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The Conk originated in the 1920s and was stylized by entertainer Cab Calloway.

The style was an attempt by Black males to straighten their hair and was accomplished by enduring a truly painstaking process of “relaxing” the hair with a solution dominated by lye.The congalene, or conk for short, was a potent solution of potato starch, egg protein, and lye that had to be applied to the hair with protective gloves, kept off the scalp, and washed out quickly.  The keratin proteins in the kinky hair were altered so that the strands relaxed and the hair could be styled in different ways, from the piled pompadour to the hair being parted and combed flat.   One could also mix their own, sometimes with disastrous results. In order to keep the humidity from causing the hair to return to its natural curly state, men would wear fabric on their heads called do-rags.

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By the mid-1960s, the conk died out, as most entertainers (and therefore the general public in kind) began to move towards a more “natural” look which emphasized pride in Black heritage, a look that would eventually evolve into the Afro.