This was an interesting look at the ‘history’ of black hair. Emma Dabiri uses anecdotes about her own hair issues from growing up In Ireland, where there wasn’t a large black population, so her hair always stood out, to her struggles to look smart for job interviews. In between, she looks at black hair through the ages, with cultural references from the earliest times.

A fascinating insight into the trials and tribulations of managing black hair and fitting into the expectations of the wider world.

Intelligent, thoughtful and thought-provoking, I found this a truly riveting read. It’s an exploration of black women’s (mainly) hair and for me it was jaw-dropping and eye-opening (to mix metaphors) at the same time. I never realised that hair could be such a complex, multi-layered and political subject. Because as the book states, black hair is never “just hair”, and this brilliantly and convincingly argued account demonstrates this with clarity, meticulous research and personal reflection and experience in an engaging and entertaining style. Highly recommended and I am just so glad I read it.

This book presents as a history of black hair but it's a lot more than that. It's a personal history of Dabiri, it's a history of black culture (stemming from hair but growing outwards into many issues), and it's a dissection of race in our current social and political climate. More importantly though, this is a collection of histories that otherwise I might not have heard but which are fascinating. Like Thomas Fuller, a mathematical prodigy, who is unknown to most of us because of what Dabiri calls a "suppression of black genius." Something else I found really interesting, that I hadn't even considered before, was that the westernising of time to suit capitalism ("time is money") is the only reason that people now think of black hair as being too time consuming to style.

That said, I was a little overwhelmed by how much this was specifically about hair and I, as a person who doesn't really care about my own hair never mind anyone else's, started to lost interest at times. But I'm also now super aware that I am very privileged in being able to not care about my easy to manage European hair. So I have learned a lot!

I mistook this for a memoir (entirely my own fault), so it took a bit of adjustment once I’d realised it is essentially an academic text on the history/politics of black hair. That being said, I really enjoyed it. I found it slightly hard to follow at times, but that’s because Emma Dabiri is a) an expert in her field and b) much cleverer than me. There’s lots to learn and it’s all extremely interesting and thought-provoking. Also necessary reading for anyone with left-leaning views, as there’s quite a comforting and inspiring takedown of capitalism. Would definitely recommend!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Allen Lane Publishers for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book and how it was written and have already been recommending to others including my hairdresser to read.  The author is, like me, of mixed race background with very curly type 4 hair.  There wasn't too much information in here about the different types of curly hair but anyone who follows The Curly Girl method will be aware of it.

The book is a journey through history and social culture as to how black hair, especially women's hair is seen by different people. the author grew up in Ireland and I think is of a similar age to me though I grew up in the UK with less curly hair.

There were a few things of note though I'm not going to rate the book any less because of it.  I think that it's helpful to have trigger warnings and maybe ratings in books and I will admit that I'm a sensitive soul anyway. I say this because there is a discussion about torture in the book and I've gone and forgotten the page for anyone who wants to see where.  That said I guess any book that starts to refer to slavery is going to remind the reader of what people had to go through.

Another aspect that is still relevant to hair but wasn't covered in the book was in the media. There are certain artists that I'm sure were encouraged to 'pass for white' which their hair helped with. Mariah Carey in her earlier years was an example of this.  On the other hand, the author goes into a brilliant discussion of how Madonna during her Vogue days appropriates black culture without acknowledging it.  I would definitely recommend reading this book and I'd be happy to read anything else by the author.

I loved this book. It's written in an easy to read, conversational style, yet packs a massive punch. I felt that the title didn't fully reflect the broad range of topics that the author covered in such depth, including cultural appropriation (i.e. the Kardashians) and the social history of hair. The book really sparked my interest to learn more. I was particularly fascinated by the mathematical equations of certain hairstyles, and I definitely plan to read more on historical Benin.

I never thought that hair could be such an interesting topic for a book. And that's because I'm white and in my culture hair never played an important role. It's just something that grows on your head, most of us have it, wash it, brush it, style it, but it doesn't require special maintenance, it never causes public outrage, it is not political, it won't impact your job prospects or how security looks at you in the airport. The only stereotype regarding hair that is prominent in my culture, is that blonds are dumb.

It was incredibly interesting to read about kinky hair, black hair. How it is different than my hair, and how important role it plays in the lives of black people. Emma Dabiri talks about her experience as a mixed race girl, with kinky hair, growing up in Ireland with a white mother who didn't know how to care for her daughter's hair. How she as a teen was traumatized by chemical hair straightening, how she longed to one day magically wake up with the 'normal' hair, the white hair. Everyone who was different than their peers will understand this magical thinking. 

