Why Are So Few Salons Equipped to do my Curly/ Afro textured hair?
“If you can’t do 4c hair you can’t do hair…” — @_slimarella_ via twitter
In continuation of our Texturism series, today we’re exploring its presence in the hair industry!
What are the main issues, where do they come from, and how do we address them?
We spoke to some of our curly-haired clients to get their thoughts and feelings about the current state of Australian hairdressing; They kindly shared with us some of their experiences with afro hair salons before they found us!
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
Currently, the typical hairdressing qualification through TAFE doesn’t include any Afro textured hair education in its standard curriculum.
This means most hairdressers don’t learn how to work with the full range of hair types and textures.
As a result, roughly 2 million Australians don’t have access to adequate hair services…
Sydney based hairstylist, colourist, and educator, Chrissy Zemura shares in an interview with The Journal Magazine;
“I’d probably say maybe less than 10% of the hairdressing profession is equipped to deal with texture. And that’s obviously partly their fault, but also just the system that they trained in didn’t equip them, or encourage them [to learn].
It just leaves women, especially women of colour – those on the coil-iest, kinkiest end of the spectrum, and those with Afro hair – with no access to beauty services in the same way a white girl with straight hair does…
It’s not the fault of the hairdresser – most hairdressers qualify with an education that neglects this aspect of training. Stylists should feel confident [caring for and styling all texture types]. Just as clients should feel comfortable with their hairdresser.”
And Zemura is right, with no Afro textured hair education in the standard hairdressing curriculum, it puts the responsibility on the individual…
Clients have to seek out specialty hairdressers that cost a fortune, or wait for months on a waitlist for an appointment with that rare gem who knows how to work with curly hair.
Stylists have to seek out “speciality” tertiary courses, which aren’t accessible for most, and salon owners have to create and implement their own education to ensure their staff can adequately service everyone.
Following their piece featuring Zemura’s petition, the Journal Magazine interviewed Photographer and model Nina Ryan, another Aussie creative helping to bring this petition into effect;
“Before seeing the petition, I didn’t realise it wasn’t included [in TAFE training for hairdressers] but I’m 28, I’ve been to multiple hairdressers, it made complete sense.
Growing up products for my kind of hair just didn’t exist, especially because I grew up regional and I was just so far from the norm.
I thought if this can even slightly push it into the limelight and help get [Afro-textured hair education] included then I’m definitely all about it.”
“I had a look at the Cert III work [at TAFE] and you can do an elective on moustache shaping and beard maintenance and how to do all different types of French braids and long-hair updos.”
And still, no Afro-textured hair education?
INTERVIEWS:
We were lucky enough to hear from some of our clients about their experiences pre-Ella&Jade!
The beautiful Ashlee @peachtings discusses some of her biggest frustrations with the current state of Australian salons;
“One thing that really frustrates me is that not everyone in this world has dead straight hair and yet salons can only cater to dead straight hair… when [there are] so many people with curly hair that need proper attention and proper products…
But for years we’ve been dealing with these really bad products that only suit one type of person, and salons that only suit one type of person…
“Dead straight hair is just as rare as super super curly hair…”
Ashlee shares her experience with Australian salons in comparison to American salons, highlighting how this impacts the everyday client;
“I’m originally from Omaha Nebraska in the USA, so the comparison to salons over there is out of this world! When I moved here, the only time I ever really thought about getting my hair done in a salon has been…15 years later, this year, where I can now see there are people educating themselves on how to do curly hair… But I’ve had braids done [at an Australian salon] and they’ve charged me 5x more than I would get charged in America.”
One thing that really frustrated me about the lack of knowledge here is the fact that there are so many people with this hair texture…
Everyone has ‘types’ of hair - It’s a spectrum, so why don’t we learn about the whole entire spectrum?”
We also sat down with the beautiful Mayatu @mayatunova to hear her experiences with Aussie salons growing up;
I just felt like a lot of the time when my mum would take me to go get my hair cut, I would be there forever, the hair stylist was like stressing out, and then I was stressing out— and I was like, embarrassed? It was like ‘oh she doesn’t know what she’s doing’ but then… I don’t know what I’m doing because I’m a child… And then my mum would also be embarrassed and stressed out. There were so many times where we were there for so long, and my mum would give [the hair stylist] like an extra $50 or $100 tip because she was just like ‘I’m so sorry that you had to do that’… So we just like stopped going to a salon.”
“I’d say that my experience with hair salons, it wasn’t like it was bad, I never had someone like absolutely ridicule me — I know people who have had people ridicule them, or like turn them away saying ‘we don’t do your hair’… It’s just like that slight micro aggression, because I feel like when you don’t include people like that, you’re kind of saying like we don’t matter,in a way that’s kinda isolating… And it’s othering.”
