All Articles Tagged "hair weave"
7 Ways to Keep Your Single Strand Knots to a Minimum
If you’re natural, you’re sure to have a number of these annoying single strands knots (aka fairy knots) lurking around your hair. To be honest, they are totally normal due to the structure of afro-textured hair and there is nothing you can do to get rid of all of them—unless, of course, you choose to cut your hair. However, there are ways to keep them at an absolute minimum. Keep reading to find out how!
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aesthetics, African American hair, afro textured hair, avoid, black hair, black hair care, black hair growth, black hairstyles, buns, business, culture, hair, hair care, hair stretch, hair weave, hairdressing, human interest, knots, knots black, long hair, loosing hair, natural hair, perms, relaxed hair, shampoo, shedding hair, single strand, strand, tangles, texture hair, weaves, wigsThe Hair & Beauty Supply Market Is Lucrative, But Blacks Are Missing Out
By Wayne Hodges
Hair, weave, nails and wigs. When it comes to looking good, our black women certainly won’t hesitate to come out the pocket. But where is that money going? And, most importantly, what does the future hold for black commerce?
Stacey Mebane, a 44-year-old African-American woman, has patronized non-black beauty supply stores for decades. Her favorite cosmetic shop, the “Two Brothers” beauty and supply store, is owned and operated by Koreans.
When asked to explain her fascination with the aforementioned venue, Mebane mentioned price and customer service as determining factors. “I have shopped at Korean stores for years,” said Mebane. “They have a nice assortment of beauty and nail supplies. I like their prices. And the owners are usually friendly.”
Today, the multi-billion dollar black hair market is being served by roughly 9,000 Korean-owned beauty supply stores. Most, if not all, of the revenue generated leaves the black community. “It would be nice to see our people take advantage of these opportunities. It seems like our businesses have a hard time just staying open,” said Mebane. ”My friends and I shop at these stores all the time so we know they make good money. I would like to see that money go to black owners, to the black community.”
Nicole Bailey, 40, of Kansas City echoed a similar sentiment. “The Korean stores are much cheaper than black-owned businesses. You have so many low-income women who wear weave but can’t afford to pay high dollar,” said Bailey. “The black businesses don’t stay open as long because of their prices. Sometimes black owners are rude. I’m like ‘you have high prices and a stank attitude too?”
The assumption here is most African-African women would prefer to see an influx of black ownership in cosmetic retail. However, when it comes to manufacture and distribution, too many barriers come into play.
For instance, of the four central distributors serving beauty supply stores in America, none are black. Instead, this component is owned and controlled by Korean merchants who many believe have discriminated against blacks to help preserve their monopoly.
Cash flow has never been an issue in the black community. Per capita, no race of people spends more and save less than African-Americans. The problem, nonetheless, has everything to do with which direction that revenue stream is flowing.
Now the million dollar question: What’s necessary for African-Americans to become more actively involved in retail production and distribution?
It’s tough to say.
Hair and weave products, for instance, are not manufactured domestically. Therefore, a wholesale distribution deal must be orchestrated between Korean merchants and black businessmen. If Koreans are unwilling to negotiate through fair business practice, then something in the form of a boycott or protest must transpire. But, can ladies survive without some of their favorite hair care products?
Such a task is probably too much to fathom.
“A (protest) wouldn’t be a good thing. You have thousands and thousands of women who wear hair weave,” said Bailey. “Even white women wear weave now. You also have women with a good length of hair who use weave to add a little ‘umph’ to feel sexier. I don’t see a protest working.”
Wayne Hodges is the Editor of MassAppealNews.com
“Weave Wisdom” Episode 3: How To Maintain A Hair Weave
About This Episode
For “Weave Wisdom”, our mini-series on how to install and maintain a fabulous hair weave, we tapped the award-winning hair stylist Anthony Cherry to host. In this third installment of our series, Cherry shares tips on maintaining a great-looking weave and keeping it lookin fresh and healthy til your next weave appointment.
Check it out and let us know what you think!
