Hair Oil Gets a Slick Reboot

Hair oiling days for the comedian and actress Lilly Singh were always a family affair.

The entire Singh clan — including her cousins, aunties and uncles down the street — would gather in the living room, each waiting to have their scalps rigorously massaged by her mother or grandmother.

“Yes, it was good for hair,” she said in a recent interview. “But it was also just — for lack of a better word — a vibe.”

The good vibes remained until Ms. Singh started high school, where the shiny, oiled look was seen as decidedly uncool by her peers, a perception that she and her cousins internalized. “I don’t think I ever did a slicked-back braid in high school ever — I’d rather jump off a building,” she deadpanned.

It’s a familiar childhood story for many women of color, who remember washing their hair before the start of a new week to avoid taunts at school or stares in public.

“My parents are Pakistani, and I’ve been hair oiling since I had hair,” said Kirin Bhatty, a celebrity makeup artist who grew up in Los Angeles. “I hated it as a kid because when you’re a kid, you want to be like everyone else, and no one else was hair oiling. I just wanted, at the time, to have an Herbal Essences moment.”