair care was TORTURE. I remember many nights of brushing, upside down, in front of my mom who was armed with coconut oil and a boar bristle brush. It was awful because my hair was usually dry, poorly conditioned and under-oiled. But my mom was doing her best, trying to apply the traditions that had worked in her family for generations to a head of curly hair that was unlike anything she'd seen. In the end, my dad actually took over my hair care and that was interesting, because I don't have the type 4 hair he was familiar with either. Good times.

[misspurdy06]

I'm mostly caucasian and a tiny bit native american. My hair is thick and changes drastically with the weather. It always keeps me guessing.

I don't know if that counts as mixed race.

[honeydippedxo]

I am Hawaiian Black and Asian and I love my hair when it's long. Not so much when it's short. When it's long my hair is just wild and free, the way it was meant to be. When it's short its just one hot poofy mess. I have to use oil every morning just to look decent.

[CurlyCap]

I'm mostly caucasian and a tiny bit native american. My hair is thick and changes drastically with the weather. It always keeps me guessing.

I don't know if that counts as mixed race.

Sure it does!

I was trying to come up with a thread title, and "Is your hair different from your parents?" didn't do the idea justice. Sometimes your hair is like your Aunt's. lol

How does you hair change with the weather? Is it the humidity?

[misspurdy06]

I'm mostly caucasian and a tiny bit native american. My hair is thick and changes drastically with the weather. It always keeps me guessing.

I don't know if that counts as mixed race.

Rant....

My friend in middle school was mixed, she let me braid her hair for a while till her sister made fun of her.

After 3 weeks of letting her sisters friends braid her hair half broke off because they were braiding so tight.

Basically because I didn't have their hair type they thought I didn't know how to style it.

I just think instincts are important in haircare.

[honeydippedxo]

Sure it does!

I was trying to come up with a thread title, and "Is your hair different from your parents?" didn't do the idea justice. Sometimes your hair is like your Aunt's. lol



SO true...My older sister has super curly hair, I have wavy hair and my younger sister has stick straight hair. We all have totally different from each other and our parents.

[Badwolf]

I can relate to your hair experiences. My mom is white and my dad is black, and I think your description of having your mom's hair with your dad's curls pretty much fits what I have as well. When I was a kid my mom did her best dealing with my hair, but I know I gave her a lot of trouble when she'd try to brush or comb my hair. She eventually gave up and had all of my MBL hair cut off.

It's only within the last year or two that I've gotten to a point where I actually like my hair they way it grows out of my head. When I was younger I didn't really know anyone who had hair similar to mine, and no internet back then to find out what my hair actually needed.

[Orangerthanred]

I'm not mixed "race", but I'm very mixed of nationalities. My ancestors are from all across Europe- anywhere from Greece to Sweden, Italy to Ireland, Germany to Spain. My hair's crazy different from my parent's- my mom has fine red hair and my dad has coarse naturally blond hair. I have orange curly/wavy super thick hair. -_-

And I don't believe in "races".

[misspurdy06]

Sure it does!

I was trying to come up with a thread title, and "Is your hair different from your parents?" didn't do the idea justice. Sometimes your hair is like your Aunt's. lol

How does you hair change with the weather? Is it the humidity?
humidity, dryness, cold, hot

humidity makes my hair curl up, dryness makes it dry of course and static-y, in cold weather its stiff and hot weather really elastic-y (in a bad way)

Though the weather has had less of an effect since I am doing WO. My sebum has weather proofed my hair somewhat. Which is nice.

[hisprincess]

When I was younger I didn't really know anyone who had hair similar to mine, and no internet back then to find out what my hair actually needed.

Ditto! Both my parents are Black, but both have pretty mixed ancestries for a few generations, so everybody has a different set of curls. Growing up people always thought my hair was weird and hairdressers had no idea what to do with it. I lamented that my hair was "cursed" because I couldn't get it to grow past APL-- little did I know I was beating it up with terrible products and treatments, trying to get it to be something other than what it was.

Love my hair now. And it's funny that now I live in a Dominican neighborhood where I'm surrounded by people with hair like mine. :)

[CavySong]

I am so glad you started this thread.

I am the child of mostly anglo-saxon heritage parents with 1b-c type hair, dad mostly dk. blond and my mom mostly dark brown. Mine was blond 1c as a child and darker as I aged. My Husband, on the other, hand is mostly German/Bohemian (east-central Europe), with Black 3a-b hair even tho his dad was blond. Kids came with the following: Daughter, darkest brn,2c: Son blond 1c, son brown 3a, son almost black 1b, son blond 2b, son brown 3b. I had such a hard time with the 3's! seemed like no matter what I did, the youngest looked like Kramer from Seinfeld on a bad hair day.

I will never forget going in for a pediatrics appointment with Daughter and first blond son. A lady came up to me and asked if his father's hair was blond, as sister and I were obviously not I guess. When I told them that Dad had black curly hair, the lady bent down, tweaked my son's cheek and laughed, "Well, you're the milkman's baby, aren't you!" Que me with my jaw on the floor.

My daughter's husband is 3c-4a and his 4 siblings have 3b, 3c, 4a, & 4b hair as his mom is German/Hungarian (1b) and dad is 3/4 Af-Am,1/8 Cherokee &1/8 french? (4b). When Grandkids come, any thing can happen! I figure the more I know about all types of hair, the better.

[InTheCity]

Ugh, Brazilian med/coarse, frizz-prone, curly/wave hair (from mom) but German/white thinness (from paternal grandmom).

I feel like thinness is tolerable with straight hair but not with wavy/curly.

[Inchworm]

Hi! I am mostly Hungarian and German mixed with Asian and a tiny bit Native American. I have big hair with little spirals but my sister has thick straight hair. We look nothing alike, me blonde and her brunette so we always joke that one of us got switched in the hospital.

[Dragon Faery]

[I had a nice long message just now, and the internet ate it.] :(

My hair definitely qualifies (as does the rest of me).

I've got definite and indefinite ancestries. The definite, documented ones are German, English, French, and (possibly) Irish. The not-officially-documented ones are Iroquois or Cherokee, Scottish, Turkish or Spanish, Crow, something Asian, and African. Those last are speculation but definite possibilities.

I've been mistaken for Jewish, Russian, Mexican, Crow, other Native, part African American, and a few other things I don't remember at the moment. I think I could potentially pass for anything but Swedish or Norwegian, depending on the circumstances.

My hair is just as mixed up as the rest of me. I've found fine blonde, medium ginger and brown, coarse brown, and coarse black hairs scattered all throughout my head. The overall color is a dark brown that some people insist is black. In the sunlight it can look auburn-ish, and sometimes people ask if I've dyed it. When I was little the ends of my hair would burnish to a golden brown. Now they fade redder instead.

I have 3a or 3b curls on top, 2a to 2c waves in the middle, and 1b to 1c smoothness on the bottom. At the nape of my neck there is also a several-inch-wide lighter streak that only shows if I put my hair up in a high bun.

Crazy stuff. :)

[lizdini]

I'm caucasian with pretty standard "white girl" hair. Although my mom had no idea what to do with curls and would make me brush my hair until it was "straight" ie pouffy and horrible.

Anyhow, my friend is black and hispanic and his wife is chinese. I've always been fascinated with their daughters hair. When she was a baby it looked asian (fine and straight) then around two all of a sudden she had an afro (adorable!). Now at eight her hair is wavy and coarse and very pretty, if really hard to control. I wonder if it will change again?

I hope you don't mind me posting here? I know I don't have much to add, I just thought it was a good place to talk about my little friends hair.:)

[CurlyCap]

Ugh, Brazilian med/coarse, frizz-prone, curly/wave hair (from mom) but German/white thinness (from paternal grandmom).

I feel like thinness is tolerable with straight hair but not with wavy/curly.

Really?!

My mom has super thin and fine hair, and I'm so thankful for the curls because it keeps me from looking bald! When I straighten my hair my friends are always like "Where'd it all go?" and I just ::headdesk::

Do people really consider Brazillian hair coarse? I thought Brazil was one of those great melting pots. So many different types in one country!

[CurlyCap]

I hope you don't mind me posting here? I know I don't have much to add, I just thought it was a good place to talk about my little friends hair.:)

Why would I mind? :D This whole thread is about throwing these ideas/stories out there, and she's a great example!

I often want to ask parents about their mixed kids hair, but I don't think it's quite the think to do yet. I had a friend who was Korean and French, and she had beautiful light brown/blonde hair but perfectly asian features. It was so exotic. Luckily, her hair was like her mom's but blonde, so she didn't have any hair care issues. She always wore it to TBL, but permed it in her teens. Was sick of her "annoyingly asian hair". Made me LOL.

[VikingVampChick]

Irish/Dominican here. Dark brown/almost black hair, 2b, m/c, ii. Biggest pain in the butt when I was younger & couldn't have cared less about my hair. Love it now. I can handle the knots (almost non-existent at this point thanks to LHC :) ) now.

Mom's Cuban (I'm adopted) with 1a hair naturally. I would scream when she brushed my hair when I was younger. Love her, but I'm pretty sure she had no clue how to deal with my knotty mess back then. After the detanglings, it was fine. Until then...it's no wonder I would use up to 2 bandanas to cover my hair in high school sometimes - wasn't about to put myself through that. I'd had enough at that point for the most part.

[luxepiggy]

This thread is such an interesting read, although I admittedly have nothing constructive to add :o Don't mind me, I'm just a curious piggy with very sterotypical East Asian hair (^(oo)^)`

[xoxophelia]

I am tri racial (if there is anything more than that I am not aware) but I'm ~80% caucasian. The only main thing that is perhaps different in my hair is that I am more C than many caucasians. My hair texture is from my dad's side but I really don't know if it has its roots in the caucasian part or the Indian one. If anybody is curious my mom is mostly of European descent with some Native American and my dad is also but Indian.