The author uses her personal experience to showcase the history of black hair. I especially like the chapters about the styles of black hairstyling, how all the styles that are popular now, are not new, they were created decades ago, but they did not age, they still pop and inspire. Dabiri brings also the history of some of the first black female entrepreneurs who became wealthy selling hair products for hair relaxing and straightening. On one hand, it is something to celebrate, but on the other, they made their wealth by promoting the white ideal of hair, they fall under the pressure the society was putting on them. The musings on the internalized pressure for one kind of hair, the one set beauty ideal are worth a read and helped me look at race issues from a different perspective.

At first glance, Emma Dabiri’s Don’t Touch My Hair seems like a micro-history. A vitally important one, yes, but a micro-history all the same; one that initially, seems like it is going to focus on a rather small subject area.
What can a person really learn from reading about hair, after-all?
A bloody lot, apparently.
I just can’t explain the lengths to which this book opened my eyes. I learnt so much about things I had never before considered and honestly, I spent much of the time reading it, with my eyebrows in my hairline.
Because, as it is stated in the book’s synopsis, black hair is never ‘just hair’ and throughout this deftly argued, thought-provoking book, Emma Dabiri makes abundantly clear just why that is.
She explores how the representation of something so simple as hair, has changed and been manipulated throughout the years to serve as evidence to varied, and often colonial (supposedly post or otherwise) ideologies; how it has been appropriated, again and again throughout history, to further subjugate different aspects of black identities.
And boy, were those representations everywhere.
In music videos, advertisements, old newspaper articles, supposedly-definitive historical studies. Throughout the book, Emma Dabiri crosses centuries, nations and all of the machinations encompassed in each, to show just how pervasive hegemonic ideas about black hair have been in compounding over-arching attitudes towards race.
That is because, this portrayal of black hair has a part to play in all of it; in the subjugation of slaves, in the limited media representation of black women, in acceptable hairstyles of schools and the army, even in the erasure of pre-colonial African history and culture.
And, by understanding its place in their subjugation, rejecting its negative connotations and refusing to allow Euro-centric Western ideals, black women can feel pride in something that has always been a part of them by raising their voices against the undeserved scorn placed upon it. After-all, as Emma Dabiri herself states, “In the face of a five-century-long campaign about the ugliness and inadequacy of our hair, black women have collectively turned round and said, ‘Nah.’ We have shared our hair stories, our journeys through pain into acceptance and to pride. In doing so, we have built a powerful international community.”

Don’t Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri, is one of those books that you didn’t know you needed to read. As a mixed race female, I found I could relate to plenty of what Emma was saying but at the time didn’t see it as racism. Especially as my hair was quite often touched by strangers and friends, and often without permission. I love that Don’t Touch my Hair is largely about the history of black hair and the positivity it rightly deserves.

This book answered so many of my impertinent hair related questions and has given me a number of rabbit holes to disappear down.

The memoir parts are heartbreaking and hilarious, providing a polite guide of how to behave around black hair. I love the way the author managed to plait in civil rights, African history and maths. As a result of reading this book I need to find out more about the Orisha and Benin.

I'm grateful to the author for raising hair as a personal political issue - the rules for what is 'good' or 'bad' hair are ridiculous. I now see my Irish premature grey hair in a new light and feel happy living with its idiosyncrasies instead of trying to tame it to the norm.

Thanks Emma!

Thanks to NetGalley and The Publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is part memoir of a mixed-raced girl growing up in Ireland in the 80's and 90's and part social commentary/history of black people within the diaspora with black hair as the focus.

I actually enjoyed this much more than I was expecting. It seemed to be well researched and was more fact than opinion with many angles given consideration. And it really was about black hair and always came back to that. It was highly readable and relatable. and I really like that the author switched up the language in places but still maintained her ability to be taken seriously and as an authority on the subject at hand.

I did find the last chapter a bit confusing but that didn't reduce my enjoyment.

Well done Emma Dabari

I'm sad to say this is a topic I was previously very ignorant about. This books is about more than just hair but uses it as a basis to discuss social attitudes, race and culture. It was part academic research and part memoir which I really enjoyed.

In the interest of context, I am a Caucasian female with my best friend being African American.
We have often joked about " don't touch my hair" as something she and her sisters say often.

This book was like wading through treacle and a rare thing for me was having to give up after the 1st chapter.

I found it dull, overly wordy and meandering. Just not one I could get ion with - disappointingly

To put it in her words, 'The deeply entrenched idea of 'managing' black women's hair operates as a powerful metaphor for societal control over our bodies at both micro and macro levels.' and/or 'everyone wants to sing my blues, nobody wants to live my blues'

Full disclosure - I'm a white woman living in Northern Ireland. This book was not written for me, but the connections she makes are profound.

