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The Color Purple vocabulary
4 fashion terms (clothing, hair styles, fabrics, etc.)
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conked hair
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tags: [fashion]
► definition
Definition:(derived from congolene, a hair straightener gel made from lye) was a hairstyle popular among African-American men from the 1920s to the 1960s. This hairstyle called for a man with naturally "kinky" hair to have it chemically straightened using a relaxer (sometimes the pure corrosive chemical lye), so that the newly straightened hair could be styled in specific ways. Often, the relaxer was made at home, by mixing lye, eggs, and potatoes, the applier having to wear gloves and the receiver's head having to be rinsed thoroughly after application to avoid chemical burns.[...]text from Wikpedia, licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
photo: by William Gottlieb, public domain, Louis Jordan in 1946, https://snappygoat.com/s/?q=louis+jordan#fd1a1bfc92eb12af5e738ed94967c16e2ba1b86c,0,201.00f9286d0679ec1ee53fe2d6bcac2e4d79771f84
► uses
Uses:
their collars high and tight about their necks, their identical hats of black cheap felt set upon the crowns of their heads with a severe formality above their hard conked hair?
Ralph Ellison. The Invisible Man (1952)
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in the bible it say Jesus’ hair was like lamb’s wool, I say.
Well, say Shug, if he came to any of these churches we talking bout he’d have to have it conked before anybody paid him any attention.
Alice Walker. The Color Purple (1982)
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He dipped his fingers through the conk waves on his scalp,
Colson Whitehead. The Intuitionist (1999)
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