I don't think I have anything constructive to add ^_^'

[Aveyronnaise]

I am half native Mexican ( with maybe a skosh Spaniard ? ) on my dad's side and then my mom's side mostly Scandinavian. He had straight native C hair and she had 2C naturally blonde F curls.
So I ended up with a weird texture hair. It's fine progressing to medium on the crown , there are also superfine pieces that are superkinky throughout, this gives it an otter fur like density and a tendency to tangle.
It also acts like curly hair but only has a body wave. It will also take on any texture that you suggest to it until you wash it again.
My only real gripe about it is that it is so 'messy' looking it never looks smooth even though it's straighter.

[proo]

British Isles mutt here with a bit of American Indian: can all this be the source of the frizzy fro-hawk growing down the middle of my head? The rest is pretty much stick straight - goodtimezzz.

[ladonna]

I'm half white half native american. My hair is very thick and on the coarse side. Since I was raised by my Aunt and g'ma who both had fine soft hair, they didn't know how to take care of my hair and so I went through life with dry frizzy hair. For some reason they believed that my hair wouldn't grow past my shoulder's, maybe this was because it would be too dry and break?
Now thanks to LHC my hair is beautiful at least in pictures, and it's so thick I believe it's meant to be really long.

[CurlyCap]

It will also take on any texture that you suggest to it until you wash it again.


I actually love this trait! Unless I'm trying for bone straight, my hair will take on any texture challenge. I know about changing, encouraging different curl patterns, and of course, braiding. Are there any other texture tricks you know?

[09robiha]

me me me!...okay so im only kindddd of mixed...mostly irish, spanish and british. I ended up with hair totally unlike anyone else in my family. Thick, Curly, very resiliant, grows like a weed...in saying that I ended up with skin colour and eye colour totally unlike anyone else (very very pale, almost snow white pale skin, pale blue eyes). My mum, who has olivey skin and straight hair like my dad and sis, always said i had irish skin and spanish hair...even i will admit i am an odd combination! I really love my hair texture tho even if it did take me years to embrace it..it makes me totally unique in my family and people always comment on it :cheese:

[noelgirl]

I get my thickness and dark color from my Mediterranean heritage (Tunisian/Portuguese) and fine individual strands from my Northern European heritage (Russian/German). My wurls are somewhere in between.

My hair is actually a lot like my mom's, except that hers is blonde (she's German and Portuguese). She sees hers as "problem" hair, though. My parents live on the east coast and have had a power outage for the past few days, so she hasn't been able to heat style like she usually does. Yesterday, she mentioned on the phone that her hair looked "terrible," and I could hear my sister in the background yelling "Mom! It's not that bad!"

[Altocumulus]

My ancestors are all from Eastern Europe (as far as I know) - Polish on one side, and Ashkenazi Jewish on the other. My hair is really weird though - I have a large number of hair types all at once. It really looks like several different people's hair, all growing on my head. The front and crown are curly, medium blonde and fine to medium texture, and then it gradually turns to wavy dark blonde toward the nape, except for a lighter blonde, mostly straight patch at the back of my neck. I also have wiry, coarse and dark brown hairs mixed in throughout. It took forever for me to realize that I get the best results if I treat everything as curly.

[RoseOfClare]

Im not mixed raced but am a British Isles and Euro-Mutt. My hair changes a lot with the weather and humidity. My hair could tell ya when it's going to rain n snow! It does weird things and collects static before a thunderstorm.

But the hair difference between my brother, sister and I is quiet amasing!

My sister has honey blonde hair which is VERY thick for a blonde... my mum and I call it more brunette hair than blonde!

My brother has dark ash blonde and his hair is so course and wavy!It almost has the texture of horse hair!!

I, myself have cool ash with the typical blonde super fine hair. All have same parents!

[InTheCity]

Really?!

My mom has super thin and fine hair, and I'm so thankful for the curls because it keeps me from looking bald! When I straighten my hair my friends are always like "Where'd it all go?" and I just ::headdesk::

Do people really consider Brazillian hair coarse? I thought Brazil was one of those great melting pots. So many different types in one country!

I'd love to learn how to style my hair such that it doesn't clump and end up causing way too much space in between (looking scraggly) but I'm a hair styling dolt.. Maybe you have a better method down. Glad the curls work for you though!

I don't know if Brazilians have coarse hair in general, but my mom, her mom and all her aunts certainly do.

[nellreno]

When I told them that Dad had black curly hair, the lady bent down, tweaked my son's cheek and laughed, "Well, you're the milkman's baby, aren't you!" Que me with my jaw on the floor.

Well that's just rude :/

[Avital88]

I'm a mix of (Eastern) European,South east russian(central Asia) and middle eastern.which gives me chameleon hair.. i can brush it straight for some hours to hold, 1c if i want but if i let air dry and dont touch it my hair is 2c, if i scrunch it i easily get to 3a. My brother and mother has more difficulties with it than i, i just keep on oiling:)

[Stessie]

[I had a nice long message just now, and the internet ate it.] :(

My hair definitely qualifies (as does the rest of me).

I've got definite and indefinite ancestries. The definite, documented ones are German, English, French, and (possibly) Irish. The not-officially-documented ones are Iroquois or Cherokee, Scottish, Turkish or Spanish, Crow, something Asian, and African. Those last are speculation but definite possibilities.

I've been mistaken for Jewish, Russian, Mexican, Crow, other Native, part African American, and a few other things I don't remember at the moment. I think I could potentially pass for anything but Swedish or Norwegian, depending on the circumstances.

My hair is just as mixed up as the rest of me. I've found fine blonde, medium ginger and brown, coarse brown, and coarse black hairs scattered all throughout my head. The overall color is a dark brown that some people insist is black. In the sunlight it can look auburn-ish, and sometimes people ask if I've dyed it. When I was little the ends of my hair would burnish to a golden brown. Now they fade redder instead.

I have 3a or 3b curls on top, 2a to 2c waves in the middle, and 1b to 1c smoothness on the bottom. At the nape of my neck there is also a several-inch-wide lighter streak that only shows if I put my hair up in a high bun.

Crazy stuff. :)

Reading your response made me laugh 'cause it reminds me a lot of how weird my hair is, as well. :P

My mother is Austrian and Croatian with thin, fine blond hair. [White blond, as a child] My father was French, Dominican and Cherokee Native with thick, dark curly hair. [Perhaps, 3b? Looked wavy but not poofy, when brushed out.]

Somehow, I ended up with curls, waves and even fairly straight hair, in some areas. My strands are a mix between fine + medium ['normal'] and my mane isn't very thick. Maybe, ii/iii. The colour is dark but it looks multi-coloured, in the sun. At a quick glance, it may appear to only be brown but if you look closely I have a lot of red and blond highlights. xD The ends of my hair get really light, as well, in the summer. :P

It's funny 'cause, I have two younger brothers and they both have very different hair, from mine. One has curly hair like my father's but it's a light shade of brown. Ash blond, in the summer. [He also has very light honey-coloured eyes] He's the fairest [in skin colour] out of all of us. And my other brother has medium to coarse pin-straight dark brown [could be soft black] hair, with hazel eyes. His skin is red-ish, in colour. [Very Native looking]

People can never tell what my nationality is. It's gotten to the point where I just agree to whatever they guess. lollz xD

/Wall of text

[Copasetic]

I love this thread! I am black, Native, and French-Canadian. I don't have any major complaints about my hair, but it has taken me YEARS to figure out what works for me. Most drug store products for curly hair do nothing for me.

[sbhonda]

My mom is a mix of English, Scottish, and various other Western European things, and my dad is half Japanese and German. My dad has incredibly thick, coarse black hair and my mom has thin, fine blonde hair. My hair is more toward my dad's side, but it's a total mix.

I have very coarse black hairs on my head that sometimes stick up because they're so coarse, and I have big streaks of finer blonde hair as well. My hair is also pretty straight in the front and very wavy/sometimes curly in the back. I wish my hair could at least pick one curl pattern. My dad's hair is somewhat wavy (as seen in one of the few pictures of him I've seen with longer hair (i.e. a borderline mullet)), but my mom really had no clue how to take care of it when I was younger. It got wavier as I aged, so she continued to brush it like she always did, and that resulted in some poofy-haired yearbook pictures. Thankfully, I've figured out how to make my hair behave much better than it used to.

[cmg]

Interesting thread! I don't really have anything interesting to add except I find myself nodding to most things Curly Cap says LOL For example this:

My mom has super thin and fine hair, and I'm so thankful for the curls because it keeps me from looking bald! When I straighten my hair my friends are always like "Where'd it all go?" and I just ::headdesk::

I have jewish, sami and african ancestry. To make this "worse" I have red hair :silly: (today it's white). Noone in my family had this red hair. Hearsay states that this trait appeared in the part of my family that is influenced by african genes?!? There might be some truth to this because my mom was platin blonde as a child but pitch black after 15. I have not met many elders in my family because of WWII so there werent that many people I could ask. Some polish influence also - they seemed to be dark blonde or brunettes according to photo evidence, this has not appeared in the following generations though. Most of my closer family have brown-black hair. I think my hair is closest to my maternal grandmom, except for the colour. I also have very pale skin, and being a head taller than my people these features raised alot of questions when I came along :bigeyes: but retained the black-brown eyes that everybody else had.

