ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the turnabout in the Ghanaian beauty industry by focusing on the popularity of dreadlocks and twists among urban middle-class women. It shows how self-styling connects with wider processes of (post)colonial subject-formation and historically rooted notions of Africanness. The chapter also explores how contemporary middle-class women who opt for dreadlocks could be following previous generations of elite women in the sense that, in their day, those women too adopted styles that contrasted with the normative ideals of female beauty. In the spring of 2010, a high-end Accra-based spa and wellness center, Allure Spa in the City, organized a three-day international beauty expo. The expo was targeted specifically at small and medium-sized beauty shop owners and their apprentices, and members of the Ghanaian Hairdressers and Beauticians Association. The influence of Christianity on notions of respectability, decency, and dignity has been just as significant, especially during the social transformations in Ghana of the past twenty years.
