African Braiding Salon Part 2

I was shocked by the unprofessionalism I saw when I entered a particular African hair braiding salon. I was greeted by a woman eating her malodorous meal and a woman stretched out on the floor dead asleep. Wow, so why did I stay? Well, my daughter was going out of town for a few days with her Dad and I needed to get her hair done (as she said, “Daddy, you don’t even know how to do a puff”). When my daughter sat down in the chair, they took her puff down and the negotiations began. On the phone, I anticipated that I would get her hair cornrowed (small ones) and put beads in her hair. That came to a grand total of $60. However, once in the store, I was informed that it was $10 to wash her hair. I’d never heard of such a thing. Really, a wash is now a la carte? Ok, but what am I to do? So, my daughter goes to the bowl which is too big so the stylist asks my daughter to get on her knees and face the bowl.

Ooooooookkkkkkkkkkkkkkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyy. What is up with that? No booster seat? I know, I sound like a judgmental person, I’m really not. Just sharing what I thought. It was crazy to me that I was being charged to subject my daughter to what basically amounted to a sudsy facial. Thank goodness, the wash was soon over. I’d instructed my daughter to let me know if anything, ANYTHING about her hair was hurting, thank goodness because the next phase, blowdrying, was sheer torture. I knew something was wrong when the stylist broke out a wide tooth comb (yeah!) and began, without sectioning her hair, began to rake it through my daughter’s shrunken tresses. I asked my daughter if it was hurting and she told me no. Then, the stylist broke out a blow dryer. She placed it on the highest heat and began to wack at my daughter’s hair. I gasped, again, no sectioning! This was going against every natural hair routine I’d ever been advised to use.

Again, I asked my daughter if it hurt, more frequently now. Finally, she admitted that it did and began to cry. Ok. Here comes Super Mommy. I jumped up out of that seat, asked for the blow dryer and talked to the manager who then came over to show the stylist how to section and properly blow dry my daughter’s hair (you know, hold it at the roots so that blow drying the ends doesn’t lead to as much pull, putting some oil in it, etc.). I ended up blow drying my daughter’s hair. Next came the actually cornrowing.