Hairsay, is that a word? LOL


So I ended up with a weird texture hair. It's fine progressing to medium on the crown , there are also superfine pieces that are superkinky throughout, this gives it an otter fur like density and a tendency to tangle.
That sounds nicer than my persian/spun sugar combo. And every hair wash is an experiment. Sometimes I wake up looking like an elektrified poodle.
(skunk/poodle/goat ; strike the ones not applicable this season)


My only real gripe about it is that it is so 'messy' looking it never looks smooth even though it's straighter.
Aha! Same here. That must be scandinavian then he he


People can never tell what my nationality is. It's gotten to the point where I just agree to whatever they guess. lollz xD
/Wall of text
Same here. As a kid I used to dress up differently in costume parties and carnevals and everybody thought it was genuine whatever I went as. When I came along with my indian friends they thought I belonged there too :smirk:

[SoulOfTheSea]

My mother is Mexican and my father is Caucasian, and it can be such a pain! My mother has straight hair, like 1c/2a that frizzes and poofs easily, while my father has like 2c almost 3a hair and thick, very thick. I got a mix of both. :o Sometimes it can be a blessing, because I love my 2b/2c hair when it's behaving, but most of the time it's a wavy poofball, thanks to my genes, lol. Love you mom and dad! :P

ETA: Also forgot to mention my mom has very dark hair, almost black, and my dad had blonde, then light brown, then dark brown hair, so I get a crazy combo of dark and gold in my hair. Genetics is interesting. I've heard that Caucasian and Asians are supposed to make the perfect mix of hair. But see, Caucasian hair is so varied, so that's a huge generalization...

[rena]

Well thanks to my Russian/English straight blonde mom and Native/African American curly black dad, I get uneventful brown hair thats very flat on top until it reaches what I call "the curly line" which is an underlayer of curls starting from the tops of my ears and downward that curls all the hair that intermingles with it. My hairline is just a nightmare, very dry and devoid of any kind of life what-so-ever. The sides of my head are tight waves, not quite curls. If I were to randomely grab a few hairs and yank them out, I would likely see a curlies with dead straights or wavies alongside them. At my temples, I have these tiny little blonde patches. Yes, super mixed up indeed :(.

[ktani]

I think this idea is wonderful,
http://crawfurd.dk/photos/blackhair.htm
"It seems the idea is beginning to catch on. The interest in African hair design has led to more international projects. Unions of hairdressers in Denmark and Ghana are now working together –exchanging ideas, styles and educating about the importance of organising, working environment and safe use of chemicals."

This is interesting as well,
http://www.terridaniel.com/AfAm%20Hair.htm
"In Africa they braided with coconut oil, and sometimes weaved in Spanish moss from the trees or animal hair to give it lift," Morrow explains.

As with any culture, it depends on where in Africa what was used. It was about availability. I like to look at traditional hair care that may or may not be applicable today, what was actually used back when.

ETA: Ochre and goat fat is still used by the Himba people practicing traditional methods of hair and skin care http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=37215

I like to look at the "source" the same way traditional Indian hair care has been researched by others, including me and applied here in various threads.

[ktani]

Today there are some interesting views and tips one can learn from other sources available too,
http://www.aleida.net/salon-en.html
"More and more North American women, especially African-American women, have heard about Dominican salons and they want to go there too, because it is really the same kind of hair – a mixture of European, Indigenous American, and African, just like we are! Dominican salons don't like to use hot irons or combs or strong chemicals for straightening, they have their own special techniques that are more gentle for your hair. For example, because I go to Dominican salons, I never need to have my hair straightened with chemicals or hot combs!"

[inertia]

I'm half Latvian, half Japanese. My hair is all mixed up. I put "1c/2a" in my profile but that's not really accurate -- what I have is an unevenly blended mixture of every texture from 1b all the way to 3c or possibly even 4. The majority of my hair is 1c or 2a, but some of the hairs are straighter, and some of them are MUCH curlier. Probably 10% of my hair is 2c or curlier, but they're randomly scattered so it's just frizz instead of nice curls. Most of it is medium texture, but I also have both fine and coarse hairs.

If I leave my hair natural, it looks like straight hair which has become frizzy due to damage. In fact, it doesn't feel dry to the touch and I get few split ends, so I'm pretty sure it's healthy. I hate that it looks more damaged than it really is because of the natural texture. But aside from ironing, blowing it out, or curling it, I haven't been able to find any way to make it look nice. It's mixed textures so techniques for both straight and wavy hair don't work. I'm frequently frustrated and often consider cutting my hair shorter so I can get it either straightened or permed. (I like straight and curly hair, but I don't want BOTH on my head at the same time!)

Looks like a lot of mixed-race people have multiple textures. It's a relief to hear it's not just me.

[Velvet Dreamer]

I'm a mutt.
Cherokee native, Irish, "plain ol' white," Japanese-Filipino and African-American (not sure what part of Africa my family is from). I'm mostly AA, but those other nationalities do end up making themselves known in my hair.
Thick, thick, thick, coarse hair with random superfine (like, newborn baby hair fine), straight strands. Tendency to frizz if I don't watch out, curly as all heck, dark brown, almost black, but it sometimes turns red-orange. And this is just my mother's side. I don't even know about my heritage on my father's side.
My hair is very short right now, though, and I've never had it longer while in its natural state, so I've no idea what it will behave like in a few years.

[VikingVampChick]

Irish/Dominican here. Dark brown/almost black hair, 2b, m/c, ii. Biggest pain in the butt when I was younger & couldn't have cared less about my hair. Love it now. I can handle the knots (almost non-existent at this point thanks to LHC :) ) now.

Mom's Cuban (I'm adopted) with 1a hair naturally. I would scream when she brushed my hair when I was younger. Love her, but I'm pretty sure she had no clue how to deal with my knotty mess back then. After the detanglings, it was fine. Until then...it's no wonder I would use up to 2 bandanas to cover my hair in high school sometimes - wasn't about to put myself through that. I'd had enough at that point for the most part.

Forgot: 2b on most of my head with a very 1(a, I think - straight as hell) patch of hair at my nape. :p

[holothuroidea]

I love how everyone gets excited to share their heritage, and that most people find that they are indeed an interesting mix and very few people have the same hair type as their parents. :) These are all good things to me, except of course we loose traditions of hair care but that is what this message board is here for, right?

I have my father's hair, but he and his family were not around for my childhood. My mom took care of my very delicate baby fine hair like she took care of her 2c/M/iii hair with disastrous results, especially with regards to daily washing and brushing. My hair was really flyaway and tangly from all the damage so she usually just hacked it all off and told me I'd never be able to have long hair. I am completely re-learning hair care now.

My DH and I have opposite hair types (he is 3c/M/iii) and our first child has a mix of ours (2c/F/ii) and I have a feeling that our second baby has inherited my hair as it resembles mine at her age (i.e. blonde, fine, straight, but mostly bald). I'm so lucky I have this board to help me learn how to take care of my first daughter's hair. I cut a lot of it off a year ago because it was really difficult to brush and would end up all foofy. I was devastated because on good days her hair was so beautiful. I saw the "curlies brush your hair" thread and had a complete AH-HA! moment and now I that I have been properly educated I can let her hair grow out again.

[pinupdancer]

Lebanese and Irish, not so much a mixed race as simply two very different hair types. I'm lucky, though- I adore my hair and have always gotten compliments on it. I have the sleekness of my mom's hair and the color and strength of my dad's hair. :) If only I could have gotten the waviness of my dad's hair, too. Sigh. lol

[RedBlue]

Not much of a mix! I'm Irish, German, Cherokee Native, and possibly Scandinavian. My father has black, curly hair and my mother has naturally dark brown straight hair. Low and behold, I have my father's curliness and my mother's color! My hair is thick, to the point where if I were to braid it and leave it without a hair tie, it would stay put for hours!

Since my sister and I have different fathers, people don't think we're sisters! They think we are related, though. My sister has naturally medium brown wavy hair.

I'm third generation German, my father's grandmother on his mother's side was born on a ship from Germany to America. I have no idea where the Irish, Cherokee, or Scandinavian comes from, but my mother says people would agree with her that I am most definitely Irish and German, given my temper! Which is wrong, I might add!

When I was younger, I would tell all my teachers and friends that I'm Native American, because my Nanie was! I didn't know, until I got older, that Nanie was my grandfather's stepmother!

[dili]

i am brazillian, and like most of brazillians i am very mixed!

my mom have gypsy,jewish and some portuguese heritage, and dark blonde- auburn (depends)wavy hair ( and her sister have very black hair)
my dad is mostly of portuguese heritage, but very possible some mix with african and native american since my relatives looks mixed and its brazil:p- he have wurly brown hair with reddish and golden undertones, and was blonde when he was kid, and his beard and body hair is red
i have curly brown hair with some reddish undertone, when i go to the beach it gets very reddish, but it became totally brown when i came to usa and stoped swimming
i got my curly hair from my aunt, my father`s sister have hairs just like mine, but my mom side also have lots of curly hair

[Jesabel]

Hi! I don't know if I exactly qualify but..
I'm not mixed race but there are many nationalities in my family history.. dads side includes italian, spanish (not how far down but my last name is apparently spanish) and welsh, where as on my mums side I have Irish.

The Italian comes from my paternal granmother (northern Italian i.e. tan skin light hair) but I have had many people tell me I look eurasion! Huh? When I used to straighten my fine hair people used to tell me my hair look like Asian hair haha.

Though in my teens I've learned to embrace my waves which my mother (with short, fine, oily, straight hair) used to brush out into a ball of a poofy mess and put hardly any conditioner on :o whereas her sister as the most course, dry wavy hair I have ever seen. Funny how hair is!

Oh and my boyfriend is Maori with a bit of Welsh so I wonder how our kids hair will turn out :D

[getoffmyskittle]

Like all of LHC knows by now, I'm mixed. :p

My mom has fine curly hair. My dad has coarse wavy hair. My hair is perfectly blended between the two. It's medium/coarse and wurly. Yay.

