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Has the bright lipstick given it away yet? This woman is known more for her choice of hairstyle, sometimes bright lipsticks and really nice body.  She’s also the ex of a rapper (and in many ways, some say she was the best thing that happened to him) and recently had a baby with her fiancé who is from Pittsburgh.  Many people talk about how she’s not doing anything for herself except dating rappers, but she is (or was) the face of two different flavored Vodkas and there’s been talk of her having her own sunglasses line. So…who’s that girl? Check out the next page for the answer (if you haven’t already guessed)!

Black women have unlimited options when it comes to our hair. High pony. Fishtail. Dreads. Bob. Bun. Afro. Bangs. There are so many ways to get creative and as I’m sure you’ve seen in many hair shows, creative we will get. Whatever your style, there’s a look for you, but ladies, trust me when I say there are certain looks that shouldn’t be for anyone.

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Team Natural or Team Relaxed? What started out as women cheerfully showing pride in their locks has turned into another divisive tool amongst women of color. Last week I wrote two articles for Madame Noire; the first article was about having realistic expectations for natural hair, which sparked a nice conversation amongst women with different textures and how they were learning to work with their hair. The next day my article was posted on how to wear a good weave on a budget, and boy oh boy, did I cause a firestorm on the Facebook page. Almost immediately someone asked why we weren’t encouraging women to wear their real hair. And thus it began a mini comment battle between women who enjoy wearing extensions and relaxers and women who enjoy toting natural hair. No one realized that the author (me, of course) giving advice on weaves was someone who had been natural for many years, just a day after providing tips for those with natural hair.

A few days later at the 2012 Met Gala, Solange Knowles hit the red carpet in a dazzling canary yellow Rachel Roy gown and a fluffy curly afro. Every other natural woman online was ohhing and ahhing while reposting her picture to their respective social media accounts. She looked beyond fabulous…with her wig on, but because it looked like a real afro, no one cared. And that should be an example of how contrite this schism between “team natural” and “team non-natural” is. While it’s great to have a support system when going natural, to bully others into feeling like they are less than or don’t love themselves because of how they choose to manage their own hair is foul. It’s also hypocritical when we are praising the natural hair “image” of celebrities who are really rocking weaves, but dogging out the real world women who wear them as well. Weaves can work as a great protective style that allow women to switch up their look and explore different looks without damaging their real hair (if done right of course). The key is to have healthy hair, not just natural hair.

And women who aren’t natural have played into the drama as well. There’s no need to be combative by spreading negative stereotypes of women who choose to wear their hair natural. There is nothing butch, boyish or dirty about natural hair, as it can be just as feminine and hot as any other hairstyle. Natural women can achieve the same lengths of “long hair don’t care” as those who are relaxed. And when it all comes down to it, in order to maintain and grow long healthy hair, whether relaxed or natural, we are following the same hair care standards. One of the most preeminent books that has shaped many of the natural hair gurus’ ideology was written by a woman with relaxed hair, Ultra Black Hair Growth by Cathy Howe. It details a hair care regimen for growing relaxed hair that is parallel to the regimen for natural hair. It’s really all just hair.

One of the most beautiful factors of being a woman of color is the versatility that exists among us. Black women are the most diverse group of women and our hair can do just about anything. Our hair is one way to show our versatility. Just as one should not dictate that a person should only wear her hair straight or tell someone they look manly and hard with natural hair, one shouldn’t dictate that everyone needs to be natural and that you are trying to be something you’re not if you choose not to. For some, that is just not a realistic expectation as this point. You should always respect the comfort levels of others, and that consideration carries over to hair.

Hair is an extension of ones self. Hair does not make the person. In fact, character and confidence can completely change the shape of a hairstyle. So let’s stop telling someone else how one should wear their hair, and stop trying to insult each other to make ourselves feel better. Let’s stop defining ourselves by the nature of our hair. Live freely and direct your energy into helping others build up their good character and confidence.

Jouelzy offers tutorials on all aspects of Black hair care via her YouTube channel, focusing on women with tight budgets. You can also find her daily hair tips and inspirations on Facebook.

Much ado is made about Black hair. Black women are known to be audacious when it comes to our manes. A billion dollar business has been spawned from our need to color, straighten, curl, braid, and coif. Hair means a lot to Black women, but it can mean even more to our career.

Your appearance does not affect your ability to do a job, but it does impact your success. Keeping it cute can influence your salary as much as your work experience. Research shows that attractive people earn an average of 3% to 4% more than a person with below average looks – that comes out to about $230,000 over a lifetime. Even an average-looking worker is likely to make $140,000 more over a lifetime than an ugly worker.

Hair goes beyond aesthetics. It is personal and public: visible to everyone while also being an intrinsic part of our body. Black women carry a great deal of culture in their hair. Since that culture is not a mainstream one, appropriating hair to the workplace can be a tricky process.

For some time, many – including Black women – considered anything outside of straightened hair to be unprofessional. However, as more women go natural, that notion is changing. Professional hair isn’t about texture. For most employers, particularly conservative ones, a professional hairstyle is considered neat, clean, and out of the face. Texture alone is not a deciding factor.

By Chrissi J

There are 7 general different types of face shapes. This is a guide for both natural hairstyles as well as relaxed (and possibly weave-a-licious) that will suit you, with the help of examples from my clients and celebs…

1. Oval Face- length equal to one and a half times width

Most styles are suitable for someone with an oval face. The only thing I wouldn’t recommend is a straight down bang with your style. A straight bang will hide most of your face and isn’t flattering. One of my favorite styles for an oval face is an updo. Updos will show your face off and make you look glamorous. Plus, they’re pretty good to wear for a lasting style to go for a few days. If you wear your hair down, just try to keep it swept away from your face.

About The 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 Madame Noire Hair Videos….check out links below:

NATURAL HAIR

• Noire Naturals – The Natural Twist Out
• Noire Naturals – Maintaining Your Twist-Out Style
• Noire Naturals – Creating A Sophisticated Elegance
• Noire Naturals – Accessorizing a Sophisticated Updo

RELAXED HAIR

• Relaxed & Real – From Daytime To Evening
• Relaxed & Real – How To Prep Your Hair Before A Relaxer
• Relaxed & Real – Protective Styles For Working Out

WEAVES

• Weave Wisdom – How To Prepare For A Good Weave
• Weave Wisdom – How To Install A Hair Weave
• Weave Wisdom – How To Maintain A Hair Weave

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.

(BlackVoices) – Janet Bello, 23, (pictured above left) says when she applied for a part-time job at Six Flags in Largo, she was told her “locks” hairstyle disqualified her from employment.

She says a supervisor told her management is adhering strictly this year to a years-old corporate grooming policy that considers dreadlocks to be an extreme hairstyle. Bello considers the characterization to be offensive:

“I think it’s outrageous, and I really think it’s sad. … I think Six Flags can literally, excuse my French, go to hell.”

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