The Curly Revolution
Note: This is a repost of a blog from my old site, originally published January 22nd, 2022My fellow hairdressers,
If you only work with straight hair, I’m talking to you.
With everything that has been brought into focus in the summer of 2020 regarding Black Lives Matter, I watched hairdressers claim they will “do better” to correct the underlying racism and xenophobia in the industry, but they still treat everyone’s hair as if it’s straight. Even if the person in question is White, this is a watered down form of White Supremacy. Assumption that the European Standard of Beauty applies to all people sitting in your chair is ignorance. I’m done being polite about it.
Let me begin by telling the story of my personal experience and how it relates to curly folx of any color.
About 4 years ago, I realized I was now a curly-haired person. My greys came in thicker and curlier than my previously fine, stick-straight hair. After some awkward years of this new curly life, I think I have finally figured out what type of products and cut I need in order for it to work best. Even with my professional experience behind the chair, it takes a while to change how you treat your specific curls in order to make them happy.
Perfect time for me to be completely sidelined by another rite of passage for curlies:
THE SURPRISE STRAIGHT HAIRCUT
Straight-haired folk will never understand the feeling of violation which occurs when you go into a salon with obviously curly hair and discover, to your horror, that they only cut hair straight.
I was SO EXCITED to have someone else cut my hair, as a stylist I rarely get the salon experience (and now I have trust issues). I went in with my hair washed the day before and only light cream product so that my curls were on their best behavior so she could see the texture for a dry cut... as I do in my salon. She was like, “well I need to get that product out” and washed my hair with shampoo (which I don’t use so my scalp was dry for days after) and blow-dried it straight with zero product or heat protection, which means my hair felt way more dry and damaged than it was... and this meant she cut more length under the guise of “damaged ends” than she needed to.
The result is leaving with a straight haircut that doesn’t look good when you reactivate your curls. The weight distribution is off, ringlets that normally clump together are now confused and stringy. When the texture of a curly haircut is off, it can lead to your curls looking just frizzy and damaged, even if your hair isn’t. In my case, my curls needed length in order to be curly, so cutting 4 inches off the top caused the top to be straight again, so it looked like a straight bowl cut sitting on top of a curly mullet by my neck.
One of my curly friends described it as feeling “emotionally trapped” and the process as “attacked and ejected” - To beauticians who tune out during the consultation, is that the kind of salon experience you want to create for people? Because when you ignore our curly texture, that is how it makes us feel.
Hair Trauma is a real thing. When this happened to me I went into Freeze trauma response. I was so shocked I couldn’t say anything. Even me as a professional hairdresser, I didn’t want to embarrass the stylist by calling her out in front of her coworkers. I somehow made it my fault with inner monologue of “Oh, I thought she had curly hair herself, I didn’t check with her first” etc.
NO. THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT.
I am really tired of hearing about this from my new clients who have been traumatized by other hairdressers. There is a huge problem in the industry of people doing whatever they want after not listening to the information given in the consultation.
Apparently this is what makes me a really good hairdresser. It isn’t any of my actual hair-related skills. It’s simply the novel concept of listening to what people are asking of me.
The consultation is as important as the haircolor formula, if you mess that up then you have no chance of succeeding. It’s simple math, if you are given an assignment but jump in without reading the instructions with information on which methods to use - you aren’t going to do very well.
Here is the definition of “erasure” from dictionary.com.
When you don’t acknowledge our texture, it is Curly Erasure.
Curly Erasure can occur to anyone in the curly family, people any race or other marginalized group. But it gets worse for Black people because this is rooted in the system of white supremacy that specifically targets them.
The European Standard of Beauty dictates that everyone must be blonde, straight-haired, light-skinned, and blue-eyed in order to be considered “beautiful”.
In Western culture, those who fulfilled these standards slid easily through society, like a hot knife through butter; those who deviated found their movements more difficult, like paper scissors trying to cut satin.
STYLISTS ARE LACKING EDUCATION
The kinky coily natural texture of Black people is totally different from the fine straight hair of the European Standard. It isn’t taught in beauty school. I am so grateful that most of my clientele in Beauty School were Black because I would not have received any education on natural textured hair otherwise. We had 10 chapters on the nuance of straight hair, cutting and styling, and a single chapter on “Ethnic” hair that was the only mention of curls. The principles of curls are the same regardless of race, so that chapter applies to white people with curls more than the other chapters do. That chapter also didn’t teach me much, it’s mostly about relaxers and braiding... in other words, ways of avoiding dealing with curls.