But supposedly upper-caste Indians are "Caucasian," so I might not be mixed for the purposes of this thread. ;)

[HappyHair87]

I am SO glad to see this thread! I find in most hair forums and other places on the internet, ppl say that, basically, your ancestors have nothing to do with your genes. Well, growing up...my dad always talked about the mixed heritage on his side (mainly Black and Native American, and relatives in Jamaica), my mom on the other hand is VERY light skinned and could "pass" for white, but she identifies as Black...which i respect, but after doing as much research as i can on her side...i discovered that there is Irish blood.

I didnt really get too passionate about this until my hair grew longer and i noticed that NOBODY...no living relative has hair like mine. My sister comes really close but i have the loosest curls in my family...AND it's naturally a chocolate brown color that lightens up to red on the ends (Irish trait? I don't know anyone else in my family that this happens to :/); Anyway...after talking about hair with my dad (lol we talk about everything :)), I discovered that I have his grandmother's hair who was half Native American (Cherokee). He always says that I favor her and that when she died, they cut off her long braid and decorated the chair she would always sit in, with it.

My mom's side of the family has 4a-c curls...my mom is a 4a/4b. I thought I would have HER hair when she went natural! Genetics are funny!

But i do consider myself mixed bc im seeing the effects my ancestors genes have on me. There's no way i can deny them. My hair is very coarse and wavy in the front and the curls get tighter going back. I have everything from a 3a/b to a 4a at the nape. The hair at the front will not hold its curl when dry and it grows that way! SO annoying.

My hair was relaxed from the age of 5 until 23...so im still thrilled to see my natural curls! :)

[Key]

There's a quarter of Haudenosaunee on my dad's side and small amount of Jewish on my mom's side. The rest of our descendants are Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English, German, and Russian.

My mom's hair is thin and brittle from medications, and would probably be fully gray (at 50) if she didn't dye it. She also curls it every morning so I actually have no idea what her genes are actually dealing her because it's so damaged.

My dad's hair is thick and healthy with no receding hairline (at 56) and it's still mostly dark brown, there's just a slight gray streak near his ears.

My hair is a lot like my dad's I guess. The ponytail circumference is like 3.25 inches and isn't quite curly like my mom's and brother's.

[Arete]

I'm half lebanese, so that's where I get my texture from, and my dryness from. I so wish I got the coarse hair that you can do anything to and it still is shiny and lovely that my mom has, but my dad with his Irish/English genes had to give me more medium hair :p

[Nadine <3]

I have pretty standard "white girl hair" My mom had super thick, course, curly hair and my dad has fine, thin pin straight hair. I got fine and thin hair with a wave. My brother got my moms thick curly hair, but it's not as course.

I'm just here because I find genetics interesting.:popcorn:

[Key]

I can't edit my posts yet, but I want to correct that I meant 4.25 inches.

[Kina]

My dad had pin straight blonde hair (blue eyes), my mom is 4b/c black hair (dark brown, almost black eyes). I'm split down the middle with dark brown 2c/3a hair (hazel brown eyes with green). Neither side had a clue on what do with my hair. My grandmother (3c black hair) always said I "fixed" it when I started taking care of it on my own. My eldest son has 3c black hair (dark brown), my middle son has 4b dark brown (dark brown eyes), and my daughter has 3c blonde (bright blue eyes). The joys of mixed ancestry :D

My ancestry is Spanish, Taino and African. My kids have that (obviously) but add in Mayan from their dad's side. There were a lot of ... interesting conversations in my house when my daughter was born blue eyed (my dad died before my ex met him). She was born with black hair, but after that fell out her hair grew in blonde.

[curiouskitty]

I'm half Japanese and half French. My hair turned out more like my French father's, I think. I have curly brown hair. Some of the strands are soft and more 'caucasian'; and others are more coarse, black and shiny like my mother's. Mixed race hair is hard and weird to deal with, especially if you live in Japan, where hairdressers are predominantly Asian and are only used to dealing with Asian hair types. It took a long while until I finally found a fitting care routine for my hair. Sometimes, I wish I had either one or the other parent's hair... I wouldn't need such a complex and personalised care routine.

[Hairkay]

I identify as black though there's mixed ancestry from my parents. Father's side is more recent with him having two white (Irish ancestry) grandparents along side African descendants. Mother's side is from way back, she's got lots of African descendants, Welsh, Scottish and Carib/Taino.

Father's family have 1 - 3 hair types. Mother's family appear to have 3c - 4c hair types.

[Hairkay]

Oh I'll add that people tend to ask me what I'm mixed with when they see me.

[gwenalyn]

I'm a Caucasian/Asian mix, and I got ... my Dad's (caucasian) hair! :D Fine and straight. It's dead-easy to care for, wash-and-go. It looks good whether I go to an Asian salon or a "white people's" salon.

I think race doesn't have much to do with it, honestly. Both my parents have pin straight hair, all of their kids got pin straight hair. It seems like people who had one kinky/curly parent and one straight/wavy have more awful brushing stories and had more difficulty with finding the right hair care regime. Does that sound right to anyone else? :confused:

[animetor7]

My mom is Jewish and my dad is not, and her family is from Eastern Europe and my dad's is from Western Europe. I definitely got the thicker Romanian hair, and so did my brother. But he stole all the curls from my mom's side! :p My hair is almost pin-straight, except for around my face, or right after it's dry. We both have piles of fine hair though. Does that count as mixed? I guess-ish, the Jewish question is always so interesting, whether it's a race, religion, culture etc. My personal belief is that it's all three in different proportions to different people, to me it's mostly a culture, but to others the religion is most important etc. etc.

[kganihanova]

I am mixed asian- uzbek and I have a mix of features. Bigger eyes, olive skin, black hair that is fine but thick. No one can tell what I am from a distance haha.

[chen bao jun]

My mixed race hair is behaving very well since LHC. I think the main problem for lots of people can be mom's that don't know what to do with it. Of course that happens to non mixed people, too, straight haired mom's with curly kids and vice versa.

My mom so had no clue and what was worse, was frustrated because being black, she had always believed looser curls were easier, so she could not figure out why my supposedly ideal hair gave her so much grief And frustration. So she sent me off to black hairdressers and their solution to everything back in the day was press it straight, and mine won't do thst. Plus they hated working with someone with huge amounts of hair, to them, they were used to a couple of damaged inches that you fried, curled and shoved out the door in 45 minutes or less (not th a t they did, they overbooked, ate lunch over you and kept ypu w a iting, but that's another story).

Anyway, after a lifetime, at over aged 50, I discover LHC and the secret is, benign neglect! (And leave in conditioner ).

Who would have thought it...

My mom loves my hair now and is my great cheerleader for grow, grow, grow...

[MsVenus]

I really do not know what race/s I compose my ancestry. I am getting a DNA exam done to find out.

[MsVenus]

I want to add that I have no hair gripes though. My hair is very easy to care for, very soft. No complaints at all.

[Hairkay]

My mixed race hair is behaving very well since LHC. I think the main problem for lots of people can be mom's that don't know what to do with it. Of course that happens to non mixed people, too, straight haired mom's with curly kids and vice versa.

My mom so had no clue and what was worse, was frustrated because being black, she had always believed looser curls were easier, so she could not figure out why my supposedly ideal hair gave her so much grief And frustration. So she sent me off to black hairdressers and their solution to everything back in the day was press it straight, and mine won't do thst. Plus they hated working with someone with huge amounts of hair, to them, they were used to a couple of damaged inches that you fried, curled and shoved out the door in 45 minutes or less (not th a t they did, they overbooked, ate lunch over you and kept ypu w a iting, but that's another story).

Anyway, after a lifetime, at over aged 50, I discover LHC and the secret is, benign neglect! (And leave in conditioner ).

Who would have thought it...

My mom loves my hair now and is my great cheerleader for grow, grow, grow...

My mother's afro was so thick that she used to cut out some in the middle and no one would notice. She'd planned to just keep her girls' hair cut to just an inch so she wouldn't have to deal with it. We came along and she decided she could manage so we didn't get a haircut. She left us to our own devices hair wise on a saturday to see what we'd do. This is when we were aged 3 - 6, big sis left hers out in a giant afro, lil sis hair wasn't so thick and just hung near her midback. I'd find a hairband and put mine in one big puff. I learned to braid or plait when I was 5. We never got our hair pressed. Grandmother would wash it, and but it into bantu knots to dry then style it into plaits/braids. It'd get mineral oil on slightly damp hair. Hair never got trimmed though when I got to my teens my mother said trimming 4 times a year seemed to be a good idea. Since hair was rubbing around the shoulders and back it'd break off in inch pieces so the length stayed the same and we rarely put it up. Big sis was taken to have her hair permed at 12. She cut it all off at 14 then returned to perms and still perms now. She keeps it cropped very short.

My friend has 3 a-b curls, she's African, she leaves it alone, no combing every single day and it always grows to WL then she cuts it back to her hairs and starts the cycle again. I'd always be restyling my hair fiddling with it and berating her for not combing hers. Lately I'm beginning to think that she had the best idea. I took her advice when she said to try henna.

[chen bao jun]

Your mom sounds like she was a lovely example of benign neglect, hairkay. and that she managed to raise three daughters with very different hairtypes without anyone getting to feel theirs was a problem, which is wonderful.

