The Thousand-Year-Old Hair Ritual That’s Alive and Well in Chad
Written By Lauren Valenti
“Chébé is a gift left up in the mountain by God so it can bring down our hair to great lengths,” says Néné Izou, a member of the Bassara Arab tribe of Northern Chad. The female members of Izou’s tribe, and other nomadic women of the region, are known for their thick and lustrous hair, which often falls well below the belly button. The key to retaining their lengths? Chébé, an ancient hair-care ritual that’s been practiced by their ancestors for millennia.
In the rocky mountains of Chad’s Guéra region, a native plant with rust-hued flower buds called croton gratissimus, known as Chébé, grows in droves. From February to April, its seeds are harvested, then sun dried, winnowed, and roasted before they are blended into a silky fine powder. “Chébé powder is like a cooking recipe,” says Salwa Petersen of Chad’s Gorane (Dazagarè) tribe with a smile. “Everyone has their own way of doing it.” To prepare the treatment before application, a woman will set out three bowls, one containing water, the second with Chébé powder, and the third with a mix of oils and butters, typically shea butter and sesame oil, says Petersen. Then, between alternating layers of the water and blend of oils and butters, she will spread the Chébé powder through sections of a loved one’s hair—generously, from roots to tips, for maximum moisture—while meticulously braiding the hair into long plaits that trail all the way down the back. “The traditional Chébé powder ritual is an extremely long, time-consuming, and labor-intensive process,” says Petersen. “You need to put aside at least an entire day if you want to follow all the steps.”
Chébé can be traced back more than a thousand years through petroglyphs and rock art paintings found in the sandstone peaks of the Ennedi Plateau in the Sahara. “Chébé is really important to us because we consider healthy, beautiful long hair as the ultimate symbol of femininity and vitality,” explains Petersen. While typically performed a few times a week, Chébé, like many Chadian beauty rituals, can also mark different rites of passage, such as when a young girl reaches puberty or becomes a mother. “When I smell the spicy fragrance of Chébé, I’m immediately transported under a nomad tent, listening to traditional music and the gossip and laughter of the women of my family,” says Petersen. “Chébé is a great excuse to hang out with our elders, moms, sisters, daughters, aunts, cousins, and friends.”
From harvest to hair, Chébé represents the spirit of African beauty, says Nsibentum, a Congolese hairologist who has dedicated his life to educating the world about the continent’s various ancient beauty rituals. “Beauty is being in harmony with everything that surrounds us and everything that is within us,” says Nsibentum. He emphasizes that joint acts of hair care, like Chébé, are especially treasured. “It is an intense moment of sharing, of transmitting know-how and culture,” says Nsibentum. “These are privileged moments of communion and transformation of nature, either for cosmetic purposes or to nourish oneself from within.” These customary gatherings between family members ensure that their centuries-old recipes and rituals are preserved and passed on by each new generation.
Today, Chébé is still very much a tradition local to Chad. But word of it as a potent conditioning treatment for natural hair is starting to spread thanks in no small part to Petersen. “With urbanization and globalization, Chad’s rich traditions, many of which are based on oral transmission, are fast disappearing,” she explains, noting that tribes are shrinking, especially among younger members. “I want to make sure that this extraordinary heritage is well preserved for us and future generations.” A citizen of Chad, Petersen, who graduated from the Sorbonne and Harvard Law School (she was the first person from Chad to attend), began her career as a lawyer before transitioning to beauty, working in product development for big names like L'Oréal Paris. Over the past few years, Petersen, who now lives in Germany with her husband and daughter, has poured her extensive knowledge of ancestral Chadian beauty rituals into a popular YouTube channel and an eponymous beauty brand. The latter is making the Chébé treatment more accessible globally in the form of a rich hair cream, Chébé du Tchad, powered by a first-of-its-kind potent croton gratissimus extract.