Coils & Curls Blog

YIPPIE!!! It has happened! I am the feature Consultant in the latest Sisterlocks Journal!
The Journals are only $7.50 each. Feel free to order them through this website.
Thanks to all of you for your support!

Years ago, when I decided to work with natural hair full time, I made a business decision around the “telephone in the salon.” Many of us, who came out of traditional salons were sick of the hairstylist doing your hair with one hand and holding the phone talking about the latest social events with the other hand. You know the experience. For me, it became almost comical. By the time my perm was laid in, I knew who she was dating and who was givin’ her a hard time about it. That was my experience, again and again - and it made an impact on me. As a result, I made it a policy that I would not answer the phone while I had a client in the chair.

Well, it has been several years of honoring that commitment and re-evaluating that commitment as the business has grown over the years. The only reason for my policy was to show the utmost of customer service to my current client; in essence, fighting the stereo-type around the experience I have already mentioned. Some of you are adamant about this policy and have been very appreciative to me for enforcing it over the years. But customer service extends beyond the chair and I need to consider the experience of the client who is calling to reach me for an appointment. Moreover, as my cliental continues to grow out-of-state, this is becoming an even grater consideration.

With that said, in an effort to make ALL areas of my business more exceptional to my clients, I am adopting a new practice. Answering the phone for the sole purpose of setting an appointment should only take around 30 seconds. If you are in my chair when the business line rings, please help me with your understanding around what that quick 30 seconds can mean to a person looking to set an appointment. And if you are calling to set an appointment, please be understanding around the time we spend on the phone.

As you know, my focus is on making your locking experience exceptional; both in and out of the chair.

This came across my desk and I thought that I would pass it along. I checked out the website below and it looks like a great opportunity for anyone that meets the criteria (31 or less with a high school diploma). IF YOU KNOW ANYBODY WHO FITS IN THIS CATEGORY, PASS IT ALONG TO THEM. WE NEED GOOD PEOPLE TO POLICE THE PLANES.

The Federal Aviation Association is taking applications for air traffic controller school. We all have kids and know kids in the right age group (under 31) and with some effort they could reach a salary of over $100,000 with benefits in about 3 years. You need only a high school diploma to apply and redit is given for college on the exam.

They need to go to faa.gov (http://www.faa.gov/jobs/job_opportunities/airtraffic_controllers/)
for details and to fill out the application immediately - even if they don’t know if they’d want to attend immediately - it’s the federal government and it may take them months to call. The key is to apply NOW.

There will be a lot of retirements coming up rather quickly and they need to line up training to accommodate these openings. It’s my understanding that the FAA rarely has an open application such as this and that the jobs are coveted. My friends daughter is 28 years old and is well into 3 figures and has plenty of time for travel/recreation and has started another career on the side.

This is a great opportunity and it should be noted that choosing a site like Anchorage or Indianapolis to train is a likely acceptance into the training program - after-which you can transfer anywhere in the country that has a tower.

I hope that this is timely information for your daughter/son or anyone else who may find it useful.

The young lady who directed the documentary “A Girl Like Me,” has been nominated to win a scholarship from Cosmo girl.
Thanks to my Blog-Buddy Chosen Vessel, here is the link we need to help get the natural hair message out: http://www.cosmogirl.com/entertainment/film-contest

Please cast your vote today!

Read this Article on BoingBong… Have you ever heard of this?

Thursday, March 22, 2007
Memphis barber cuts hair with fire
For years here in Memphis, there is a man who has cut people’s hair with a butane torch. A friend of mine got a few pictures of him doing his work: http://www.flickr.com/photos/djcollinator/421997829/in/photostream/

Question…
Are the stats in this presentation accurate? I have heard all the stats they are disputing… and honestly, I took them as truths because I heard them so much by so many “educated” people… but maybe I was wrong to take all that “they” say as gospel. What are your thoughts: http://www.whatblackmenthink.com/wbmt%20psa.wmv

Hair Weaves Tangle Self-Image for Black Women
Run Date: 02/19/07
By Malena Amusa
WeNews correspondent
As hair weaves and wigs have become more popular among African American women, writer Malena Amusa finds an embrace of femininity in their use as well as a broader cultural rejection of natural black beauty.

(WOMENSENEWS)–This past winter, I noticed something very unsettling while I was visiting my family in St. Louis.

Almost all the black women I encountered were sporting lavishly long hair weaves, fake locks that can add length and volume after being sewed or glued to the scalp. Weaves come in straight, curly and kinky textures. But most black women with weaves wear them to extend and straighten the appearance of their naturally coiled and nappy hair.

Everywhere I turned, from the church to the mall, black women suited up in this straight-hair uniform. Was I missing something? I thought. Would my close-cut Afro set me too far apart from other black women?