My mom had issues that had nothing to do with me. Her mom, my grandmother had probably 2c/3a hair, the kind of mixed race hair that really is 'easy' or at least, that you can use mainstream hair practices with with no trouble. My grandmother could brush her hair 100 times a night, never had it straightened with heat, never had a tangle, easy easy. She only knew how to take care of hair one way so my mom and her sister's 4c hair ALSO got brushed, very lovely 100x a night, got combed every day, was never put in cornrows because my grandmother not only didn't know how to do them but thought they were lower class--My mom felt very loved and says she loved it when her mother combed her hair, but she also didn't have any hair, which is kind of what happens to 4c hair when you brush it vigourously every night with a Mason Pearson.. and what she had was rough and tangly, surprise, surprise..

so she wanted to undo what my grandmother did. She attributed her hair being problematic and the fact that it was so broken off not to the wrong kind of care for it, but to the fact that her father was fully African in ancestry and that she had HIS hair, rather than her mother's mixed race basically Caucasian hair type. So she married my dad (of course she loved him too), who was the chiild of two bi-racial people and who you couldn't even tell was black and got to deal with mixed race hair, like she had always dreamed of, except it wasn't the sort of mixed race hair that she had had in mind. me and my brother's hair is nothing like her mother's. My brothers, she could cut off and just let it curl short, but mine was hell on earth for her.

I get seriously annoyed whenever I hear (black) people saying things that imply that the looser your curl is, the easier your hair is to deal with--it just isn't true. there are a lot of things to hair besides curl pattern and a lot of reasons why one person's hair is easier than another person's hair, no matter what race they are (and mostly the person who supposedly has the difficult hair just has hair being treated in a way that it wasn't created to be...)

[Kina]

2c/3a hair, the kind of mixed race hair that really is 'easy' or at least, that you can use mainstream hair practices with with no trouble

HA! more like different set of problems. Can't use mainstream practices at all. My hair is aggressive, temperamental, and incredibly prone to tangles. If I take a brush to it, it grows 4-5 times it's normal size, hates combs, which it eats and spits out.

My hair can be completely detangled, put into a braid immediately and will tangle all by itself.

It has personality, it has character. It is crazy and unpredictable.

[chen bao jun]

You have beautiful hair, Kina.

Maybe my grandmother had secret troubles with hers, too. It didn't look like it, to me as a kid. she did her brushing every night, and in the morning fluffed it up into one of those hairnets that older ladies used to wear, you know the kind, clipped on her pearl earrings and put on her hat and gloves and went out, after powdering her nose (she would never have worn actual 'makeup'). My mom used to wash it for her over the sink and help her dye it black--she kept it black until well into her eighties. Never a tangle.

Probably that wasn't because of the curl pattern though as because it was thin, fine,low density hair that never poufed, besides, never tangling. all the women in my immediate family have fine hair,low density hair except me, though the curl pattern varies wildly. I'm the only coarse one, I'm the only poufy one and I'm the only one with like, endless hair, as in 5 inch or more circumference. Maybe that's more the issue. (I take after my dad, very definitely).

I am NOT complaining, I'm just saying that it creates issues nobody knows what to do with your hair, because you are the only one in the family who has it. Which is what I think this thread is really about it, even though it happens to say 'mixed race'. People getting the job (usually as a mom) of dealing with a totally unfamiliar hair type for whatever reason (its not always race mixing) especially back in the day before the internet and other support groups when hair care was one size fits all.

[Kina]

You have beautiful hair, Kina.

Maybe my grandmother had secret troubles with hers, too. It didn't look like it, to me as a kid. she did her brushing every night, and in the morning fluffed it up into one of those hairnets that older ladies used to wear, you know the kind, clipped on her pearl earrings and put on her hat and gloves and went out, after powdering her nose (she would never have worn actual 'makeup'). My mom used to wash it for her over the sink and help her dye it black--she kept it black until well into her eighties. Never a tangle.

Probably that wasn't because of the curl pattern though as because it was thin, fine,low density hair that never poufed, besides, never tangling. all the women in my immediate family have fine hair,low density hair except me, though the curl pattern varies wildly. I'm the only coarse one, I'm the only poufy one and I'm the only one with like, endless hair, as in 5 inch or more circumference. Maybe that's more the issue. (I take after my dad, very definitely).

I am NOT complaining, I'm just saying that it creates issues nobody knows what to do with your hair, because you are the only one in the family who has it. Which is what I think this thread is really about it, even though it happens to say 'mixed race'. People getting the job (usually as a mom) of dealing with a totally unfamiliar hair type for whatever reason (its not always race mixing) especially back in the day before the internet and other support groups when hair care was one size fits all.

Thank you chen :flower: yes, no one in my family has hair like mine, there are a lot with fine hair, but none as thin as mine or with the mixture of textures in it. No one could manage mine either, I had to learn how to deal with it. Luckily, I did, for the most part.

Your hair is lovely :flower: I envy your curl pattern and thickness :)

[MultiCultiCurly]

This is a great thread idea @CurlyCap, and I identify with a lot of the hair traits you speak of. I'm a very mixed half African-American, half Puerto Rican. My mom's side is the African American side, and she herself is a mix, though it must go far back because its unknown. Her mothers side is dark skinned with 4b/c hair, and her dad's side is entirely mixed with most members being of light complexion with a range of hair from blonde to black 3b-4c and eyes from blue to green to nearly black. My mother herself was born a caramel-complexioned redhead and has freckles, though the red hair turned brown by puberty, and she has 4c (or so I'm told, I don't get to see her natural hair) hair and deep brown eyes.

My father is the Puerto Rican one, but that side of the family is just about completely Caucasian (basically, no one ever guesses they're even Hispanic). They descend entirely from French (paternal grandmother) and Spaniard (paternal grandfather) people that settled on the island in the 19th century. They are mostly fair-skinned with hair that ranges from "dirty" blonde to nearly black, 1c-3a, with eyes that range from blue to teal to green, hazel and brown. My dad himself had (he's bald now) black fine 1b hair, and eyes such a light brown they are just about cat eye yellow, I have never seen this eye color before in my life.

I was born a pretty even mix, light olive skin, medium brown eyes and 3b/3c curls (or so I believe). I have a medium texture and medium density, both right in between both parents. No one on either side knew how to do my hair except for one paternal aunt who way before the tightly curly method was a thing recommended leaving in conditioner. I couldn't follow the regimens on either side without damage occuring. My dad even broke a brush once trying to do my hair as a kid! My mom's side would braid it with "grease" when young, then as I got older straightened it. Lots of damage later I had to figure my hair out for the most part on my own, and it wasn't until I was 25 that I actually started to get the hang of my natural curls. Both sides are now loving my hair and are pleasantly surprised by my healthy growing curls :).

[*Wednesday*]

My mother is White and father is American Indian (Tsalagi of North Carolina, Cherokee Indians) and Black American. I have fine, loose wavy hair.
Nice to see the diversity of people on this thread.

[Babetriz]

Mum is Singaporean, with Malaysian and Chinese ancestry, and Dad is white as heck. His family is English back till something like 1490, where my many time great grandfather got banished from Scotland for something we don't actually know.

My hair doesn't do basically anything I want it to, but it can be shiny and pretty so it has that going for it.

I've also been looking for a thread like this since I joined so thank you Wednesday for bumping it!

[MidnightMoon]

I thought jewish was a religion, not a "race". Few jews I've met were blue eyed and pale. I also don't see how the result of mixing two hair types belonging to different "races" would differ in difficulty of caring than anyone else whose hair doesn't strictly belong to a stereotype associated with a certain ethnicity. Say... anyone's hair that isn't straight and fine, straight and coarse, or very wavy would fit in the "mixed race" category, even if they're not mixed. I knew the whitest girl alive (German) with thick blonde 3c hair, for example. You don't have to be mixed to end with a certain hair type.

[Sarahlabyrinth]

Well that's just rude :/

I thought it was rather funny. She was making a joke, after all.

[MidnightMoon]

I'd love to learn how to style my hair such that it doesn't clump and end up causing way too much space in between (looking scraggly) but I'm a hair styling dolt.. Maybe you have a better method down. Glad the curls work for you though!

I don't know if Brazilians have coarse hair in general, but my mom, her mom and all her aunts certainly do.

How could one make such assumptions of a country whose population alone is over 1/4 of the whole European Continent? Latin America is *much* more diverse than any European country could dream of. Not only is it a mix of European, African, Indigenous and Middle Eastern, even Asian people, but throughout the years different people belonging to these larger groups have settled there. Spanish "white" aren't the same as the German and Swiss who settled in parts of Chile, Brazil, Argentina... Aztecs, and all the smaller indigenous groups in northern and central America aren't the same as the Incas or the other less known indigenous groups. African slaves who were brought by the Spanish, Portugese and French mainly didn't all come from the same region in Africa.
There is not one single country in Latin America where you can't find a person as white as any scandinavian or as black as you can imagine. Some countries' average population is lighter, some is more mixed with native people, some have more blacks or mulattos. Brazil is definitely one of the most mixed ones, having a significant population of both black and white people. It's just impossible to tell what is "common" when you have so much of everything.

[Aredhel]

I'm about 25% Ecuadorian, 25% Spanish and 50% Chinese. My hair type is pretty common across the globe and different races but my sister somehow popped out with 2a/2b/C/ii hair. Interestingly enough, nobody on either side of our family that we know of has hair like either of us. :shrug:


I thought jewish was a religion, not a "race". Few jews I've met were blue eyed and pale. I also don't see how the result of mixing two hair types belonging to different "races" would differ in difficulty of caring than anyone else whose hair doesn't strictly belong to a stereotype associated with a certain ethnicity. Say... anyone's hair that isn't straight and fine, straight and coarse, or very wavy would fit in the "mixed race" category, even if they're not mixed. I knew the whitest girl alive (German) with thick blonde 3c hair, for example. You don't have to be mixed to end with a certain hair type.
I agree! I actually came across this thread last week but I wasn't sure what it meant to have "mixed race hair". Hair is hair, everyone's is different anyway! I mean people of the same race all have different hair types... :p

[lucid]

My mon is 1/4 native American, rest Norwegian (with blond hair and blue eyes on her side of the family). She has beautiful medium/coarse dark browon/black 1a hair - I wish I had her hair. My fater is 100% norwegian, with lots of very light people in his family (light hair, light skin, blue eyes). I have 1a F hair, of below average thickness, but I feel like it's pretty strong even thoug I have fine hairs, and I think it's because of my native American genes.