About Anthony Cherry
You only need to look at Anthony Cherry’s celebrity client list to understand just how good he is at his craft. Having worked with with the likes of Lala Vasquez-Anthony, Evelyn Lozada, Claudia Jordan and Paris Hilton, the St. Louis-bred, Los Angeles-based stylist has been working his hair magic for over 10 years. Along with his celebrity weave styling duties, Cherry also works as an ambassador to the packaged hair company, Sensasionell.
Want More Weave Wisdom?
“Weave Wisdom” Episode 2: How To Install A Hair Weave
About This Episode
For “Weave Wisdom”, our mini-series on how to install and maintain a fabulous hair weave, we tapped the award-winning hair stylist Anthony Cherry to host. In this second installment of our series, Cherry finishes the installment of a hair weave on a client, demonstrating the proper use of a mesh cap in the weaving process and discusses “adjustment rows” to keep your weave looking tight.
Check it out and let us know what you think!
About Anthony Cherry
You only need to look at Anthony Cherry’s celebrity client list to understand just how good he is at his craft. Having worked with with the likes of Lala Vasquez-Anthony, Evelyn Lozada, Claudia Jordan and Paris Hilton, the St. Louis-bred, Los Angeles-based stylist has been working his hair magic for over 10 years. Along with his celebrity weave styling duties, Cherry also works as an ambassador to the packaged hair company, Sensasionell.
Want More Weave Wisdom?
Transcript
Hello, Madame Noire. I am celebrity hairstylist, Anthony Cherry and I’m back for part two of our Weave Wisdom series. If you missed part one, I talked about a few things that you might need before installing a weave, such as straightening the hair before braiding, and using products to make sure the hair is not dry.
In this episode, I’m going to focus on installing the weave, and of course, let you in on a few of my secrets. Let’s get started by emphasizing the importance of using a net. Here are three reasons why a net is definitely essential. Number one: A net is used to make a weave last longer, as well as give a full coverage to place extensions anywhere you want to.
Number two: A net protects your hair by relieving tension. Finally, it helps achieve our main goal, which is to make a weave flatter. So now we’re going to apply the Mesh-Net cap. Model, can I get your particular Patient please. One finger like a hook please. Right there. Okay. We’ll take this. Have him grab that.
A little pressure. And it goes right over the head. Head back a little bit. Just bring it from above the eye, move this out of your way. And there we go. The next step is actually sewing the net down. Okay. We have a needle, which is very, very imperative to doing any weave. So I’ve already pre-threaded my strands and my needles.
I actually like my needles very long ’cause the longer I can make my thread, the longer I can keep on sewing. So what I’m gonna do, I would like to start first right on the inside, not the outside, the inside because I wanna cut along this way to leave that braid nice and free. I want to actually start on the inside of the braid.
Sometime if you go and you start sewing on the outside of the braid, sometime you create a little bit too much clumpiness, so we don’t wanna do that ’cause that will stop your weave of having the flow of being tucked directly up under. So, you just basically sew on the perimeter. And I never really create knots.
What I do, I just sew, I tuck, hold this under, this out and create like a little line that goes in. And I’ll do that all the way around the perimeter. But you can move very fastly. It doesn’t have to be totally perfect because you’re going actually go back and reinforce it. Once you start to actually putting the extension hair on.
Okay, so now we have the top, that is out. By this being mesh, it stretches. So what I’m going to do now, I’m going to connect the hole that is at the top of the mesh. And by it being mesh, it’s going to be very, very easy to grab and come back without causing extra stress. And we have created a full surface to where now you have the freedom to sew whatever you like.
So, I’m going to show you how to cut it off. Any excess strand or thread, just go right around, just nip them and cut them. How I like to do this; be very, very careful, not to cut your client or to cut their hair. So you want to lift this up. In one snap, see it’ll break away. Lift it up, then we can see exactly where the thread is, so we don’t have to cut the thread or the hair.
Lift up. And there you have it. The net is applied. And now we’re going to move on to the next step and that’s actually applying the extensions. We are beginning the method to the madness. We’re going from one extreme to another. Okay. By using our extensions, becoming “unbeweavable”, might I say.
