Recently a friend of mine went to a salon well know in the trendy Soho area of NYC .Frequented by models and the beauty elite. As a blogger she went on the premise of trying out a new hair treatment during their summer event.
Imagine looking forward to a great blow out and going home with dare I say it a “snatchback”! Eeekkgads! All because the stylist at said top salon has no clue how to manage your coarse thick hair. They used the excuse”Oh we just don’t’ have enough time to blow all of this out ” For those of you with ethnic / curly /kinky hair this may have happened to you at some point. Imagine you have several other events to go to and now you’ve got to walk around looking “crazy” instead of fabulous like all of the other writers who are have a different hair texture than you.
For the record a snatchback refers to the hair literally being snatched back into a bad ponytail. In other words, your hair is just “a hot mess”
When I heard this story I was really annoyed and disappointed. It also got me thinking. Why is it that in 2010 a woman with extra curly/kinky hair still has only a few options she can go to for good service.? Why are Black and Hispanic women with coarse hair still being shunned by White or non ethnic salons ? Meanwhile we have been doing everyone’s hair for centuries no problem? Why are some Latin salons still trying to front like they don’t have curly kinky hair?
“Mami you need a relaxer” is not what one wants to hear when going to the spot. Hair is descriptive of our culture and where we fit on the scale of race. Straight hair good , Kinky hair bad. When will this stop? In many other areas race is almost a non issue but not in the hair business.
Instead of being afraid to do multi-ethnic hair , salons in urban markets especially, need to embrace what’s in their back yard and learn how to work with the hair coming in to your salon . Not just the hair in magazines.
After speaking with several other beauty writers about this we all agree it’s high time that the beauty industry take a notice of what’s going on.
1. Have at least 2 people in your salon that know how to handle all textures and one that is well versed on curly hair
2 Update and train the staff you already have to service all clients
3 Invest in learning about hair techniques for kinky and multi ethnic textures.
4 Lastly , Never let a client leave the salon looking worse than when they came in!.
Multi ethnic women spend billions of dollars on our hair at the salon , why would you not want a piece of that?
Feel free to comment with your hair stories .