The thing I'm most happy about thoug is that I have brown eyes and that my skin tans esily and that I don't sunburn easily :D

[MidnightMoon]

Anyway... there's too much confusion in this thread regarding "race", ethnicity, nationality and religion.
Saying you come from a certain country today, specially in areas that have been populated by different groups throughout the centuries, that have received large amount of immigrants over the years, or that belong to very large countries won't give anyone a clue of your hair type or your looks.

[MidnightMoon]

I agree! I actually came across this thread last week but I wasn't sure what it meant to have "mixed race hair". Hair is hair, everyone's is different anyway! I mean people of the same race all have different hair types... :p


xD I don't know either... A person who ends up with say... 2c hair because one of their parents has very curly hair and is of african descent and the other one has 1a "white" hair is just as 2c as any other "white" person whose parents had 2c hair...

[Dark40]

I am mixed with Black, Irish, Indian, Spanish, and French. My hair's texture is very much on the curly side. I have to get it relaxed. So, that it can be more manageable. I love it straight rather than curly. Even though I do love both textures.

[Velvetbyrd]

I'm the child of an Native American mom. She is olive skinned with catseye hazel (yellow) eyes. She has long chestnut hair. Her hair is very thick and straight a little coarse.

My dad is scotch irish. But it's weird he to is olive skinned. His hair is blacker than the ace of spades and very straight. His eyes are pretty much black. Looks nothing like anyone else in the family.

Me, eyes greener than green. Skin the color of flour and hair brown going towards red. My texture is very soft and wavy

[ExpectoPatronum]

I'm not mixed race but my cousin is. I wanted to comment because her and I are hair twins - even down to the curl pattern.

She's African American and white. I'm white (italian, greek,and german) but we have the same exact hair. Just goes to show that hair doesn't follow race.

[Dwemeri]

I thought jewish was a religion, not a "race".

Huh? Judaism is the religion, Jews are a race of people who come from Israel. Judaism does come from the Jewish people, but obviously not all Jews follow it.

[MidnightMoon]

Huh? Judaism is the religion, Jews are a race of people who come from Israel. Judaism does come from the Jewish people, but obviously not all Jews follow it.

So you have to be a direct descendant from this "race" of people to be called a jew?
Also, how are these direct descendants "racially" different from any other group who has ever shared a territory/lived close?
Do they pass a DNA test?
What's the criteria to determine what's a "race" now?
If the people you are referring to are a "race", how many races are there on Earth, actually?
I thought being jewish meant you practice judaism, and jews were hebrews. Guess I've been wrong my whole life.
What's the proper term to call any other person who practices judaism but is not a direct and pure descendant of this exclusive group?

[MidnightMoon]

Anyway, my point is... humans are in constant change, moving from one place to another, mixing with different people, even our bodies produce mutations or exceptions without us wanting which can become a common trait with time.
I'm not even sure there was a time when one could claim to be part of a group and be sure you are the result of exclusive interbreeding. If it makes someone feel better, they can call themselves "white" or "black", but I'm guessing only the palest blue eyed blondes, and the darkest people on Earth would have that privilege, then, because if we become so strict in making categories, no matter how white you look, if you have dark hair you're not "pure".
African Americans are called black, and the child of a white person and a black one is considered black. Why, if technically they're just as white as they are black. But I can imagine how judgemental white people would be. They don't have a problem calling this person black, though.

I feel like I have too much to say, and it's probably not even the point of this thread. I just feel like the era of separating people in races is long gone. Maybe it's easier if you come from a country of (apparently) homogenous looking people, but once you've travelled a bit I don't see how you could make that concept fit in. There's more to it than "Europe is white", "Africa es Black", etc.

[*Wednesday*]

Huh? Judaism is the religion, Jews are a race of people who come from Israel. Judaism does come from the Jewish people, but obviously not all Jews follow it.

Jew is not a race. This is deviating from the thread. However. Jews of today descend from different people.

There are Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe which is 80% of world Jewry. Sephardi of Spain. Mizrahi (Oriental) Jews which are the ancestral Jews of the early Biblical Israelites. Bagdadi Jews of descendants of the Babylonian Exile which live in modern day Iraq. Persian Jews (Iran). Falasha of Ethiopia. Yemenit Jews.

Also, the early Israelites were a mixed stock of Canaanite people and other peoples of the Levant. However, no Hebrew race is in existence anymore as they have long been absorbed into the modern day populations. The term “Jew” today refers to people who adhere to Judaism. Has nothing to do with race.

[lapushka]

BTW, anyone follow the big hoopla Shea Moisture recently "caused" by having a "whiter" ad for their products while their *main* customer base are dark skinned ladies? It's all over YT because opinion after opinion keeps turning up in my feed. I didn't even like it much, and apparently their formulations have changed on a number of products trying to cater to a more mainstream demographic.

I am 2c, 3a on a good styling day, and I bought their stuff because it is so thick and moisturizing! If they are going to water down their formulations, I might as well stick to "regular" cheaper drugstore stuff. I won't have to shell out €20 a tub for their products!

[Hairkay]

BTW, anyone follow the big hoopla Shea Moisture recently "caused" by having a "whiter" ad for their products while their *main* customer base are dark skinned ladies? It's all over YT because opinion after opinion keeps turning up in my feed. I didn't even like it much, and apparently their formulations have changed on a number of products trying to cater to a more mainstream demographic.

I am 2c, 3a on a good styling day, and I bought their stuff because it is so thick and moisturizing! If they are going to water down their formulations, I might as well stick to "regular" cheaper drugstore stuff. I won't have to shell out €20 a tub for their products!

Yes, I've seen stuff talking about it. I learnt a bit about the brand because of this now. From what I've heard the company started off by the current owner's grandmother who was African/African American. She specialised in dealing with type 4 hair. Customers widely promoted the brand online making it popular. 49% of the company shares were put up for sale. Then they started a "breaking the walls" campaign to appeal to a wider demographic. Loyal customers started to notice the the formulas had been changing and it was no longer working for their type 4 hair. Products were seen moved from the "ethnic" hair care sections into more mainstream sections. Now came this ad. Many are saying you can have inclusion without erasure of the core customers.

I'm kind of intrigued that people could become so reliant on specific products. Some are say they are disappointed because the product was no longer "ours". I hadn't known that some would claim ownership of particular products except the actually legal owner. Some say the products still work for them so they will stick with it. Others are boycotting it whether it still works or not. Again there's the discussion about who is considered black or not. Some say biracials shouldn't be considered black, some say multiracial fitting certain descriptions (hair type, 1-3) should also be excluded. Really that's neither here nor there because it is possible to find people fitting all sorts of descriptions in all ethnicities.

There's also a brand called Mixed Chicks. I've heard some say it's for biracial or multiracial hair if ever there is such a thing. Others said that the name is derived from the description of the founders of the brand. It is for anyone to use as they see fit.

[*Wednesday*]

I don’t think they claimed “ownership” of the specific product more so than the essence of it. Products made exclusively for Black textured hair (i.e. 4’s), made by an African American company, people feel the product is personalized, for Black folks. My youngest son, his father Dominican (Dominican Republic) and he has 4 type hair like his father. I rely on specific product lines for him and would rather not an abrupt change in the product. Remember the time when Dark ‘n Lovely was the premier Black hair care line? You would not see any White woman walking into a store looking for those products even if they had thick curly hair. However, Hispanics would. Black hair care companies feel the need to adapt to more diverse hair types found within the Black communities. Many Hispanics will also use Black hair care products and today other groups may dabble as well. Companies want to make more money and to do that is to expand boarders and that’s fine. I’m not familiar with the company and its business model but instead of them changing the product (albeit causing upset) they could introduce a different line to “break down wall.” If they are doing well with the product and have a loyal fan base, why just change up the forumula?



I do agree with other posters, there is no such thing as “mixed race” hair. No matter the mix, hair will fall globally to some population. However, I do think the term “mixed hair” is more so with Mulattoes (half black/white), in my opinion. The reason I say that is that is because one extreme is soft European to more course Sub-Saharan. The mixture of those two groups can produce a child with softer looser hair to practically tightly coiled hair or anywhere in between. As far as “who is Black” is an intri-racial issue that has been around a very long time since slavery. It has been detrimental and hurtful. When those issues came up in the Black community it’s to hurt someone else. I understand Black women may not see me at ¼ Black as “black” as her in race and may feel the need to distance from me when it comes to “I’m the real Black woman” attitude. When they need power in numbers, then I’m counted. We “mixies” play the games at times. It’s all good.

[lapushka]

Yes, I've seen stuff talking about it. I learnt a bit about the brand because of this now. From what I've heard the company started off by the current owner's grandmother who was African/African American. She specialised in dealing with type 4 hair. Customers widely promoted the brand online making it popular. 49% of the company shares were put up for sale. Then they started a "breaking the walls" campaign to appeal to a wider demographic. Loyal customers started to notice the the formulas had been changing and it was no longer working for their type 4 hair. Products were seen moved from the "ethnic" hair care sections into more mainstream sections. Now came this ad. Many are saying you can have inclusion without erasure of the core customers.