Natural, kinky hair–which is most associated with blackness–has also been tied to inferiority in the United States. We can thank entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker, the late 19th century inventor of the hot pressing comb–literally a comb-shaped iron–for the subsequent years of black women burning their disobedient hair into submission. Still today among African Americans, there exists a strata between those with “bad hair” and “good hair,” the latter being hair that is most in sync with the dominant culture.

Walk into any pharmacy and you’ll see a deluge of harsh chemical products that promise black women unnappy hair. Many believe this is a demonstration of self-loathing.

The January 2007 copy of Essence magazine I picked up didn’t help. “Look Beautiful in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s . . . Real Women and Celebs Share Beauty and Health Secrets,” the cover read. Featured were three celebrities with flowing, bouncy weaves and another woman whose silver hair was visibly straightened to suppress the real curl underneath.

Essence had made it clear: There was no way to be nappy-haired and beautiful at any age.

Myopic Beauty Image

This perplexed me because around St. Louis, so many everyday women who have no celebrity stakes to claim were subscribing to this myopic image of beauty wrapped around these hair weaves that, by the way, can take hours to glue onto the scalp and cost hundreds of dollars.

I wanted to walk in their shoes and understand them, so I decided to get a long, straight wig. Without the labor-intensive process, I achieved the luscious locks of a weave so I could learn what the non-celebrity woman had to gain from emulating the straight hair of non-African woman.

After several days of wearing the wig and interviewing black women, I found that the straight-hair phenomenon has little to do with a need to fit into mainstream social settings. Rather, these long weaves may reflect our desire to try on a different feminine persona that has historically been appropriated for white women.

Throughout time, weaves and wigs have served as costumes for black women to put on when they want to look sexy, such as in the 2006 movie “Dream Girls” that’s loosely based on the 1960s rise of the Supremes, a Motown sensation.

In the opening scene of the movie, before the Dreams enter their first big show, they shift their poofy, European-hair wigs around. Finding a perfect fit, they then put on a killer show. As the Dreams become more successful and switch from mostly black to mostly white audiences, their hair get-ups become longer and bigger. The Dreams begin to look like white women in black face. And when one of the members gets kicked out of the band because of her hefty appearance, she quickly reverts to wearing an Afro.

Buying a Wig

I knew my hair was being mistaken for my femininity upon entering the Asian-owned beauty-supply store in my predominantly black neighborhood where I went to buy my wig. Perhaps because the elderly Asian sales lady kept saying: “Oh you pretty . . . with the wig.”

It became even clearer once I returned home with the long, black, straight wig in hand and saw the label name Nikita. Even the manufacturers figured that by wearing this wig, I was to transform myself into another woman.

A few weeks later, I moved to New York and met an actress and professor of aesthetic studies at the University of Texas-Dallas. Venus Opal Reese has interviewed hundreds of black women in researching this hair transformation.

During the opening night of her one-woman play “Split Ends,” which takes an in-depth look at black women and their historical tangle with hair, Reese bombarded a small stage wearing a skimpy dress and a Tina Turner wig just as wild as her flailing arms. Seconds later, the wig flew off and fell to the floor. As the crowd yelped with laughter, Reese hurried to pick it up, and kept waving the hair in her hand as if still attached to her swirling head.

“Being a woman is a performance,” she said in the skit. “It’s a full-time, thankless job.”

Dressing Up in Drag

Her point was to show that by wearing weaves and wigs, black women are dressing up in their own drag, whereby they can become the type of woman they aren’t otherwise expected to be. Black women weaving up has so much to do with our need to feel feminine and strong at different points in our lives, Reese argued later in a phone interview.

“Hair is a navigator,” she said. “It’s a negotiator, it’s a deal-breaker.”

I’d say. In a world where black women are constantly blunted by racial and sexual discrimination, it makes sense that we’d begin adopting counter-representations of ourselves.

That’s what the wig did for me. It gave me the freedom to be aloof, to flirt and to smile without fear of not receiving smiles in return.

I made several outings with the wig. During one trip, I went to a mall. The weave made my confidence soar. Heading there, I drove faster than usual. And every time I reached to pick up my cell phone, I dramatically tossed my hair back and said “Haloh!” roaring and perky like a valley girl. I was ready to explode onto the mall scene and attract all kinds of men.

As I entered the sliding doors, my hair swooshed about my face and I loved it. And after some time, I noticed that I was moving around like a butterfly, flighty and irregular. I couldn’t stop giggling like a school girl and tossing my hair lightly back as I rolled my eyes sensuously around while talking.

The wig had changed me; with it, I felt excited to become Nikita, who I assumed was a fun-loving white woman.

I believed I could seduce with my hair without thinking men wouldn’t return my vibes because I was too black. Whatever that feeling–call it femininity if you like–I had more of it. And while I hated the persistent itch of the wig and those fluffy bangs scratching my eyes, for the first time, I saw clearly the power of weaves.

Malena Amusa is the communications associate at the Oakland-based racial justice Applied Research Center/Colorlines Magazine in New York. More of her work appears at ARC’s blog at Racewire.org.

