Greasin’ Deyselves

Yes, black people like to grease themselves because black people get ashy.  You can’t style and profile with ashy feet and ashy knees.  When you are little, your momma will grease your little knees all up.  Back in the day when little girls were not allowed to wear pants to school: in the winter there you was standing at the bus stop with your little knees all greased up and the wind whipping up against them.  It was a dilemma.  You needed the grease because the wind was going to make your knees ashy, but it made the wind slap up against your knees even worse.

Ashiness is a lifelong problem for black people and you will hear the occasional ashy jokes from the likes of Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, and Dave Chappelle, and black people.  As a matter of fact ashy knees is the running joke of one of Tyler Perry’s, characters - Leroy Brown (David Mann) .  Black women learn at their mommas own ashy, but well-greased knees about keeping the ash down.  You usually will not find a black woman that is ashy.  Occasionally, she may take off her shoes only to find that her toes are a little ashy, but she will quickly rectify that problem.  If you find an ashy black woman, she is usually the one on TV giving her opinion on crime in her neigborhood on the six o’clock news or she is depressed and not taking care of herself.  Yours truly, hits Walmart once a month for her lotions and potions supplies and does not step out of the house without making sure she has greased feet, legs, thighs, hands, arms, and ass - nothing worse than taking off your drawers only to find out your ass was ashy all day. Suppose you had had an accident? (This did happen to moi. The nurse did not know how to describe her ashy torso and attributed it to moi’s medical condition.) Check the pocketbook or job desk drawer of any black woman and you will find a bottle of lotion to take care of those embarrassing ashy moments. 

Black men may not be so meticulous.  Although moi can’t say she has seen a ashy young brother in quite a while. However, old black men are the ashiest and either don’t care or just can’t keep the ash down try as they might.  Personally, moi can’t stand the sight of ash that is so deep that the cracks in an old man’s hands are all white.  Moi thinks, where’s his wife, his daughter, his family?  Who’s taking care of this man and making sure he doesn’t step out of the house all ashy like that?  Makes moi feel that somebody ain’t taking care of their men.

There are several ways black people love to keep the ash down.  Back in the day it was petroleum jelly (Vaseline) and Royal Crown, which was also good for slicking one’s hair down.  No black household was complete without these products.  Wild Root Cream Oil (for those black people with the “good” hair - good for waves), was also used in a pinch.  Back in the day, not many black people could afford a product for this and a product for that, so petroleum jelly and (don’t forget cocoa butter) were pretty much staples.  Cocoa butter was also used for those occasional knee scrapes (scabbed up knees and ash?  Oh my!).  Cocoa butter and petroleum jelly were also utilized by tough girls who were planning to beat your ass after school.  They would arm themselves by putting a thick layer of Vaseline on their faces.  That way when you scratched and clawed to get out of her grips, your fingernails were slide right off her face.  Cocoa butter was applied liberally to any scratches they did get. 

Greasing themselves to keep down the ash, black folks love that shit.

On a serious tip:

Another’s take on the ash problem of black folks and a nice product list:  Anything Black

A website with referral links to Black Care Products