The term our textbook used - “Ethnic hair” - is itself insulting and confusing. Texture VS Race on instagram has been leading the revolution to change how people discuss curls. Along with I am Black Girl Curls, who educates people about how to treat curls and what cheap ingredients to avoid, especially for kinky curly textures. These are my two most valuable resources for information and it’s free information, so stylists have no excuse not to educate themselves. Please sign this petition simply to have texture taught in beauty school.
Louisiana is leading the way forward by now requiring education and experience with textured hair in order to get a license in their state. From this article on CNN.com:
“The board voted unanimously on Nov. 1 to pass the resolution, which means all cosmetology school students in the state must be trained on cutting textured hair — which refers to hair that is kinky, curly, or wavy in its natural state.
Some Louisiana hairstylists say they have waited years for the board to add guidelines that are more inclusive of Black Americans who have faced discrimination at White-owned hair salons because the staff was not equipped to service their hair texture.
”You’re not a complete cosmetologist if you can’t service all people,” said Sharon Blalock, owner of Blalock’s Professional Beauty College in Shreveport.”
CURLY HAIR IS “UNPROFESSIONAL”
There are countless articles about curlies from all backgrounds fighting the a stigma in professional settings, Curly hair is considered unprofessional. Below I have listed a few choices from the entire spectrum. From the Caucasian experience of having your confidence shaken, to the Black experience of cultural erasure and losing a job to a lighter-skinned, straighter-haired colleague.
“Today I would like to ask, well, everyone to stop saying “it’s just hair” when it relates to Black identities. It’s not “just hair” when a federal court once ruled it legal for employers to ban dreadlocks.
It’s not “just hair” when young girls in middle school are getting suspended for wearing their natural hair. It’s not “just hair” when Black women are getting fired from their jobs for the natural styles they choose to wear in their hair, not because of their actions. It’s not “just hair” when the kids in my predominately white swimming class would stare and laugh at me when my afro turned kinky once it hit the water.”
As Maya explains, stigma against curls in the workplace starts with school. It’s systematic racism parading as a professional standard. This boy couldn’t attend his senior prom “unless he cut off his dreadlocks” because his hair was “too long” for the school policy for boy’s hair (having different standards for genders is a another enraging soapbox that I cant even touch in this entry). This girl was suspended because her hair looked “like it hadn't been brushed for days, which violates school rules.”
I’m only going to say this once, so I’m going to put it in caps for the audience in the back—-
YOU ARENT SUPPOSED TO BRUSH CURLS!
—-except on Wash Day and even then probably use a wide tooth comb instead. Unless you want the hair to be frizzy and fluffy; if that’s the case, brush away. Brushing doesn’t magically turn curly hair into straight hair. “Looking like it hasn’t been brushed” is code for “not straight enough” which is code for “not White enough.”
Anyway, there are countless articles about this discrimination in schools. For further reading:
All of this micromanagment over what Black women are allowed to do with their hair goes back to blaming it on witchcraft, of course. One of my favorite TikTok Creators, @crutches_and_spice, explains Tignon Laws.
For further reading, there is a great article by Rediet Tadele on AmplifyAfrica.org : Tignon Law: Policing Black Women's Hair in the 18th Century
Historian Virginia M. Gould notes in her book, "The Devil's Lane: Sex & Race in the Early South" that the governor was hoping that it would control women ‘who had become too light skinned or who dressed too elegantly, or who competed too freely with white women for status and thus threatened the social order.”
IN CONCLUSION
My fellow hairdressers,
beauty brethren,
cosmetologist comrades,
I chastise you because this is a growing moment. People in the beauty industry have a responsibility to be part of this change. We don’t have to perpetuate the European Standard as the only standard, we can be better.
Join us in shaping the post-2020 world to be intersectional, inclusive of all hair textures. It can only benefit your business when you expand your skillset.
Curlies will no longer live in the shadows. If you can’t treat our texture properly, then we will find someone who can.
Evolve, or be left in the dust.