Okay, so what I am going to do, I’m going to start to sew the weave and extensions on to the track. Okay. What you would like to do, is to actually get the track right up in here. Sometimes you can actually start to track up this far. But then sometimes when you start that far, you see how that projects and jumps out, we don’t like that.
We’re going to take this and pull it down to where we see where it falls, nice and natural. Where it can come down. So, we’re going to start just about right here, to sewing it on. We’re going to take this, tuck this under, and we want to get like, to balance it out, it should be like that on both sides, you want to take this, get the duck bill, and that’s lit up in there.
And cut this to about right there. Take this bad boy. Sit that there. Grab your pre-threaded needles. Which I actually like to use the nylon thread. Because the nylon thread is amazing. It’s slim, it’s fitting and it doesn’t get clogged up. Because you don’t want to get clogged up doing your sewing process because it will slow you down and cause a little bit of frustration.
Okay. So what I’m going to do. I’m gonna tuck this track right under the braid, okay? And what I’m going to do, I’m going to go to the bottom of the outside of the braid, okay? Take this, tuck that under, I created a little loop in the bottom of it and you just pull. And you pull. And you pull until you know that that is nice and tight, and you can see where your braid is being tucked under, by the pulling of the thread.
You should have that singed or that sits there for a second. You go back again to reinforce it, step away from it. Pull, give yourself a little bit of room to work with. Okay.
We’re going to do this again. Now that we have sewn in all of the hair. On the next and final episode, I will give you a few tips on how to style and properly maintain your weave. Well that’s it for today. Make sure you tune in to the next episode, to learn how to maintain your hair, and make all the hard work worthwhile.
If you have any questions for me, contact me @AnthonyCherry on Twitter. And if you want to see more videos like this one, please log on to madamenoire.com and follow them on twitter @madamenoire.
Is Wearing a Weave For Everyone?
To weave or not to weave: that is the question.
No seriously, that is the question least thought about when considering whether or not to extend your tresses. I can’t really blame folks. The reality is that the popularity, convenience and the accessibility of hair weaves and wigs in mainstream culture has made the hair extension the informal “hat” for bad hair days. And we just assume that if it can be sewn, boned or capped into your hair, than it is a natural fit. Plus it doesn’t help that everyone from Beyoncé to the First Lady to your average chica shopping through the mall sports some very impressive hair extensions in different forms, styles and colors.
But just because some folks can pull a weave off, does that mean that everyone can?
Like recently I was reading an article about Gayle King (you know, Oprah’s best friend) and her new gig as co-anchor for the CBS “Early Show.” I thought that it was a good move for King, who will finally have an opportunity to shine, coming out from under the shadows of her famous gal pal. But then as I glanced at the picture attached to the article, all the praise for her professional achievement seemed to overshadowed by the same the burning question I have always wondered about her for years and that is: “Why can’t she ever get a decent weave?”
I could understand if it is a once and a while instance. I mean, after all, not every woman can be at the top of her game at all times. However, King’s weaves and wigs appear to always have this awkward thing happening with them. No matter the texture, the style or the color, it always looks so fictitious, so awkward, so… well, unnatural. It probably doesn’t make sense that I used “unnatural” and “weave” in the same sentence — but a good weave is suppose to have people guessing whether it is real or not. And a better weave shouldn’t offer any obvious distinction between your natural hair and where the weave begins. I can always say that is NOT true for King.
The Best and Worst Hairstyles of the ‘Real Housewives of Atlanta’
The “Real Housewives of Atlanta” are mostly known for their cat fights, opulent tastes and complicated scenarios, but they also each bring a unique style to the table. Cynthia loves her wigs, Kim has own line of wigs and you never know what color Kandi’s hair will be week to week.
Which look is your favorite? Which look should never again see the light of day?
Take a look:
Didn’t Know it Wasn’t Real! 10 Best Celeb Weaves
While walking down Madison Avenue in Manhattan we noticed a sad trend. There are a lot of women with lethal looking weaves! There’s nothing wrong with adding a little length to your head, but when not blended or the wrong shade or the wrong texture it’s liable to hurt a lot of feelings and possibly combs.
We dedicate this list to all the Madames attempting to fool the masses with a fabulous sew-in. The following women are the best examples of seamless weaves:
