Mary J. Blige was simply blown away when she saw Pepa’s platinum hair as she watched the “Push It” hitmakers perform on television as a teenager and that moment has led her to go back again and again, after breaks for other colors, to blonde.
In an interview with ELLE.com, Blige said, “When I saw Salt’s hair was platinum, it was done. Game over.”
Blige found crafting an “identity” very important as a teen and she loved that no one else attempted to go platinum in her social circle.
“That’s what was cool about the hood — everybody had an identity. Nobody wanted to look like the next person. Nobody was trying to duplicate anybody.”
“I used peroxide to lift my hair color all the way up to platinum blonde.”
Blige struggled to come to terms with her hair’s natural color — a sandy brown — as she believed it “felt like cotton” and when her mother styled and it never looked good.
“It felt like cotton. My mother pressed it, and she put all these ponytails in it. It looked nice when she pressed it, but when it was kinky, it just looked nuts.”
Blige “wished” for wavy hair “like every Black girl” did.
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