Speak-easy: Black hair and make-up on set

If the work required to truly accomplish hair and make-up equality was purely down to those directly impacted by it, it is fair to believe that it would have already been achieved. In the space of less than a year, our cross-platform work at Hair and Make-Up: Equality Now (HMUEN) has established a growing network of 300-plus performers; created an accessible support group where performers can seek advice from leading hair and make-up artists; provided an online space for logging unsatisfactory hair and make-up workplace experiences; curated educational workshops and coffee mornings for performers and hair and make-up artists; and collaborated with numerous key industry stakeholders to offer achievable and sustainable solutions toward change. We’ve attracted pro bono support from lawyers passionate about assisting the campaign and supported Equity in its current TV and film negotiations with the Producers Alliance of Cinema and Television (Pact). For those not in the know, Equity Union’s 2024 TV and Film Survey revealed that suitable hair and make-up support was a number one priority among its members. 

As campaigners, encouraging and activating change is at the heart of everything we do. For every person who does not have afro-textured hair and brown skin, yet who actively ensures suitable hair and make-up for those who do, there is at least one person (and that’s me being generous!) who is ignorant, ill-equipped or at worst uninterested. At HMUEN, as well as supporting performers through the ‘suffer in silence’ syndrome too often endemic in our industry, we aim to reach and support those who do not know – or rather, who do not believe – that they can provide suitable hair and make-up support for all skin shades and hair textures. 

The unfinished conversation on race – the prevailing elephant in the room that some still find too self-implicating to honestly engage with (including, in moments of trauma, ourselves) – necessitates a self-reflective strategy that requires a great deal of passion and resolve.

We are not alone in this work. We have picked up the baton from Peggy-Ann Fraser, who led a campaign in 2017; from Koral Neil, who fronted a campaign in 2020; and we stand alongside fellow artists Fola Evans-Akingbola and Jordan Pitt, whose Bafta-nominated documentary Untold Stories: Hair on Set premiered on Sky in 2023. 

So why is change taking so long? I spoke with Evans-Akingbola and Pitt to reflect on the respective work in progress.

Ann Ogbomo: A question both Cherrelle Skeete and I asked ourselves after a meeting with two key stakeholders who showed a high level of discomfort during one of our conversations, was: how do we help people to not take matters so personally? I want to ask you about your experience of this in making your documentary. It has been very effective in engaging people that perhaps wouldn’t engage if the story was told differently. Fola, in the documentary there’s a moment between you and your mother that audiences find incredibly moving; that scene where you recall your primary school teacher who took it upon herself to place your hair in canerows. Your mum shares that she didn’t mind, but rather saw it as a way of alerting her to what she could do. Strikingly, it’s the one and only scene that white viewers have explicitly shared with me as moving to them. Why do you think this is?

Fola Evans-Akingbola: I agree with you that part of the challenge is getting people to not take it personally. Yet I actually think the challenge is getting people to understand that taking it personally is OK. Because it actually is personal. I think that’s why people like that scene [with my mum]. It’s so intimate that people can’t help but to ease their defences. Our hope with that scene was to get people to understand that this is personal for all of us – not just Black and Brown people, but white people too. This is personal and that’s OK, and together we can try to move through this and not get super-defensive.

Jordan Pitt: The fact that she took that effort to educate herself; she was open to learning. That’s what people find moving and I think that was the most touching thing.

FEA: In your HMUEN work with Cherrelle, how are you navigating that challenge of people taking it personally? How do you keep the conversation going?

AO: Taking it personally in an unproductive way has only happened once. Our response was to put them at ease by cracking jokes about our hair. Cherrelle summed it up as us reminding them that we’re human; that we’re two people who can laugh at ourselves.

AO: I remember you saying you didn’t want to make the documentary and have it fall by the wayside. In an ideal world what would be the impact of your film?

FEA: We would love a lasting impact of the film to be that it helped educate the next generation of people coming into the industry. Via educational distribution we want the film to be seen in film, hair and make-up schools so that people are mindful of this topic from the beginning of their career. What is the ideal outcome for HMUEN?

AO: I would love it if more actors started including their agents in the conversation – replacing ‘coping mechanisms’ with actions more invested in change… so agents speaking with producers; producers being aware of the pitfalls and ensuring that their hair and make-up designers genuinely have a team that can cover the needs of all cast. Not just one single hair and make-up artist for performers with textured hair and brown skin, but a few people in the team. For hair and make-up artists to have access to training; whether that be up-skilling in textured hair, styling and barbering and make-up for all skin tones, or for experienced hairstylists, barbers and beauticians transferring to working on screen. Training in skills such as continuity, call sheets and etiquette on set. For Pact to agree to ensuring suitable hair and make-up provision for all artists across all their contracts. Basically, for everyone to do their bit… and there is something that everyone can do.

FEA: Do you feel like we are at a turning point?

AO: I honestly don’t know. I know the work that we’re doing is having an impact. Time’s Up UK is now supporting the work to end hair and make-up inequity and they’re also supporting our work. But I regularly come back to my belief that until we all release ourselves from what the construct of race has done to all of us, it’s just going to go on and on. We’d all benefit from approaching the work from a place of compassion, collaboration and regular reflection.

JP: It’s really about listening to the real-life accounts of all those affected. If one is not moved after hearing the stories, then that is an even bigger issue.

FEA: It comes back to your first question. It is personal and if everyone takes that personal responsibility to look at how this affects them and how they’re contributing, it will actually change.

AO: There are people who really need to put the work in. Sadly, until producers take the lead here, that includes actors. What we’ve found with the campaign is that people may acquire the knowledge, but lack confidence in applying the learning.

FEA: I think that’s why it’s so important in all this work that various organisations create structural change so there’s less of a burden on each individual to make that more courageous or difficult choice.