Andreas Haircuts

Great article on The Science of Black Hair about things to consider when thinking about coloring your hair.

Color Smart: 4 Things You Should Consider Before You Color Your Natural Hair
By The Science of Black Hair

"Taking your hair to the next level with color can be a really exciting experience. Color can jazz up a boring puff, add dimension to locs and twist outs or really turn heads as a simple statement piece on TWAs. While going darker, adding lowlights or coloring within your natural color range won’t cause you too many problems—the drastic color leaps upward (more than 3 shades beyond your natural color) can really take a toll on your hair. Before you engage in any hair altering experience, first understand and weigh the risks. Never ever color your hair on a whim or without a gameplan for aftercare. Finally, decide if you trust yourself enough to do it yourself. Be honest with yourself and say, Self— do you really know what you are doing? What if this color is unsuccessful? Am I prepared for breakage? Am I prepared for a weird color result? Before you take the color plunge, here are some things to consider. You May Experience:

1.Curl pattern changes. Yes, coloring textured hair can sometimes result in temporary, unpredictable changes in your hair’s curl pattern. Sometimes, the changes are permanent. Whenever you alter or manipulate the hair’s protein bonding arrangement a slight relaxing effect can occur. These curl pattern changes are less likely to occur in coarse hair textures (coarse refers to the diameter of the hair fiber, not the feel of the fiber), and are more likely to occur in those with fine to medium hair textures. Prior damage may also influence whether or not you experience changes in your curl pattern. Using a protein reconstructor after coloring may help some lost curls find their way again.

2.Increases in hair porosity. Products that lighten the hair always require direct access to the hair’s cortical layers. When the hair’s cuticle is breached in this manner, the hair’s natural porosity increases leading to a dryness that hardly ever lets up. When porosity increases, dryness becomes a major complaint because moisture is next to impossible to hold securely within the fiber. Your hair becomes like a bucket with holes poked in the sides. Color-treated hair can be unforgiving, too. Miss a regularly scheduled deep conditioning and you may find yourself parting with strands prematurely. A strict, moisture and protein-focused regimen is absolutely essential if the hair is to thrive in this condition. If you never cared before, now is definitely the time to learn how to balance protein and moisture sources in your regimen!

3.Loss of Elasticity. Because color-treated hair has lost much of its natural moisture (and its overall
ability to retain supplemental moisture given), the hair may lose some of its elasticity. Elasticity refers to the ability of our hair fibers to stretch gently and return back to their normal shape and character without damage. The elastic quality of our hair is what makes putting our hair in a ponytail or drawing a puff effortless. When hair lacks elasticity, it does not move, bend and recover when pressured like healthy hair does— it simply gives up under pressure and snaps in its fragile condition. Again, moisture and protein balancing become critical for establishing elasticity because it’s that careful mix of moisture and strength that gives our hair the ability to resist breakage from being stretched and handled day to day.

4.Horrific Color Result. Color is very, very unpredictable and all the swatches, box comparisons and focus groups in the world can’t prepare you for the end result you will be able to expect. Why? Because color uptake is dependent on a number of factors— namely your hair’s current color, porosity and texture (strand size). At best, the hair color on the box is just the product manufacturer’s best corporate guess at what your hair will look like (with a bit of photoshopping thrown in for good measure.) Sometimes, multiple steps will be needed to get your color right. It is always best to have an experienced professional take color more than three shades out of your natural color range. Chances are, they’ve seen numerous heads with textures like yours and varying degrees of porosity—plus they have the added bonus of experiences with various colors and looks to bring to the table. The numbers game is in their favor. You standing there in the store aisle with a box and maybe 0-5 colorings under your belt really can’t compete. (Okay, okay— maybe some of you can!)

Don’t let your color job be the first time you are sitting in this stylist’s chair— especially if the color change is drastic. You want someone who knows you and your hair and who’ll be available if you have questions. Unfortunately, here on the worldwide web, we can’t see your color or touch your hair. Sometimes it really is best to have someone from the outside hold your hand a little. Finally, one last note to take into consideration. Know that your color-treated hair will be very sensitive to things that you may have taken for granted before— (i.e., water, the sun, heat etc) and undergoing the coloring process sort of assumes that you’re ready to handle a little extra responsibility. Color-treating your hair is not a time to get lackadaisical with your hair. If you are lazy, put down the box, do not pass go and do not collect $200. (Same advice for those of you who relax/texturize, too)! Color-treated hair REQUIRES upkeep or you will quickly find it circling (albeit very colorfully) down the drain."

Photo Source one and two 

Is your stylist an outlaw? Probably not, but if she braids hair for a living without first obtaining acostly and time consuming cosmetology license, she may be running afoul of a troubling policy trend requiring licenses for professions that are perfectly safe.

No one should have to go to work with the fear that they could be fined or arrested. Unfortunately, for thousands of natural hair braiders, that fear is very real. That's because twenty-four states regulate hair braiders as cosmetologists, despite the fact that they do not use dyes, caustic chemicals or dangerous tools. In fact, the only tools they *do* use are their hands, which these laws effectively regulated as dangerous weapons.