Mayatu also touches on her experience on set as a model, often having to step in to do her own makeup and hair when makeup artists and hair stylists aren’t adequately trained;
“I think there’s just a lack of education.When I was going to shoots I was like ‘if they’re not gonna know how to do it, then I need to know how to do it.’”
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Hair expert and founder of Manketti hair range, Charlotte Mensah draws attention to the structure of the industry from the top;
“If we look at the leading haircare organisations, the boards that run them, and the awards shows that they host, this environment doesn’t come as a surprise.
It is critical that if we want to see more genuine change in everyday salons across the board, we need to see more radical change from the top down.
In my opinion, I think this stems from hairdressing education models enforcing euro-centric beauty standards, that scarcely include curly or textured hair. The makeup of Australia is so diverse – with so many different identities and nationalities – it only makes sense for different types of training and education to be made more accessible.”
So why won’t they change it?
When discussing her correspondence with people within educational spaces like TAFE, Chrissy Zemura shares that “the main response I’m getting back… is that ‘there’s not enough people’ [of colour, to justify a curriculum change]. But then why is it that there’s still a huge number of people that are under-serviced?
We’re talking about 2 million people [with this hair type]. And the fact that the education for hairdressers is only equipping them to do straight hair, I think speaks very clearly to a sort of ‘gatekeeping’ of eurocentric beauty standards. What does that say, if all your hairdressers are only equipped to deal with straight hair?
This translates into the fashion, the film industry, the beauty industry, where ‘beauty’ is always eurocentric, and this is what people are taught.”
Unfortunately there’s also a huge lack of accessibility to mannequin heads with Afro-textured hair for training - mannequin heads with Afro-textured hair can be upwards of $400, which isn’t at all sustainable for regular cutting training.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Many people with Afro-textured hair are expressing how these issues can be addressed. Zemura shares;
“Personally, I’d like to see a change in the practical teaching of how to look after women with textured hair… Key focus areas should include treating Afro hair – it’s something that’s almost as basic as the simple washing and conditioning of Afro hair (which has its own specific needs). Many people don’t even know how to condition and apply conditioning products to every strand. Also cutting, styling, colouring, as well as product and tool selection, to name a few other important areas.”
Charlotte Mensah outlines a few ways to implement this change, suggesting as example that “award shows could offer more categories that focus on or are inclusive of textured hair rather than segregating them,” and highlighting the importance of “championing the voices of those with textured hair when it comes to policy making.”
Ashlee discusses how she’d like to see these issues addressed;
“I think we need to, in educational spaces especially, learn that getting international influences that have been doing [Afro] hair for decades and have worked with many different POC— I think we just need more of that within [TAFE curriculum and salon training]…”
“I can go to a salon and tell them exactly how to do my hair because I know what I’m doing, so why don’t we have more influences from other places around the world that know how to do 4c textured hair?”
Chrissy Zemura perfectly sums up the need for systemic change;
“Everybody has a responsibility. I think that, instead of doing things to make this a ‘trend’, we should try to make lasting changes, to have lasting effects. So when people say well, why don’t you just go out and train yourself [to work with Afro and curly hair]? I’m just one person, and even if I do that, the system stays the same. The system needs to change, it’s not good enough for all the curly hairdressers to do their own separate education, because this doesn’t change anything. It puts the responsibility on people of colour.”
SIGN ZEMURA’S PETITION TO INCLUDE AFRO-TEXTURED HAIR EDUCATION IN CERT III HAIRDRESSING!
Sign Now
SO BASICALLY…
There is hope for change, but we all need to be a part of it!
Chrissy Zemura shares how these changes can positively impact a plethora of industries, highlighting that “the hair industry is a kind of cornerstone for so many industries – if we change, lots of change trickles down. It can be a domino effect. Now you have models having better experiences on sets, modelling and movies, hairdressers who will now miss out on certain opportunities if they don’t know how to work with certain types of hair, so it does change things. It’s a domino effect. We’ll see a lot of things changing; Queensland is a hotspot for Hollywood movies at the moment, for example, but all of these people bring their own hairdresser!” —
Jennie Roberts, Wakati hair expert, Afro-textured hair educator, and celebrity stylist (the one who gave us the iconic Scary Spice Bantu knots moment!) shares that “Textured hair shouldn’t be a specialised texture to work with. It’s hair, a fibre just like straight hair, and when educated about it, it all makes sense… As an experienced hairstylist, the onus falls on us to know about the texture that was presented.”
