Savannah James on Her Hair Journey, Mother

Jul 03, 2023

By Leah Faye Cooper

Tuesday, February 7, 2023, was technically NBA star and Los Angeles Laker LeBron James's night. Late in the third quarter against the Oklahoma City Thunder, James recorded his 38,388th career point—the most in league history, surpassing a record Kareem Abdul-Jabbar held for over four decades. All eyes were on King James. That is, until his high school sweetheart and wife Savannah James appeared before the cameras.

Photos of Mrs. James, beaming with pride and dressed in a cream pinstripe suit, soon flooded social media. And amid the countless comments congratulating her husband, a chorus of praise was heaped upon her—both for her unwavering support and poised demeanor, but also for her stunning mane of blonde hair, parted deep at the side and cascading to her elbows with a few soft waves. A month later, James and her honeyed bombshell waves inspired similar awe above a custom white mermaid gown by Sergio Hudson (who dubbed James his "new muse") at the Vanity Fair Oscars Party.

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"I’m really having a lot of fun with this blonde," she tells Vogue. It's the Friday after her husband's record-breaking night, and James is in her sun-drenched home in L.A. on Zoom, walking us through her hair journey from press-and-curls, to relaxers, to natural wash-n-gos to voluminous blanched waves. "I always wanted to try blonde, but I was afraid to dye my hair because of the upkeep. And then one day I was just like, "‘I’m going to see what the blonde is giving.’" James didn't bleach her own hair, but she did start experimenting with blonde wigs. Her consensus upon seeing herself in the new color? "Oh, okay, she cute," she says, laughing. "I’ve been blonde for probably two years now, and I like it a lot."

Like many Black women, James's earliest hair care memories are of wash days with her mother in their Akron, Ohio kitchen. "We did in-the-sink hair washes and by-the-stove press outs," she says, adding that when the task became too arduous for her mother, she began going to her first stylist, Miss Thompson. "I’d pick off the board which style I wanted that week [and] my go-to was usually some kind of ponytail with spiral curls and baby hair." At around ten, James started getting relaxers and keenly paying attention to her mother's hair routine. "My mom has always had a gorgeous head of hair," she says. "I used to sit on the floor and watch her do her roller sets in front of the mirror. She would roll her hair and then sit under one of those dryers that puffs up."

A young James on picture day.

The Jameses on prom night, 2004.

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Years later, in 2004, an 18-year-old James posed for prom photos. On the outside, the high school senior is a vision of happiness, clad in an off-white halter dress and wrapped in the embrace of the soon-to-be-named NBA Rookie of the Year. But on the inside, she was fuming. "We will not name names of who did it, but that was probably one of my worst hairstyles," she says of the partial updo with long bangs and loose tendrils. "I went into the salon with a completely different vision of what I wanted to look like, and the stylist was like, ‘everyone's going to do that, I got you.’ I’m thinking it's going to be something great; I left this salon in tears."

It was the last time James put her trust in a stylist without setting explicit expectations. And while the attention that followed her as LeBron shot to stardom could have pushed her to adopt styles and trends others saw fitting, she never swayed from what she was naturally drawn to. "My mom always instilled a certain level of confidence and self-assurance in me, so I didn't go into LeBron being in the NBA and having all these spotlights around thinking that I needed to change anything about myself," she says. "I was just going with what I knew, what I was comfortable with, and what I felt looked good on me." James stopped relaxing her hair in 2006 and spent years flat ironing it straight before venturing into what she calls her sew-in days. "More was more when I wore my sew-ins. I would have three bundles in my head, and I loved it," she explains. With her family at the time comprised of herself, LeBron, and their two sons, LeBron, Jr. (Bronny) and Bryce, James didn't have to spend much time on anyone else's hair besides her own. That changed in 2015 when her daughter Zhuri was born.

James with her daughter, Zhuri.

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"Once I found out I was having a little girl, I was like, ‘Please Lord, can she have a lot of hair? Because I just want to do her hair all day.’ I never thought it would get to where it is now," she says of Zhuri's hair, which cascades down the eight-year-old's back. It takes roughly three hours to wash and style it. "You get what you pray for," she says. Of course, James could hire someone else to do it—a modern-day L.A. equivalent to her childhood stylist Miss Thomas—but she’d rather not. "It's important for me [to do her hair] because it's something that I did with my mom," she says. "It was a true bonding time that we had, and a time for her to instill confidence in me, tell me that my hair is beautiful, and embrace my curls. I do the same with Zhuri, and we can have an open dialogue about not just hair, but other things too." A self-proclaimed "kitchen beautician," James sometimes documents the duo's wash day routine on Instagram, and it's appeared on her daughter's YouTube channel, All Things Zhuri, too.

Following a big chop in 2019, James has spent the past few years mastering her natural hair care routine. "I was so ready to try it, and I felt like my hair was in a place where I needed to start over," she says of the initial cut. "It was jarring because I had never seen my hair short, but I liked it, so it was a really good experience." The process of identifying the right products and techniques to care for her curls proved to me more involved than she anticipated, but still, James has zero regrets.

James wearing her natural curls.

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"Now I’m focused on growing my hair, so my protective styling is usually cornrows to the back so that I can put my wigs on," she says. Every few weeks, when it's time to take the cornrows out and give her hair and scalp a break for a few days, James reaches for a clarifying shampoo before coating her hair with a deep conditioner and steaming it. She likes trying different products, sticks to sulfate- and paraben-free formulas, and seeks out ingredients like grapeseed and jojoba oil. "I enjoy wearing wigs, but I want to make sure that my base is nice and healthy," she says.

A fan of the versatility Tracee Ellis Ross embraces when styling her hair—"she gets it right pretty much all the time," James says—she is bothered the way Black women's hair has historically been ridiculed, policed, and politicized. "It's very unfortunate that your natural coils or kinks or curls look unprofessional to some," she says, "or that people think wearing a wig means you hate your natural hair. Hair is a form of self-expression, and you should be able to do whatever you want to do with yours. I tell Zhuri that. I want her to feel good about her hair no matter what anyone's opinion is." Though she's currently mum on the details, James hints at two forthcoming projects. "I will say that one is in the beauty space," she shares, "and another I’m working on with a really amazing friend of mine that I feel like will be beneficial to a lot of women."

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All the attention James garners, be it for her high-profile marriage or style choices, can be a bit daunting she says. But she's beginning to get more comfortable with it. ‘I’m honestly just being myself," she says. "I don't put on an air or try to pretend to be something that I’m not, because I can't do that very well. So for people to receive me for being who I am, that's pretty dope."