How to Transition From the Salon to a Barbershop After Your Big Chop
There is nothing novel about short hair, especially in the black community. Outside of those in my neighborhood, I grew up watching famous women like Halle Berry, Grace Jones and Nia Long rock pixies and buzz cuts on the big screen. However, I’d be remiss to ignore the fact that I still subscribed to Eurocentric beauty standards. In short: I believed that long, straight hair was beautiful and my coils and kinks were problematic.
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It didn’t matter how many times I watched Angela Bassett chop her hair off in “Waiting to Exhale;” I still wanted Mom to style my big curls into a long silky ponytail everyday. Admittedly, it wasn’t until my college years that I began to see the beauty of Black hair in all forms, and contemplated a big chop myself. Luckily, just as this personal transformation took place, so did the re-emergence of the natural hair community.
By the early to mid ‘2000s, black women were not only transitioning to their natural texture in droves; they also had the support of countless online forums, video tutorials and magazine articles to guide them along the way. And today, the beauty industry has evolved to support that community, with brands created exclusively for textured hair and sales in the billions of dollars.
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One place I didn’t expect to see naturalistas infiltrate is the barbershop. For as long as I can remember, it’s been a place of solace for men, but now, it’s also become a safe haven for those who choose to style their natural curls into shorter variations.
You can see it on Instagram accounts like The Cut Life, where founder Tahira Wright frequently reposts the most head-turning low cuts from women on her feed.
“Women love options and don’t want to always fit into society’s standard of beauty,” she says. “The Cut Life is almost 5 years old and I would like to say our site encouraged more women to go short in recent years.”
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One of the woman you’ll frequently find on The Cut Life page, Tahirah Carter, thinks women are simply tired of being confined to the salon.
“A lot of the younger generation such as myself find it liberating. We live in a society where we are expected to wear straight hair down our backs,” she says. “It’s killing us to manage our daily lives, workout and be bothered with hair. It’s not lazy, it can be really stressful for an active woman.”
So, if you’re a woman with a short cut, how exactly do you go about entrusting your hair to a barber. For starters, know what to ask for.
“I usually I ask for a fade. When you are looking for a barber, find someone who is knowledgeable about the softness of women’s cuts,” says Tahirah. “Always talk over with them in detail about what you want and have a picture available.”
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Wright also recommends being prepared with the proper payment (most shops are cash only), and to understand the amount of maintenance that comes with whatever style you choose.
“Find a professional stylist in your area that specializes in cutting hair & schedule a consultation… Ask to see some of their work in advance or stalk their IG to make sure they can execute the look you’re going for.”
from StyleCaster
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