 Today, that fear ends. The Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm that has represented hair braiders for more than two decades, is launching a national legal and online initiative to defend natural hair braiders' right to work free from over-zelious licensing laws. Those laws require that braiders take upwards of 1,500 or more hours of course work and take two exams—neither of which test their braiding ability—before they can accept their first paying client.

You can read more about the initiative at http://www.braidingfreedom.com." - J. Justin Wilson, Director of Communications, Institute for Justice. To support this cause, hashtag #braidingfreedom on your social media pages. Check out the video below for more information.

I am excited to be a contributing writer for Naturally Happy Hair Magazine.  Check out my first article, titled "Fabulocs" published in the magazines 2014 Winter issue.  The model featured in the magazine article is Ebony Lunsford.

A link to this story was just shared with me today. It is about Aevin Dugas who has the world record for the largest Afro.

"Aevin Dugas of New Orleans, Louisiana holds the Guinness World Record for largest natural afro entering the book with an astounding 4 foot 4 inch circumference. Ms. Dugas’ afro is larger than a disco ball and Guinness says that it’s so sizable that she could fit the world’s shortest man inside her hairstyle. The 38-year-old social worker has grown her hair for over 14 years and credits her mother as her first inspiration to go natural saying, “My mom has this picture of her with an afro before I was born, and I thought it was such a cute picture. I was like, ‘Ooh, when I go natural, I want to wear my hair like my mom.’”

But at one time Aevin wished for bone straight hair and got perms which resulted in chemical burns on her scalp. After that she swore off chemicals and went natural sporting the style she wears today. Aevin told the Daily Mail, “I don’t know why, but there’s something very important to me about little girls appreciating my hair and then wanting to wear their hair the same.” As proud as Aevin is of her luscious locks, she also concedes to the downsides of her crowing glory like difficulty with peripheral vision while driving, getting hooked in trees she passes, and getting caught in people’s drinks at clubs. The record holder explained, “I don’t wear it like this on an airplane because people would probably slap me, because it touches people. I’ve had somebody want to beat me up at a concert,” adding, “So it can be kind of problematic, but I still wouldn't change a thing about it.””

This story was originally posted on the B. Brew blog. Erickka wrote in and asked that I share this with my Naturally Beautiful Hair Blog readers.

"N. A. P. P. Y.” said my grandmother to her friend, as she struggled to get a comb through my hair. The woman, who like my grandmother was so light that she could almost pass for white, chuckled and nodded in agreement. Sensing that something was fishy, six-year-old me spelled the letters back. N. A. P. P. Y. Wait a minute! She just called my hair nappy! And that is how I discovered I had BAD HAIR.

 I couldn’t wait to tell my mother who tried her best to assure me that my hair wasn’t that bad, and not to worry because in a couple of years we would relax it. I waited on that relaxer like kids wait for Christmas. When the day finally came at ten years old life changed overnight. Free of naps, I felt beautiful, alive, ready for the world! However, a few weeks later I realized that one relaxer did not a whole life make. I would have to get it done again, and again, and again. Whenever my new growth would come in. New growth being a fancy way of saying, my nappy ass edges! Man how I HATED those edges. The first time I knew they were different was when I was hanging with my cousins who had beautiful edges or ‘baby hair’ as it was called. When they told me all they used was Crisco grease to get them to look so pretty I ran home like my ass was on fire! But man, I must have used half a can of grease with no result. It wasn’t until later that I found out that they had good hair, of course. Their dad had Indian in him and, well, you know the rest…

 By high school I started doing my own relaxers and decided it was time to finally deal with those edges. If I could just get them to chill… So I relaxed them three times in one week. Now once every 5-6 weeks was the rule, so this was akin to MURDER, which is exactly what happened. Instead of beautifully straight edges they became overprocessed and I was left with a patch of burned up weeds. Damn. So I took a razor and shaved them to the middle of my head and everything was fine. Until a few days later when that nappy hair started growing back and I was faced with another problem: INGROWN HAIRS! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! I had no choice but to keep shaving them,
and walked around for months like an old man with a bumpy receding hairline.

Finally, the most popular girl at school sat me down for a heart-to-heart. “Hey, can I talk to you for a
minute?” She was a senior, I was a freshman, and wouldn’t you know she had good hair! The best in the whole school! Whites, Blacks and Mexicans wanted her beautiful, long, wavy, hair. I was in shock that she even knew me, though we played on the same basketball and volleyball team. “Uh, yea, what’s up?” “What did you do to your edges?” (A beat) WTF was I supposed to say? The truth? Hells no! “Uh, I was trying a new look.” “Well, I think you should grow them back. It doesn’t look good.” “Ok.” I grew them back immediately. So life moved on and so did I. After high school I started modeling and kept rocking a relaxer. By then I’d sorta made peace with my edges and the only time I had any real issues was when I was working and white hair stylists would try to get creative: “Will it go curly?” No. “Can I wet it?” No. “Can I put this car wax on it?” No, No, and more No. Until one day, I was due for another relaxer and couldn’t bring myself to do it. My hair was screaming for a break that it hadn’t seen since I was a kid. So I called Derrick, a hairdresser that I met on a job, and we started two strand twists that would eventually lock into my own hair. Whoaaa…

