Entry · catalog no. 4349
doobie
/ /ˈduːbi/ /DOO-bee
noun · New York, Boston, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami · 1970s
✓ Verified
1.
A wrap. Relaxed, pressed, blown-out or roller-set hair is brushed in one continuous circular direction around the head, lying flat to the scalp, pinned and tied under a silk or satin scarf. Worn at home, usually overnight. Unwrapped, the hair falls straight, smooth and with swing.
“Do not touch my head, I just put my doobie in.”
2.
As a verb, to set hair that way; as a salon service, a line item.
“Wash, set and doobie, and I will be out by six.”
Origin & Attribution
Dominican and Dominican-American salon practice crossed with African American salon practice in cities where both live side by side — New York, New Jersey, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami. The name is widely reported to come from Spanish tubi, from tubo, for the tube-like circular wrap, anglicized to doobie. African American speakers more often call the same thing simply the wrap. Boston master stylist Charlene Carroll is credited with developing the technique in the 1970s to protect her own hair from humidity, and with spreading it through East Coast salons and later through Soft Sheen and L'Oréal platform shows — a credit that rests on her own account and should be read that way.
1970s
Charlene Carroll develops and spreads the wrap technique out of Boston
2013
Rihanna wears a bobby-pinned doobie on the American Music Awards red carpet in November
2023
The Root profiles Carroll and the wrap's origins
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
New York, Boston, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami · 1970s
Spoken by
Black and Dominican women; salon stylists
$DOOBIEThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady43 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
40/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1970
in the culture
Mainstream crossover
2013
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Jennifer Gil-Velazquez, Here's The Gifted Hairstylist Who Created The Doobie Wrap, The Root, 16 April
2023
■
+ Cite a sourceHuffPost coverage of Rihanna's American Music Awards doobie, November
2013
See also