I'm kind of intrigued that people could become so reliant on specific products. Some are say they are disappointed because the product was no longer "ours". I hadn't known that some would claim ownership of particular products except the actually legal owner. Some say the products still work for them so they will stick with it. Others are boycotting it whether it still works or not. Again there's the discussion about who is considered black or not. Some say biracials shouldn't be considered black, some say multiracial fitting certain descriptions (hair type, 1-3) should also be excluded. Really that's neither here nor there because it is possible to find people fitting all sorts of descriptions in all ethnicities.

I have quite a few tubs of the curl enhancing smoothie and the frizz-taming smoothie (due to a glitch at curlmart a while ago, I got the bulk packages shipped to me instead), so I have the old formula of it for a while still, so I don't have to repurchase for a while yet. Long enough to see where this is all going. But after that? I need a lot of moisture and *thick* rich conditioners and stylers. I do have F hair, but my lengths get quite dry after my sulfate wash. I love how my hair detangles without tangles with thicker and more moisturizing stuff - which is why I loved them.

[Babetriz]

I think a lot of "mixed race hair" issues arise from parents not knowing how to deal with their kids hair because it is so different than either parent, and that kid not knowing how to deal with the specific issues arising from say, having 3a hair when they are being told how to deal with 1a and 4c hair.

@MidnightMoon yes, there are issues with race as a classifier, but its like saying that statements like "black people are more prone to sickle cell disease" and "White people are more likely to be lactose tolerant as adults" are racist. Sure, they are broad generalisations, but it is true that sub Saharan populations have genes that predispose them to sickle cell and north europeans drank milk for such a long time the gene for lactase production is kept into adulthood (something called neotony--childhood traits kept into adulthood). And I know specifically with the latter one, my very white, English grandparents buy us milk whenever we visit and don't understand why I don't drink it. Since my mum is Asian and didn't pass on the gene for lactase, my body kills me when I have lactose, and I'm seventeen, while my grandparents can digest it just fine..

That was a bit of a long ramble, but basically, yes, as a classifier in terms of "them versus us" mentality, race is a little bit silly and archaic. But in terms of genetics, race (basically all your genetic history) is pretty important as a way of dealing with specific things your body throws at you, which includes your hair.

[MidnightMoon]

Babetriz I'm not addressing the issue saying talking about races is racist. I'm saying these days there are too many parts of the world where the majority of the population definitely does not fit into one race, that are the result of too much mixing and you can't separate them in "races", and this is what will be happening from now on even in parts that aren't used to this. I lived in Latin America, so not separating people into races is what's most natural to me. Some are lighter, some are darker, but it would prove an almost impossible task to find someone there who isn't the result of the mix of "white" Europeans (and I use quotes because I don't consider Spaniards, Italians and Portuguese "as white" as Germans or scandinavians, for example), natives (of different civilisations), people from different parts of Africa, and in some parts with a significant amount of Asian/Middle Eastern descent.

[MidnightMoon]

If you take me as an example, I don't think "tracing" my DNA would lead to anything useful. My own mom, who is Russian, and would probably be called "white", specially by people who have no idea that Russia isn't all blonde blue eyed folk considers russians to have been influenced by the Mongol empire.
Where you you fit the people of Kazakhstan, Tatarstan, Kyrgystan, etc.?

The genetic issue sounds more like it has to do with the same people breeding among each other for too long, not race. I don't think if you took a group of those "white" people and expose them for thousands of years to a certain type of meal they would stay the same? Of course I don't know much about genetics, but I still don't understand how you'd fit even those people from the countries I mentioned above in a "race". "Average" people from these countries look more different from an average say Japanese than mixed african americans heavily mixed with Europeans do from white, yet you'd pile them up as "asian".

[Babetriz]

oh yes, of course that is true, but I think it is a little different when someone is the product of two radically different, genetically distinct lines. Like, yes, in LA there are going to be people with NA, Spanish, African, and others from both lines, and they are the "mutts" or F whatever hybrids in terms of genetics. Someone like me, where my mother is very distinctly Asian and can't find a non Asian ancestor for as long as we know, and my father is just as white, is mixed and very obviously so (an F1 hybrid). Some of it has to do with general innate hair qualities (like for instance, every North/Northeast Asian I have ever met has had hair from 1a to at most 2a, and the most wave I've seen is a half Vietnamese girl who has I think 2b,2c hair. A lot of Indian/Southeast asians have very wavy hair, which is also very very thick. Stuff like that) which can change if you are "Pure" whatever vs mixed with something else.

[Babetriz]

Also, sometimes race has a lot to do with ethnic/cultural background. Frida Kahlo, for instance, was immensely proud of her Mesoamerican heritage, sometimes ignoring her European (I think it was German?) ancestry. I think she just identified as native, not mixed, but I may be wrong about that.

[daywalker]

I would like to revive this thread, as I joined recently just to get advice/sympathy on having "mixed" hair. I didn't fill out my hair type in my profile because I have more than 4 types.

I am half hispanic, half white and have struggled my whole life with my hair that ranges from 1c to 4a in pattern and from spiderweb fine to coarse in texture. I have types of hair that are alike in the same area of my head, and also areas that are mixes of types. Growing up every family member from both sides of the family would try and fail to make it "look decent". Random strangers would accuse me of being "nasty" or "messy" due to my crazy hair. Even worse was the commentary from my family about my skin tone and hair. I was "too white" for the latino side of my family and "too ethnic" for the white side.
Thank God I found this forum almost 10 years ago and got some good ideas. I have constantly evolved the techniques and products I use for my hair as it has changed over the years. It looks better every year and I finally decided to stop getting frustrated and cutting it all off. But I still am working on it and would appreciate ways to handle hair that is straight/wavy/curly all in one! I would like to make it to hip length.

[MidnightMoon]

"Hispanic" is not a "race". Spaniards are hispanic. Mexicans are hispanic. So are Argentinians, Cubans, you name it. Theres people with straight hair and fair skin in every single one of the "hispanic" countries. Be specific and adress your hair type by what it is. There isn't a particular hair type for people who speak Spanish, let alone in Latin America, where every single country has people ranging from the palest person alive to the darkest shade and curliest hair. This whole "race" talk and misconceptions are getting boring...

[Ophidian]

MidnightMoon, I think self-identification is important. I understand that there are plenty of arguments that can be made about what race is and is not but for all intents and purposes this thread appears to have been created to provide a place for those who identify themselves as mixed race to talk about hair issues and experiences that they attribute to being mixed race however they define that.

[MidnightMoon]

Hispanic is not a "race" no matter how imaginative you decide to be. The equivalent would be to say every English speaking person belongs to one "race". It has nothing do, one thing with the other.
First, there are "white" hispanic people, it's not a mutually exclusive condition. Second, judging by the texture she attributes to her "non white" parent, I could argue it's not even what people ignorant of the actual meaning of hispanic would define as such, given that 4 type hair would imply being of african descent, not "Mexican", with pin straight hair or a few waves. (I mention Mexican because some people seriously seem to think the only Spanish speaking country in LA is Mexico, that everybody in Mexico looks the same, and everybody in LA looks the same).
In another thread it has been explained why talking about "races" is imprecise, and inadequate, so I won't repeat that, but even if you choose to stick to these archaic syereotyping and characterisation, define it by actual terms or "race", not terms that reference culture and language. Even if some can't picture how there can be "white" people in Latin America (haven't opened a book or whatched tv in their lives, apparently), you'd surely think of Spain as a "white" country. It's in Europe. Spain=Hispania.

I will add, though, I'd love to see a chart stating the specific skin shade, face proportions, height, etc. at which one begins belonging to each race. Because if we're talkig races here, anybody whose hair isn't 4c and the darkest shade, or pin straight blonde, blue eyes is is mixed in my book. What makes you know how "white" or not is someone. You'd have a hard time finding someone who's not mixed, actually. Do as you wish.

[diddiedaisy]

Personally I think politics should stop hijacking threads in which people are asking for advice re their hair.

[MidnightMoon]

Was anyone discussing politics here? Maybe practice some reading comprehension...

[diddiedaisy]

Was anyone discussing politics here? Maybe practice some reading comprehension...
I don't need to thankyou. You keep going on about the meaning of "race", if you don't see that discussion as political maybe you should comprehend what the term political means.

[MidnightMoon]

Well, you're free to go on with your misconceptions and wrong use of terms, if you wish. I'd be thankful to learn something, but to each their own :lol:
Still can't see what politics have to do with what I said, but I'm done explaining.

[diddiedaisy]

I haven't told you what my views on the term race are, therefore you can not tell me I am using it in the wrong way. In fact, I have never discussed my "race" nor anybody else's "race" on this forum.

However, it is not your job nor place to tell people who are identifying themselves as mixed race that they are wrong. We all know it is an ambiguous term, and it doesn't need policing on a hair forum.

By the way, I have four mixed raced children. And yes I do personally use that term as it is easily understood by everyone to mean mixed heritage.

These types of discussion on the mane forum lead to people feeling uncomfortable to post, it causes bad feeling and arguments and it is often a thread killer.

I also suggest you learn something about what the term politics means.

We'll leave it at that with hopefully no bad feeling. :)

[lisamt]

I would like to revive this thread, as I joined recently just to get advice/sympathy on having "mixed" hair. I didn't fill out my hair type in my profile because I have more than 4 types.

