How Black Female Surfers Maintain Their Hair While Reclaiming the Ocean 

Mariette Blaides started surfing in Hawaii at a time when, as she describes it, “tiny girls in tiny bikinis represented the surf world.” As a curvy Black woman herself, she initially felt intimidated but slowly learned by watching YouTube videos and visiting local surf shops to ask questions. She found her new hobby fun and exhilarating, but it quickly turned into work when it came to maintaining her thick and coily hair.

“I would come up from a duck dive, and the heaviness of my wet hair would stick to my face and block my breathing,” says Blaides. She tried to mimic other surfers who would simply flip their hair out of their faces, but hers just didn’t move the same. What’s more, Blaides’s hair became brittle and dry after being stripped of moisture from hours in the ocean at a time. “My curls would not curl and brush-outs were nearly impossible,” she says.

I grew up in Hawaii the time I was six years old until my preteen years. I fell in love with the ocean and did every type of water sport—from body surfing and snorkeling to diving—until my family relocated to the Virginia Beach area, where I gave in to the pressures of wanting to fit in and got a relaxer. This ended my relationship with the ocean. I couldn’t submerge myself in water, for fear of messing up my straightened hair. 

We are not alone in our experiences. In fact, many Black athletes have felt limited and held back by their hair, due to the lack of resources, education, and acceptance within the sports and fitness world. According to a study by Perception Institute, one in three Black women cites their hair as the reason they have avoided exercise in the past, compared with 1 in 10 white women.

For some Black female surfers, feelings around the sport are even more complex. L. Renee Blount, a creative strategist and athlete, felt the same struggles. “Once you sweat, you lose the straightness in your chemically processed hair and can gain many judgments,” she says. Blount found herself at odds with her love for surfing and the toll on her hair-care routine. She eventually decided to go natural. “I wanted to surf, swim more, cycle, and run without thinking about my hair first,” she says. “I put my wellness first.” 

Brennan Maine, a surfer in Hawaii, used to wear box braids but quit the style because it “felt heavy and the synthetic hair was very restricting.” Since going natural, she’s come to appreciate the way her hair looks and feels. “I love the color the sun turns my hair and the feeling of not hiding,” she says. “I’m not sure I would feel that way if I had the pressure to maintain chemically relaxed hair or straightened hairstyles.”

It’s no surprise that hair care for Black surfers goes largely untalked about, since the sport has very few Black pros to look up to. According to Surfer Today, approximately 23 million people surf worldwide. There are no numbers available on what percentage are Black; however, during the 2020 Women’s Qualifying Series in the World Surf League, of the 261 female athletes competing, only a handful were nonwhite. In the 2022 World Surf League rankings of top 20 surfers, there is not a single Black woman on the list. 

For Danielle Black Lyons, a Roxy professional surfer from San Diego, this lack of representation led to most of her struggles in the sport. “Along with access to equipment, cost, and mentorship, I had to deal with other people’s opinions about my curiosity in a white-dominated sport,” she says. “I was already teased for being a Black swimmer, and there were insecurities around that.”

Racist stereotypes and generations of conditioning played a large role in Maggie Lower's early struggles with surfing. A biracial surfer born and raised in Hawaii, Lower says her Black mother and grandmother used to have the mindset that Black people didn't swim, surf, or even belong in the ocean. “Thankfully, I wasn’t raised in a community that is highly influenced by white America,” she says. “I could see the flaws of their conditioning.” Maine says her mother had similar passed-down beliefs. 

History says otherwise. According to Surfer Magazine, surfing originates from Senegal and Angola—without influence from white expeditionists or Polynesians. The first account of the sport was written in 1630, in what is now known as Ghana. The coast of Africa has thousands of miles of warm water, which yielded strong swimmers and seagoing fishermen and merchants who knew surf patterns and crewed surf-canoes. Many rode longboards, about 12 feet long, and used them to paddle several miles, catching and riding waves upwards of 10 feet high. 