Emma Dabiri does an excellent job of framing how black people are treated through the medium of hair. I found it informative, challenging and enlightening. I look forward to hearing her speak. I'm glad she let us in to understand how it's never just hair. I enjoyed hearing about the salon culture and her struggles with being a black person in Ireland. I enjoyed how she used Toni Morrison, as I've read most of Morrison's work. 

This book is for anyone interested in race politics and understanding both sexism and racism and how some 'futuristic' black hair styles are considered, even though they are ancient (Wakanda?).

Thank you to netgalley for giving me a copy in exchange for a review.

Part history, part memoir, part politics - this looks at the choices black women have about their hair and how those choices have been constructed and overturned.  Very interesting but didn't feel fully cohesive.

This is an impressively researched and fiercely argued book (although one that was a heavy and hard read). Written in part like a doctoral thesis, in part autobiographical, I have to admit that I was hoping for more of the latter than the former. However, I found the content fascinating, poignant and has made an impact on the way I see things around me - can you ask for more in a book?

My one criticism - if indeed I am allowed to make one, as I don't have the knowledge to critique Dabiri's overall argument - is that the lense of viewing the attractiveness of female Afro hair is viewed through a male gaze (whether men find a light-skinned woman more attractive, a woman with 'good' or 'bad' hair) - I would have been interested to know what non-heterosexual perceptions would have been.

As another reviewer said, I know this book was not written for me, but I am still thankful for the opportunity to take something away from it. The ultimate message, and one that is apparent throughout this novel, is that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" - something to reflect on.

What a beautiful, beautiful book.

The phrase 'Don't Touch My Hair', is by now incredibly familiar and comes up in most discussions about racism.

Emma Dabiri takes this one step further by drawing attention to the cultural and historical context of black hair. Mostly framed against both pre- and post-colonial African history, Dabiri also includes more familiar (read: Eurocentric) ways in which attitudes to black hair affect day to day lives.

Black hair is the topic of this book but this is not at all limiting. Dabiri deftly draws together the experiences of slaves in America, the mathematical processes of weaves and the computational abilities abound in pre-colonial Africa. All underlined by black hair.

I was delighted to read a book on this subject by a black Irish author. Dabiri offers some insight into growing up as a mixed-race child in Ireland, a narrative that I was unfamiliar with. I was not without white guilt while reading this book, but that's to be expected.

I really loved this book. To me, it was the reminiscent of the Devil Wears Prada scene in which Meryl Streep explains the context of Anne Hathaway's blue jumper. My basic understanding of not touching black hair has been blown wide open. Dabiri uses extensive secondary sources, giving it the sheen of an academic paper and providing tons of further reading for those wishing to know more. I for one can't wait to read more.

Growing up mixed race often feels like a minority within a minority. You can be made keenly aware of your otherness, and that may give you feelings that you don't belong, not enough of any one thing to be truly that. The things that chimed with me in this book I remember as moments that filtered down to me as a child because of other people and their own biases. Being called 'yellowbone', told how pretty my skin was, the surprise that I 'speak so well'. Growing up, when my music instructor thought I might like just prefer to take clarinet with 'the other black girls' when I was proficient at another instrument and in fact sat first chair ever after. The honest assumption of my high school coach that I would try out for the basketball team instead of tennis because I'd probably do better at a more familiar sport. But most of all I remember my hair. I never had a relaxer until another black woman decided to put one on me. I never thought there was anything wrong with it at all, but it still took me years to get back to the same self acceptance that I was born with.

This book taught me a lot, about the history of our self hatred and some of the reasons behind that same feeling, a minority within a minority. Though I don't agree with every point made and it was slightly more academic in tone than I had anticipated, I do feel the author made some strong arguments that resonated with me in deeply personal ways. To quote Daberi herself, 'In the face of a five-century-long campaign about the ugliness and inadequacy of our hair, black women have collectively turned round and said, ‘Nah.’ We have shared our hair stories, our journeys through pain into acceptance and to pride. In doing so, we have built a powerful international community.'

As a mixed race woman this book is a fabulous read. As a person interested in history, it was extremely good to read about African inventions. Don’t touch my hair is a book which will resonate with every black and mixed race person and even white women should read it.

An incredibly incisive study of the realities of life for black women. It completely unsettled my perception of both race and gender and I'll be forever grateful to Dabri for educating me. Her writing  style is sharp and her research meticulous.