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<\/p>In 1997, seven police officers showed up at Isis Brantley\u2019s salon and arrested her on the spot. \u201c[They] carted me off like a common criminal,\u201d Brantley recounts. The crime: braiding hair without a cosmetology license.<\/p>
Brantley, who counts Erykah Badu among her clients, had chosen not to attend cosmetology school\u2014and in turn get a license\u2014because her skill, braiding natural hair, wasn\u2019t on the curriculum.<\/p>
She wasn\u2019t cutting, coloring or chemically treating hair at her salon, so why spend thousands of hours and dollars on an education she couldn\u2019t benefit from? That decision cost Brantley her business. Her salon in Dallas, Texas was shut down following her arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It isn\u2019t just braiding that\u2019s ignored at most cosmetology schools. The skills needed to style textured hair typically account for less than 5% of the coursework, if that.<\/p>
Walk into any classroom and you\u2019ll see mannequins with silky, straight locks\u2014not a curl or kink in sight. And the textbooks only exacerbate the problem as most don\u2019t include even the most basic instruction for natural hair. More detail on caring for, braiding, cutting, coloring and treating natural hair is available separately\u2014and at an additional cost.<\/p>
\u201cThere is no required proficiency [in textured hair] to graduate from cosmetology school, so you don\u2019t have to be able to do textured hair to get your license,\u201d says Melissa Taylor, owner of The Beauty Lounge Minneapolis.<\/p>
Though Taylor graduated from cosmetology school, she, like many other African Americans in the business, had to teach herself how to style textured hair by practicing on her own. \u201cBecause the mannequins in school usually have straight hair, African-American students learn how to work on straighter hair,\u201d says Mindy Green, licensed cosmetologist and owner of MG Beauty in Washington, DC. And even though curly-haired options are available, they tend to cost more. This may be another reason why even at the diverse cosmetology school she graduated from, the mannequins primarily had straight hair.<\/p>
To address the colossal gap in education, schools run by and for people of color are popping up. But the rest of the cosmetology industry isn\u2019t likely to come around anytime soon. \u201cThe cosmetology curriculum is slow to adapt,\u201d Taylor explains. \u201cYou still have to do finger waves to get your license.\u201d On top of that, new techniques go ignored for years. That\u2019s because beauty schools typically teach to the exams, and until the licensing exams\u2014which vary according to state\u2014require knowledge of and experience in textured hair types, it\u2019s likely not going to be prioritized anytime soon in the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cosmetologists aren\u2019t the only ones hurt by the lack of a diverse education. Black women often have to go to greater lengths to get a good haircut because the majority of stylists aren\u2019t taught to address their needs. This has led women of color to a new source for tips: YouTube. \u201cPeople now are more self-serviced because they don\u2019t trust hairstylists,\u201d says Taylor. Rather than risking damage from a stylist who doesn\u2019t know the right techniques\u2014or paying money for a service that isn\u2019t satisfying\u2014it\u2019s easier to test out products and styles and to take advice from other women with natural or textured hair.<\/p>
That might explain why 24% of women with textured hair don\u2019t go to a salon, according to a recent survey conducted by TextureMedia. And that increases according to hair type: The tighter the curl or kink of a woman\u2019s hair, the less likely she is to get her hair done. \u201cI remember my mom telling me that we couldn\u2019t go to \u2018fancy\u2019 salons, aka white salons, because they wouldn\u2019t know how to do my hair,\u201d says Deirdre Hering of Brooklyn, NY, who has coily hair. \u201cI was confused that you could become a certified hairdresser and not know how to do the hair of a significant portion of the population. It\u2019s like being a pediatrician, but only knowing how to treat boys.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After years of legal battles, Texas finally passed a law in 2007 allowing students who work with natural hair to become licensed after completing a 35-hour braiding curriculum. (The standard cosmetology license requires practice hours in the hundreds or thousands, though it varies by state.) It\u2019s a win for men and women who want to focus solely on braiding, but cosmetologists-to-be still lose out. \u201cPeople go to [traditional] cosmetology school expecting to learn braiding, locking, twisting and different techniques,\u201d says Brantley. She now offers her own braiding classes and was grandfathered in as part of the settlement, allowing her to skip the 35 hours of training.<\/p>
For now, it\u2019s in the hands of the student to learn the skills needed to style all hair types. \u201cThe unfortunate realities of beauty schools are [that] they teach you the basics, take your money and prep you for state board, and then you are off into your career,\u201d says Lindsay Loo, a Wella Master Color Expert in New York City. \u201cThe real training comes after beauty school, through apprenticeships,\u201d she says.<\/p>
Thankfully, with more natural hair salons cropping up around the country, it\u2019s becoming easier to supplement traditional beauty-school teachings with apprentice education. But that\u2019s still an unsatisfying solution to a long-standing, discriminatory problem. Real change will only happen when cosmetology schools broaden their curriculum and give students an education in all hair textures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Get with the times. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":8284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,384,2],"tags":[266,268,479,264,267,265],"class_list":["post-8282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-category-from-prose","category-highlights","category-trending","tag-curly","tag-frizzy","tag-new","tag-smooth","tag-very-curly","tag-wavy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n