California also has a rich history of Black surfing. In the upcoming film Catch the Wave, writer Ali Kinney tells the untold story of Bruce’s Beach, a once thriving Black coastal community in the 1920s. Willa and Charles Bruce purchased the land in 1912 and established a beachside resort and safe haven for Black families. The community was eventually driven out by the KKK, and the beach was taken away through eminent domain by the city. On July 20, 2022, the Board of Supervisors of LA County returned land ownership to the closest living legal heirs of Charles and Willa Bruce. 

“There is so much tragedy and pain, but also so much Black pride and joy that we haven't been able to celebrate because these stories have been whitewashed and erased from history,” says Kinney. “[Black people] are often put in boxes to fit what others think we're supposed to be or behave like. Sadly, sometimes we even do this to ourselves. I've talked to Black surfers who say they catch flak from both sides—white surfers who don't want them in the water and other Black people who judge them for doing a ‘white sport.’”

Kinney hopes the film will help alleviate pressure Black surfers feel about the sport. “The more Black people are able to just exist, like how white people have the privilege of doing without being questioned, the more we can let go of this notion of ‘nonpopular Black spaces’ and just be in spaces,” she says.

After nearly a decade of my avoiding the water, my work brought me to Los Angeles, where I finally gave myself full permission to exist in the ocean. I took surf lessons to awaken some old physical and emotional muscle memory, and it slowly but surely became part of my lifestyle. I was even closer to Hawaii, which made for more spur-of-the-moment surf trips back to my hometown. 

But most important, I found a community. After taking up surfing lessons in Santa Monica, my instructor introduced me to Textured Waves and the Black Surfers Collective, local surfing groups for women of color, which helped me find friends and fellow surfers who looked like me. 

Black Lyons found Chelsea Woody and Martina Duran on social media in hopes of building a community for Black female surfers. Together they founded Textured Waves, a nonprofit that works to promote inclusion and diversity in surfing through education and community-building retreats. 

“We embrace our natural hair as much as we embrace our love for the ocean and we wanted our name to reflect that,” says Duran. “In the ocean our hair blooms to its natural state, our skin develops into its natural hue, and our bodies can’t be hidden behind the latest trends. If your beauty is defined by hiding yourself, you will never feel beautiful.”

For Black Lyons, years of flatironing, relaxing, and reshaping her coils had done a lot of damage—to both her hair and self-esteem. “Finding beauty with my natural hair required a lot of unlearning and self-acceptance,” she says. “Learning to love and care for my curls changed my relationship with my hair.” 

When it comes to hair, Woody, a global surf athlete for Vans, prioritizes moisture and hydration. But most important is her mental health. “I try to keep my hair routine simple and not let it control my happiness,” she says. She cowashes with Briogeo to avoid stripping her hair’s natural moisture with overshampooing daily and uses daily leave-in conditioners like from Sun Bum that helps detangle, condition, and protect. 

Black Lyons uses styling cream from SunBum and Cantu, while Duran recommends the Bread Beauty line. Blaides and Lower live by Tracee Ellis Ross’s Pattern products, especially the Intensive Moisturizer. “It’s the only product that has been able to keep my hair from drying out,” says Blaides. “A little goes a long way,” adds Lowes. 

I still flatiron my hair for special occasions and get a lower grade of relaxer for my roots every three to four months. After cowashing and deep conditioning, I braid my hair into two pigtails with a leave-in conditioner, let it air-dry, then unravel the braids with oil. 

Finding the right hair care goes hand-in-hand with finding confidence in the water. “I’m kind of cocky, in a respectful way, when I enter the water,” says Lower. “The confidence I have in a surf lineup is what makes me fit in. Give and get respect and have a relationship with the ocean, as the ocean has a consciousness and memory. I see other Black surfers paddle out with that same confidence, the same aurora of belongingness.” 

It’s a very exciting time for Black women surfers to reclaim their space in the ocean without hesitation or limitations. As Blount says, “To go natural is to take back the power, but to swim and surf is to go even further.”