It was just before Christmas, and eight-year-old Gloria Moraa sat holding a mirror as her aunt painted her curls with chemicals that would straighten every strand. “All the young girls would get matching hairstyles for the holidays, and relaxers were fashionable back then,’’ says Moraa, now 28, who lives in Nairobi, Kenya.
She no longer straightens her hair because she thought it was starting to thin. But over the years, Moraa used almost every relaxer on the market, with one goal: making her coily hair silky. The ingredients didn’t matter.