Ok - The campaign has begun, again! I am asking that you assist me in an effort to get “MY SONG” on the OPRAH Show & the Tyra Show.
As you know, Oprah and others do not normally honor natural, African-type hair. In the past, they have talked about it as though something is wrong with our “nappily” textured hair. As though we have to perm or weave our hair in order to be “presentable”. Today is the beginning of a new attitude! If you are on board, please follow the easy directions below to contribute to the campaign.
Now, you know that it’ll take more than one letter from each of us, so let’s pack her inbox! I’ll be sending out reminders on a regular to continue the movement every other day, so please be patient with me - THIS IS MY WILDEST DREAM! Help me make it happen! Thanks in advance for your assistance. ~Carole

Step #1: Click on this link to go to Oprah’s website.
Step #2: Copy and Paste the form letter below to send a collective message.
Step #3: Press send… then repeat for Tyra’s show
================================================
Letter to Oprah — Click here for Oprah’s Website
================================================
Dear Oprah,
I am writing to ask that you host a much needed show about honoring natural, African-heritage hair. For too long, women of African decent have been told by society that something is wrong with our natural hair. Wouldn’t you agree that we should do something positive to change that negative perception and the pain resulting from it?

I recently viewed a poetry piece entitled “My Song” by a loctician in Colorado that highlights the real personal torment experienced in this society behind the rejection of natural, African-type hair. I would love it if you would have her on the show to present this piece. Most everyone can relate to some part of this piece and I know it will make a huge impact on your viewers.

Please take a look at it for yourself linked here: http://coilsncurls.com/blog/?p=17
Her name is Carole Pearson (coilsncurls.com, 303-429-9161).

Please, please help us make a serious change in society about beauty and real acceptance.
Warm Regards,
A Natural Hair Supporter
================================================
Letter to Tyra — Click here for Tyra’s Website
================================================
Dear Tyra,
I am writing to ask that you host a much needed show about honoring natural, African-heritage hair. For too long, women of African decent have been told by society that something is wrong with our natural hair. Wouldn’t you agree that we should do something positive to change that negative perception and the pain resulting from it?

I recently viewed a poetry piece entitled “My Song” by a loctician in Colorado that highlights the real personal torment experienced in this society behind the rejection of natural, African-type hair. I would love it if you would have her on the show to present this piece. Most everyone can relate to some part of this piece and I know it will make a huge impact on your viewers.

Please take a look at it for yourself linked here: http://coilsncurls.com/blog/?p=17
Her name is Carole Pearson (coilsncurls.com, 303-429-9161).

Please, please help us make a serious change in society about beauty and real acceptance.
Warm Regards,
A Natural Hair Supporter

This morning, a new client from Albuquerque, NM called and left one of the most rewarding voice messages I have heard in a long time. Her 4-year old daughter has allowed the chorus of “My Song” to sink into her psyche. After hearing her voice and the words that she sang, I began to bawl (naturally) and Chris said, “Carole, if you have made an impact on one little girl about her natural hair… you have left a legacy.”
So, I guess my work is done What a celebration! In the face of all the other messages she will hear over her lifetime about her hair, she has already connected to a healthy phrase to get her through. Listen to her voice and tell me you aren’t moved by what this could mean for her self-esteem later in life. Click here to listen.

Thank you SheRah. Your daughter’s voice this morning was a real gift.

(Related Post: My Song - Live Performance)

Some of you are going to be upset at this one… but I am glad Beyonce didn’t get nominated for the Oscar. YES, I SAID IT! I am glad this year’s Academy Award is not going to be all about her. She is a singer who is still trying to make the transition to an actor. Her work is speaking for itself - good, but not great. Sorry Chica, but you weren’t the best actor out there this year. Go back and work on the craft just a little more.

Speaking of that, whatever happened to working for something anyway? Practicing at something until you are good enough to first do it, and then be awarded for doing it well? We are just handing out awards to people left and right for being the “cutest one at the ball” and that is getting really old.

In an age where Paris Hilton is famous for her DNA and nothing else, enough is enough! When it comes to acting… granted Beyonce is attractive - So what! Granted, she can sing - So what! I’ll even give her a little acting credit as well - she is okay - but she is not the best, not even close, and that is what an Oscar is about. The cream of the crop… not the cutest, most popular belle at the ball.

It is a true anomaly when a beginner actor can work on a movie and hit a home run. That is a rare feat. In my opinion Jennifer Hudson did just that. And I am so glad that her achievement is not going to be watered down by Beyonce’s hair weave.

Well done Jennifer. I don’t know that she should win the Oscar, but on that performance she deserves the recognition of a nomination.
Feel me?

(PS - I am not even going to begin to talk about that 10-year-old from the movie “Little Miss Sunshine”. Let me sum up - Cute, but NOT OSCAR WORTHY!)