anyiko.wordpress.com

Dear Kitchen Beautician (as I like to call you),

Let me just throw this little disclaimer out there now for the few of you home hair stylists who are actually about your business. Before you get your drawers all in a bunch, remember the motto: If it don’t apply let it fly! Now for the rest you, simply put, I’m done. I will never patronize another kitchen beautician for the remainder of my natural born life.

I don’t think I’m an impossible person to deal with. I’m not asking for the world! I’m not asking you to make me look like Beyoncé or Halle! I’m just a graduate student trying to make it through school without my hair looking like who-shot-john-and-didn’t-kill-him. Oh, but honey, I will find a way to fit bi-weekly trips to the beauty salon into my budget. I’ll put my little pennies together, put an “H” on my chest and make it HAPPEN because I refuse to deal with the kitchen beautician antics any longer! I don’t try to nickel and dime you. I respect a woman with a hustle and I pay you whatever your price is and what do I get in return each time? Mediocrity. I’d rather pay $200.00 to sit in a salon chair, have a licensed beautician style my hair and have the satisfaction of knowing that she will do my hair in the way that I ASKED her to do and NOT the style you find fit for me to have. And for goodness sake, there is absolutely no future in fronting, so if you know you can’t do a style or have never done it before please say so! I am not your mannequin doll or your test subject. You of all people should know how particular women are about their hair.

Oh, kitchen beautician I would rather go GI Jane and cut all of my hair off than listen to you ramble on and on about how you got five hundred hours left to complete until you get your cosmetology license. Girl, it has been five years, those 500 hours have come, gone, come back, and left again! I’d rather be bald than to have you take three thousand breaks from doing my hair to send text messages or bark at “Tyrone” about what he did or didn’t do last night. I understand that I’m not at some five star beauty salon but I’m paying you! I expect to be treated with decency. I expect you to style my hair to the best of your ability. It is unfair for you to give me some subpar look because you’re tired from partying until 5 o’clock this morning or because you’re in a rush from overbooking. If you are unable to produce do not schedule the appointment, it’s that simple.

Kitchen beautician, I’m not telling a friend to tell a friend jack squat about you, unless I’m telling them about the mess of a operation you’ve got going on.  You should be happy I’m not calling WPIX to report you to “Help Me Howard” and reveal that half of the women in NYC are running around with their tracks showing because of you and other women like you. I really wish you would begin to take responsibility when a style does not come out properly. It’s okay to admit that your skills aren’t where you would like for them to be. Don’t blame it on the hair. Don’t blame it on the lighting. Don’t blame it on your nails. Don’t blame it on me: “Girl, I told you to keep your head straight.”

I’ve really tried to be understanding, I’ve given you guys chance after chance. But I’ve learned my lesson: You get what you pay for. The few dollars that I save by coming to you are not worth the headaches that you bring me. I was doing so well in my transition from relaxed to natural hair, oh, but you! You can drive a sister to relapsing, running back into the arms of her Dominican stylist, and going back to the creamy crack.

Kitchen beautician, our time together has been far spent, so I’m off to find a salon that knows how to treat their customers with a beautician that put in the work and the hours to get her license. Peace.

Jazmine Denise is a New York City based Lifestyle & Relationship writer. Follow her on Twitter @jazminedenise

Sound off, ladies: Have you had to deal with these type of beauticians in the past?