I am half hispanic, half white and have struggled my whole life with my hair that ranges from 1c to 4a in pattern and from spiderweb fine to coarse in texture. I have types of hair that are alike in the same area of my head, and also areas that are mixes of types. Growing up every family member from both sides of the family would try and fail to make it "look decent". Random strangers would accuse me of being "nasty" or "messy" due to my crazy hair. Even worse was the commentary from my family about my skin tone and hair. I was "too white" for the latino side of my family and "too ethnic" for the white side.
Thank God I found this forum almost 10 years ago and got some good ideas. I have constantly evolved the techniques and products I use for my hair as it has changed over the years. It looks better every year and I finally decided to stop getting frustrated and cutting it all off. But I still am working on it and would appreciate ways to handle hair that is straight/wavy/curly all in one! I would like to make it to hip length.

hey, we have a similar story with very different hair! I'm half mexican (mom's side) and half white (dad's side). my mom doesn't have the stereotypical "mexican" appearance she's a bit lighter than would be expected and her hair is a strong 2c, thick, and super coarse. we're not exactly sure of my dad's heritage, but he's white, with light, baby fine, 1a-1b. The thing is, my hair is almost the exact same as my mom's, but I physically look like my dad. I always felt like I fit in better with my mom's side of the family, but at the same time, I wasn't as dark as them, and I have "european" facial features. but I didn't fit in on my dad's side either. I remember all my cousins doing each other's hair and then trying to do mine and struggling with the thickness and coarse unruly-ness.

then there's my sister. we have such distinctly different features and hair that we don't even look related. she has the facial features of our mom, but everything else about her, her hair, height, complexion, is from my father's side. while I'm 5'3", "european" looking, with dark, thicker, coarse, dry hair; she's 6'1", with baby fine, blonde, 1c, with super fine, silky hair.

different mixes have always facinated me because there's even so much variation within families.

[*Wednesday*]

"Hispanic" is not a "race". Spaniards are hispanic. Mexicans are hispanic. So are Argentinians, Cubans, you name it. Theres people with straight hair and fair skin in every single one of the "hispanic" countries. Be specific and adress your hair type by what it is. There isn't a particular hair type for people who speak Spanish, let alone in Latin America, where every single country has people ranging from the palest person alive to the darkest shade and curliest hair. This whole "race" talk and misconceptions are getting boring...


I think we are intelligent enough to ascertain what this poster is construing by stating she is “part Hispanic.” She shares part of her ethnicity with the people of Latin America/Caribbean Islands. Many of whom are of mixed race. Saying she is “part White” I would think she is stating that as White American for example.

You are very combative on the topic which as another poster mentioned will cause the thread to killed and you are instigating hostility in your tone. You stated the topic is “boring.” Perhaps that is enough encouragement for yourself to find another thread.

[lapushka]

Hispanic is not a "race" no matter how imaginative you decide to be. The equivalent would be to say every English speaking person belongs to one "race". It has nothing do, one thing with the other.
First, there are "white" hispanic people, it's not a mutually exclusive condition. Second, judging by the texture she attributes to her "non white" parent, I could argue it's not even what people ignorant of the actual meaning of hispanic would define as such, given that 4 type hair would imply being of african descent, not "Mexican", with pin straight hair or a few waves. (I mention Mexican because some people seriously seem to think the only Spanish speaking country in LA is Mexico, that everybody in Mexico looks the same, and everybody in LA looks the same).
In another thread it has been explained why talking about "races" is imprecise, and inadequate, so I won't repeat that, but even if you choose to stick to these archaic syereotyping and characterisation, define it by actual terms or "race", not terms that reference culture and language. Even if some can't picture how there can be "white" people in Latin America (haven't opened a book or whatched tv in their lives, apparently), you'd surely think of Spain as a "white" country. It's in Europe. Spain=Hispania.


Hold on, there is a white girl (not mixed with anything) living in my neighborhood, with a blonde afro; she has a 4a type curl pattern. It happens.

[daywalker]

Thank you lisamt! I can relate to your post so well. I look like my white dad but with my mom's coloring. My mom has coarse and thick 2a hair and my dad has medium 1b (at most). I don't understand how I ended up with the 1c/2a/2b/4a/? mess I have but I know other mixed people with similar stories. Which is why I was hopeful to find advice here. No one on either side of my family has so many hair type combos and they assumed I'm a genetic freak! That is why I brought race (ethnicity, for midnightmoon although I can look at my Puerto Rican mom and know she is more Native American than my white dad...but okay...) into the discussion.
By the way midnightmoon, when you grow up getting dirty looks from white AND Latino people because you are out with your brown mom and white dad and not understanding the hatred, you can lecture me on what is "race".

[MidnightMoon]

I'm sorry you have had a rough time, daywalker, but using terms freely (and wrongly) and my attempt at clarifying some misconceptions regarding that has nothing to do with what you've been through.
Not all Puerto Ricans look like your mother, by the way. And "latino", again, describes a group of people in particular that share nothing besides a language derived from latin and a continent.
Just so you get an idea of what I'm talking about, I've lived in Latin American countries, and I had Mexican friends (not first generation immigrants from Europe or whatever) who were blonde, and had blue eyes. I'd reeeally love people to kindly let go of the idea that all people from America look the same. If your mother is "brown", good, but people CAN be "white" and "latino/hispanic/mexican/puerto rican/whatever you like".
I won't respond to the rest, because clearly it's not ok to discuss something even if just for the sake of sharing a bit of my scarce knowledge.
No one is attempting to diminish your hardship, but there's no need to get angry :confused:

[lisamt]

I'm sorry you have had a rough time, daywalker, but using terms freely (and wrongly) and my attempt at clarifying some misconceptions regarding that has nothing to do with what you've been through.
Not all Puerto Ricans look like your mother, by the way. And "latino", again, describes a group of people in particular that share nothing besides a language derived from latin and a continent.
Just so you get an idea of what I'm talking about, I've lived in Latin American countries, and I had Mexican friends (not first generation immigrants from Europe or whatever) who were blonde, and had blue eyes. I'd reeeally love people to kindly let go of the idea that all people from America look the same. If your mother is "brown", good, but people CAN be "white" and "latino/hispanic/mexican/puerto rican/whatever you like".
I won't respond to the rest, because clearly it's not ok to discuss something even if just for the sake of sharing a bit of my scarce knowledge.
No one is attempting to diminish your hardship, but there's no need to get angry :confused:

I definitely agree with this. as I mentioned above my mother is mexican, but she doesn't have the stereotypical "look". she's a bit dark, but only a few shades darker than me and she has dark auburn-y hair

[littlestarface]

Hispanics themselves are white, unless they never mixed with any european in the last 100s of years of when the spaniards invaded. Mexicans themselves are so mixed with spaniards, italians etc. that I dont even see how anyone can give anyone else dirty looks.

So when people say i'm half mexican half white this is what I don;t understand, they are already white.

[MidnightMoon]

Hispanics themselves are white, unless they never mixed with any european in the last 100s of years of when the spaniards invaded. Mexicans themselves are so mixed with spaniards, italians etc. that I dont even see how anyone can give anyone else dirty looks.

So when people say i'm half mexican half white this is what I don;t understand, they are already white.

I wouldn't say the "average" Mexican person looks what people here define as white.
There's a few things to keep in mind:
- Mexico has a mix of native people, which weren't all members of the same tribes and didn't look exactly the same. These days what most people call "native", or "indigenous" aren't unmixed populations which look the same as they did before the invasion of America. Just like I see US people call a 50/50 "black" and "white" person black, a lot of people do the same if it's a mix of indigenous and white.
- Not all regions of Mexico hosted the same amount of immigrants, not did they come from the same place. While many slaves were brought from Africa to the Caribbean (including Colombia), Mexico had enough native population to sustain the brutal Spanish conquest for longer, elevating the proportion of indigenous people to Spanish.
There were, however, regions where black slaves were brought, and now has what you'd call "afro-mexicans". They usually look darker, have curlier hair, you can look them up.
- Spaniards themselves weren't and aren't what many folks would consider white. Not only were the men who settled in LA from the Southern regions, traditionally "darker", but you could argue Spain as a whole is a "darker" country, whose average citizen's "race" is often argued, and could easily be mistaken for a Latin American "criollo".

On another note...
Aside from the original Spanish conquest of Mexico, Latin America has received immigrants from a bunch of countries in the latest centuries. This differs greatly from country and region. Germans, Italians, Jews from various countries, Chinese, Japanese, etc.

Depending on which region you go, you'll see people (on average) that are lower, taller, darker, lighter... I wouldn't say that taking into consideration the entire Mexican population, the result would be what everyone would agree to call "white", no, but it's not true that you won't find people regularly who have light features (hair, eyes, skin, thin lips, small nose, etc.).
*and another difference with the US is that these people won't say they are "of X descent" or "X% this and Y% that", because as I mentioned earlier, they're not first, or second or third generation immigrants, it's people who have been Mexican for as far as they can go in their family tree. Sure, at some point, 500 years ago, they weren't "Mexican", but they don't really have any relation to any European country, nor do they identify themselves with Europe, or think of themselves as more or less Mexican than any other.*

While every country in LA has it's own history, this variety can be found anywhere. Something important I will repeat is that people who look "stereotypical" Mexican /are/ usually mixed these days to a higher or lesser degree. Finding truly segregated communities that claim to have never been mixed is a hard task.

[daywalker]

Okay, I understand now--I am not allowed to discuss hair type as it relates to race or ethnicity. But other people, who are subject matter experts on those subjects may come into a thread and lecture people on those subjects and not contribute to discussions of hair at all. And I'm not allowed to get aggravated about that.

I wonder if the OP and the other original posters had to deal with this and if they ever did get any help with their hair? If not it seems pointless to try and learn from TLHC when race pundits may lay in wait for an unsuspecting newbie to jump on.

[Chromis]

The moderators would like to remind all members, both old and new to avoid "moderating without a license". If you find content on this forum objectionable, please use the report button rather than calling out or chastising members on your own. The moderators will investigate and make appropriate actions...privately...in most cases there won't be a visible action, as moderator actions are private between the moderators and members.

While thread drift is a natural forum thing, the Mane Forum is primarily a *hair* forum. Let's get back to the hair instead of anthropology.