The liberation I felt was immediate! With my edges locked up I felt free. I was unstoppable. Sure enough, I booked three national commercials that year, including one for Pantene and GAP, where I got to shake my hair like the good haired girls! But as great as it was, after some years I longed to comb my hair again, to brush it, to feel it. It was time to unlock, but damn, those edges. Having tasted
freedom, there was no way I was going back to a relaxer. Soooo I cut my locks and went au naturel, a look that would allow me to make the edges irrelevant and still work in the commercial TV realm. Or so I thought. What I hadn’t anticipated was the change of tide and the emergence of the super good haired girl. I’m talkingprofessional good hair, not your high school prom queen. These girls didn’t model because they were beautiful and happened to have good hair, they modelled because they had good hair. Walk into an audition room and good hair was coming out of the walls! It had me up late nights twisting, gelling, conditioning, doing whatever I could to if not beat it, at least imitate it. But no matter how hard I tried, I’d go to a casting and see all that curly, wavy, bouncy, luxurious, silky, long, larger-than-life hair. And my heart would sink. I felt like an imposter trying to sneak in somewhere that I didn’t belong. I was drowning. Work declined and so did my bank account. Now now, we had a problem. But like an addict, I knew I couldn’t handle it on my own, bad hair was controlling my life. So I did something that I should have done a long time ago, called for help.

Sidra was first because, well, she’s bald, so there had to be a story. Did she shave her head to escape bad hair? She explained that she cut her hair because she’d been wearing hair extensions of every kind for so long that she no longer knew who she was. Shaving her head was a way to reintroduce herself to herself. That was twelve years ago and she couldn’t be happier. When it comes to bad hair she says that she never bought into it because she believes there’s nothing stronger and sexier than a black woman with nappy hair. Hmm. If naps are so sexy, why didn’t she keep them? Next I called Debi, a relaxer girl. Was she running from bad hair? Debi said that her hair’s not relaxed and she gets it straightened at the salon every few weeks because it’s easier than wearing it natural. When it comes to good and bad hair she says she never entertained the conversation because in her mind black hair is black hair. A black girl who didn’t grow up obsessing over hair texture? Humph. It was time to speak to Ta-ning, a bestie I’ve known for six years and never seen without a wig. She HAD to be hiding bad hair. Ta-ning shared that growing up her mom wore a different wig everyday so she sees wigs as accessories. In fact, she and her mom have zillions. And, yes, she does have nappy hair, but she’s never been ashamed of it because with light skin and green eyes she could always count on her nappy hair to let people know that she’s black. Nappy and happy?! Was it possible? But I was inclined to believe her because her mom looks white and has really good hair, so she never had a reason to hide it under a wig. Maybe they really do love wigs!

I honestly don’t know what I was looking for next, but I knew I had to talk to a good haired girl because so far nothing was as it seemed. I got in touch with Blakelee, a light-skinned Southern belle who I was convinced grew up privileged. Funny enough, Blakelee said that the only time her hair texture was discussed was when she went to black salons and hairdressers would make comments. In her family, everyone had curly hair so it wasn’t a big deal. But she had to know that people viewed her differently? At school, kids would sometimes tease her about being half-white (which she’s not) but that was about it. Today, she’s trying not to continue straightening her hair because she wants to bring back her natural curl. The bone-straight look, she feels, doesn’t capture her feisty personality. So the good haired girl is trying to bring back some kink because she wants some edge?! This was CRAZY. My whole life had revolved around the belief that my nappy hair somehow made me inferior. It was something not only enforced by my grandmother, but countless people that I’d met along the way who seemed to share a disdain for nappy hair. One friend even told me to pick the right mate so that my kids wouldn’t have “carpet-textured hair…” This inferiority complex is something that I had accepted as my lot in life so to hear that it could have been different- that like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, good hair was mine all along- left me feeling sad, really sad. Man, what I could have done with my life. Like Brando, “I could have been a contender, I could have been somebody.” But the fight was not over. And I could see clearly what I needed to do. The multigenerational inheritance of the Good and Bad Hair obsession would stop with me. Period.

By Erickka Sy Savané
bitchesbrewblog.com 
https://twitter.com/bitchesbrewblog

I would like to thank Essence.com and their Associate Beauty Editor, Nicole Melton, for correcting a misprint on the event coverage for the Textured Talk natural hair get together. The event was on March 25, 2012 - very fun and a huge success. The event was covered on Essence.com, but I was not listed as one of the two host, that hosted the event. So I would like to thank my good friends for pointing this out to me!! :-)  And I appreciate Essence for the correction. To see the article, check us out on Essence.com.

I was interviewed for the The Birmingham News newspaper. To see the full Article, go to More black women are embracing their natural hair.