Mad Men’s Teyonah Parris was recently featured as the Girl of the Day on popular men’s website Maxim.com, and she rocked her gorgeous fro for the shoot! The second photo looks to be a twistout.
Hot!!
Back in April Teyonah, who has been natural for 3 years now, shared her hair story with Essence Magazine.
It wasn’t until three years ago that I had an ah-ha moment, as Oprah would say. I was walking down the street with one of my girlfriends and I saw this young lady who had the most amazing, bomb twist-out. I said to my friend, “Oh my gosh, her hair is so beautiful. I wish my hair could do that.” My friend looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Uh, it would if you stop relaxing it.” I stopped and thought to myself, wow, duh. I kind of felt dumb because of course I knew my hair was naturally curly, but it had been so long since I had been relaxing. I realized that I had no real relationship with my natural hair.
At that very moment, I decided to change that. I wanted to see what my own hair felt like because I really didn’t know. I had no clue. In the back of my mind, I always figured I could go back to a relaxer if I didn’t like it. I started transitioning for a year and a half using sew-in weaves so my transition was fairly easy. My stylist would trim off the relaxer as time went on and eventually, she cut off the last little bit of straight ends and I was relaxer-free. I finally saw my own hair in its natural state.
And then… I cried.
I did not know how to deal with this little afro on my head. I called my best friend crying because I did not want to leave the house. She came over and literally sat me down and said, “Teyonah you are beautiful. Your hair is amazing.” She is really the main reason why I am natural to this day. Later on, we went out in Harlem and I was trying not to feel so self-conscious. The whole day, people would come up to me and say, “Wow, I love your hair. It’s gorgeous.” I was totally shocked. The reaction I got from other people was really comforting. I know we shouldn’t look for approval from other people, but in all honestly, it really helped me see that it was really my own perception of my hair that was holding me back. That was really eye-opening for sure.
The more we learn about this girl, the more we love her!
Ladies, what do you think of the photos? And kudos to Maxim for mixing it up and showcasing some true black beauty.
38 Responses
Love her hair! I have locs would not do it any other way good bye lye!
Fiercely real, that’s what’s up, Tyra got it twisted [weaved]. lol – Thanks Teyonah 🙂
She’s so pretty.
J’aime!!!
YASSSS GIRL. get it.
Gorgeous!
I look at her fro and thing BEAUTIFUL, then I think “oh, the detangling!” lol
Wow, so much respect! She is so gorgeous and gives us all another reason to be proud and to support our beauty for all the world to see. What a great attitude she has! What a nice person! And what another inspiration!
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She is gorgeous and rocking that beautiful fro
That fro <3!!!I hope my fro can grow up to be as big as that one day. She really is gorgeous! It must have been a real headache to detangle that though seeing as how her hair looks to be in a somewhat shrunken state
She’s gorgeous!!
But um a twist out in the second pic?? Someone please point me toward a tutorial. I have about the same coil size [according to the first pic] and no matter how big my twists are my twist outs usually look like much smaller curls…then as time goes on it just gets puffy wavy.
I automatically thought these were curlformers or something [which I am too cheap to buy at the moment]. Tips appreciated!! ^ ^,
agreed. its probably not a twist out… j/s
it looks like a twist out on blow dried hair.
I figured it was a half wig that was teased for volume, or some sort of rod set- the spirals are very smooth but pulled apart for fullness. Probably not a twistout.
It looked more like a rod set to me. Not a twist out. Unless its a method that I’m not familiar with.
Her hair in that first picture would make an AWESOME wig, lol she shoulsell it to me
Love it! Big time hair crush.
She is one snazzy natural.
awwwwwwwwwww this was sweet
Bless her. Keep at it girlie
I am really becoming a huge fan of this woman!
Whoo I don’t think I know of any other black women with natural hair who posed in maxim. This is amazing and she is so stunning.
I wish she Teyonah would share her hair regimen I think we’re hair twins 🙂
She’s fab! Love love love it! I gotta say, it’s not surprising to me that a men’s mag would feature a beautiful black woman with natural hair. Big kinky hair is beautiful and sexy and don’t even get me started on rich beautiful brown skin. It’s just that black folks just don’t get it.
This woman can stop traffic. I know this because I’ve stopped traffic a few times walkin’ around sporting a big fluffy fro. I want more black women to claim and own their beauty, but if black men (at large – I’m sure there are plenty of black men who know what’s up) can’t catch up, as far as I’m concerned, they can go kick rocks.
Black girls rock! And we don’t have to be wearing a blonde wig to do it. You betta reconize! (I know, I’m from the ’90s 🙂
O.M.Gizzle. She is fabulous! How about having a beautiful woman with a natural Afro in a mainstream media publication, I love it!… I wonder how long it will be before a magazine (print or online) geared toward black men will feature a woman with natural Afro-textured hair…hmmm :-/
Ummmm – could be waiting a wee while love. Many that i’ve seen tend to be on the straight look or close to it as possible. Either way i’ll take the stunner here over ten of those any day!
her, i wish my hair could do that, duh, moment is exactly like mine, there was a music artist in our church,she was sat infront of me and she had that wave thing going on in her hair, i wished my hair could do that…. then somewhow realised it was just gel and natural hair…DUH!
lovely! And she’s in MAXIM (not that it validates her beauty but this shows we don’t have to completely obscure our looks to fit into non-black arenas) now these other black actresses have no excuse! Gorgeous!!!!! Yes maam!
I was thinking the same thing Deb. You know for years magazines like Maxim only had women with long, flowing hair, so this is definitely a welcomed change!!!
right, MAXIM
love the fro!!!
I have a new hair crush. It’s Beautiful! It also has inspired me to continue my natural journey. Not that I was considering giving up.
She is absolutely gorgeous!! Look at that skin, that hair!! Is she still on Mad Men?
Yes. But her story line this season wasn’t as big as I had hoped.
they probably made it that way to tone done the attention to her. She made them look like peasants next to her on the red carpet. lol, love this woman
I told my husband that same thing, lol. She gives Joan a serious run for her money. But both women are beautiful and I love both their characters!
They REALLY play down her looks on the show, like it’s very obvious what they are doing. I guess I get it’s for her characters but like you said she made them look like peasants on the red carpet! lmao!
I don’t want to be awful but I really think they included her for the sake of tokenism. They had that storyline about civil right activism so it seemed that they had to go that route. I’m not saying the agency realistically would have had many, if any black staff or that Dawn should be at the centre of the storylines with the other cast members but why didn’t she have ANY storylines? They started one a while ago about her and her friend and then it just stopped. Then we’re expected to believe that Don, Roger and co are these liberals who care about the assassination of MLK etc. They never come across as liberal and Pete Campbell being deeply affected by it was a joke! I think it’s all for appearances and so the audience can’t complain of a lack of black characters. I hope Miss Parris gets offered something contemporary next time where she can be visible. As much as I like Mad Men, it didn’t do a good job with the Dawn character.
Oh wow! This is awesome!