Afro

Afro, sometimes abbreviated to 'fro and also known as a "natural", is a hairstyle worn naturally by people with lengthy kinky hair texture or specifically styled in such a fashion by individuals with naturally curly or straight hair. The hairstyle is created by combing the hair away from the scalp, allowing the hair to extend out from the head in a large, rounded shape, much like a cloud or ball.

In people with naturally curly or straight hair, the hairstyle is typically created with the help of creams, gels or other solidifying liquids to hold the hair in place. Particularly popular in the African-American community of the late 1960s, the hairstyle is often shaped and maintained with the assistance of a wide-toothed comb colloquially known as an Afro pick.

Afro is derived from the term "Afro-American". The hairstyle is also referred to by some as the "natural"—particularly the shorter, less elaborate versions of the Afro—since in most cases the hair is left untreated by relaxers or straightening chemicals and is instead allowed to express its natural curl or kinkiness.

In the 1860s, a hairstyle similar to the Afro was worn by the Circassian beauties. Sometimes known as "Moss-haired girls", they were a group of women exhibited in sideshow attractions in the United States by P. T. Barnum and others. These women were claimed to be from the Circassian people in the Northern Caucasus region, and were marketed to White audiences captivated by the "exotic East" as pure examples of the Caucasian race who were kept as sexual slaves in Turkish harems. It has been argued that this portrayal of a Caucasian woman as a rescued slave during the American Civil War played on the racial connotations of slavery at the time so that the distinctive hairstyle affiliates the side-show white Circassian with African-American identity, and thus:

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