Entry · catalog no. 4348
lace front
/ /leɪs frʌnt/ /layss frunt
noun · Black America, nationwide; salon and ballroom circuits · 2000s
✓ Verified
1.
A wig or hairpiece whose front section is a sheer, flesh-toned lace panel with hair hand-knotted into it a few strands at a time, so the hairline appears to grow from the head. Glued or taped down, plucked to thin the density, melted to the skin, baby hairs laid.
“She had the lace melted so clean you could not find the line.”
2.
Used as an insult when badly done.
“Do not come in here with that lace front looking crazy.”
Origin & Attribution
Two histories that should not be collapsed. The construction is nineteenth century: once machine lace was cheap, by the 1870s, wigmakers ventilated hair into lace foundations for theater and film. The lace front as a Black American institution is a 2000s phenomenon, built by Black wig stylists and detonated in the 2010s by YouTube and Instagram. Kim Kimble dates the turn to Beyoncé's arrival, and credits drag queens as the early innovators of the undetectable hairline.
1870s
Machine lace makes ventilated lace foundations practical for theater and film wigmaking
2000s
Lace fronts enter Black beauty culture at scale; Kimble dates the shift to Beyoncé's rise
2011
Frontals become the stylist's obsession, per Porscha Weeks; 360 lace follows in 2016
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Black America, nationwide; salon and ballroom circuits · 2000s
Spoken by
Black women; wig stylists; drag and ballroom performers
$LACEFRThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising10 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
72/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
2000
in the culture
Mainstream crossover
2010
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
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Ayana D. Byrd and Lori L. Tharps, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America, revised edition
2014
■
+ Cite a sourceRefinery29, Beyond Bundles: Black Women Are Using Wigs To Set Their Own Beauty Standards
2019
See also