4 Reasons Why I Have Abandoned the Black Salon

4 Reasons Why I Have Abandoned the Black Salon


After reading Did Natural Hair Kill the Black Salon? on AlantaBlackStar.com and my own recent experience I was inspired to share my thoughts. I can already see this being a wildly unpopular post, but oh well I am going to post it anyway! I have never been a huge salon person to begin with mostly because I never wanted to pay salon prices. At this point I usually don’t go unless I want my hair trimmed or there is a certain style that I know I am not great at achieving on my own.

It should be noted that my experience is limited to my location (South Jersey) which is not at all particularly known for the best of the best natural hair salons. I am sure if I were living in NYC or ATL where there are a plethora of expert stylists, maybe my experience would be different. With that being said, that is why when I am asked by readers what salons do I recommend my honest answer is I don’t have any.

Here goes my reasons for why I am not a frequent customer of the black salon:

Lack of Knowledge

After I traded in my dreadlocks for a fro, for my first style I wore my hair straightened because the stylist said it would be easier to determine how much hair should be trimmed. After I wore my hair pressed for a week or two, I washed my hair and that is the first time I became familiar with heat damage. After cleansing, some sections of my hair remained straight and would not revert back to my natural texture. When I asked her about this upon returning to the salon, she said “There is no way that this can be avoided” and at the time I actually believed her. When I reflect about this now, I can’t believe she said this! Yes, there is a risk of damage every time you straighten but there are preventative measures you can take so the risk is greatly reduced. The truth is she used entirely too much heat and most likely exposed a section of hair to heat more times than necessary.

Terrible Detanglers

Anytime your head hurts when it is being combed, it is being done ALL WRONG. Surprisingly every black salon in my area that I have been to detangles my hair super rough and I cringe because I know in the process my hair is probably being broken off.

There was this salon I started to get comfortable with and then I eventually backed off. One day the stylist doing my hair was combing my hair all rough and complaining to another co-worker about how rough it was to get through asking for assistance. Shortly after that I found myself never returning there. Now when I need a trim or want my hair pressed for whatever reason, I actually go to Hair Cuttery…yes Hair Cuttery. My stylist there is Latina and does the best job detangling my hair. She never does it roughly, she goes through my hair section by section, combing from ends to roots. Never seems to have a struggle to get through it either. I also have not had heat damage using her. I think that is seriously sad! You would think black people would know black hair better than anyone else but sadly this isn’t always the case.

The Time

The Black Salon is infamous for long waits and essentially taking up your whole day. I do realize that styling black hair can be time consuming, which of course attributes to the wait. However, in many cases it is straight up disorganization.

I won’t lie I usually always find myself running late, but every time I happen to be on time for something for whatever reason it just doesn’t pay off. I ended up coming 10 minutes early to my appointment for my trial run for my wedding day hairstyle and I wasn’t seen until almost 3 hours after the fact!

This past weekend, I was in my best friend’s wedding and my hair appointment was scheduled a month in advanced. Before the styling began, I showed the stylist the hairstyle for the wedding. After she completed the style, I felt like it did not resemble the hair bun in the picture so I asked that she make it more full. She then told me that I am going to have to wait until she takes other customer’s first, so I then decided to leave, go home and fix it myself. I wasn’t spending my day waiting for her to make one simple fix! If the style resembled the photo and then I complained I could understand, but it didn’t.

In comparison when I go to Hair Cuttery for my trims and occasional straightening I end up spending 1 hour and 30 minutes to 2 hours tops!

The Cost

Yes, black hair is time consuming which is why I get that it comes at a price. However, sometimes some salons go too far. I have inside knowledge that a salon that I use to frequent purposely made a habit of telling their customers about the terrible shape their hair was in to sell other services. In some cases, they were probably just being honest and in others they were attempting to upsell a deep conditioning treatment. I understand you want to sell, but as a beauty salon your ultimate goal should be to leave your customer feeling good about themselves.

My Experience and My Opinion Only

This post if anything should be taken as constructive criticism and maybe used to improve the salon experience to revive the black salon. As mentioned previously, your location matters. In my area, there a good amount of naturals, but relaxers are still quite popular which is why salons in my area are most likely not well versed in natural hair care.

I am perfectly happy going to Hair Cuttery for my regular trims and occasions when I would like to wear my hair straightened. The majority of styles I like to wear are achievable on my own, my hair is in great shape and I just see no need for it.

I do realize that some people can largely benefit from a salon, as some people need time to learn how to style their own hair, if they find the right stylist they can provide a wealth of info and guidance. At some point I will even be looking to add resource section with reputable salons with authentic and great reviews.

25 thoughts on “4 Reasons Why I Have Abandoned the Black Salon

  1. I agree. There are several salons that aren’t trained to do natural hair. I get that black people love to support black businesses, but at the end of the day, are they really willing to sacrifice the health of their hair just for the sake of supporting a black salon? Definitely not! I also completely agree on the time it takes to do black hair, but in my experience with black salons, more time is spent gossiping and chit chatting than doing hair and I end up sitting there twice as long as I would have if they would have stopped talking about what happened on the Young and the Restless and just finished my hair.

  2. I’m looking for a natural salon to go to in get my Innes trim and help keep up my natural I live in St Paul Minnesota do you know of any

  3. Thank u for voicing my negative experiences with some black hair salons. Hopefully, some stylists will read this and re-evaluate how they schedule their appointments.

    1. I was am so totally turned off by African American Beauty Salons. The price,poor service, wait time, buggard up hair. No regard for your time. Its totally about the dollar bill. Come in idiot don’t expect much but I expect your dollars. No more.

  4. I know nothing about Jersey and salons. I live in North Carolina but I can totally agree with you on black salons. The one reason that really turns me off of salons is the gossiping women. I haven’t had my hair done professional since high school and probably won’t until my wedding day whenever that may be even then I might do my own hair. I know a few natural hair stylist here but I refuse to pay a bill payment to do my hair. All style I can’t do I usually watch YouTube until I can figure out how to do it.

  5. It’s not just south jersey, it’s Manhattan and Brooklyn too, part of the reason I went natural was because I was not able to find a salon that I trust to keep my hair healthy along with getting a relaxer without breaking the bank, I’ve had some crazy hairdresser experiences to the point where I’m lucky I have hair, then while I was transitioning I went to a few so called natural hair salons in bk and hey we’re overpriced an so so. This one salon insisted upon rehashing my hair after I took my time washing and detangling, washed it with he most drying shampoo my hair felt like straw after she was finished….,to end this rant if they want us back they gotta do better

  6. I definitely agree with the time and just not knowing natural black hair. My stylist was very rough with my hair when detangling…with a fine-tooth comb!!!!! I got right up and decided to do my own hair that day. It’s hard to find a stylist who will really take out time to do your hair. Especially if you just want to be pampered every now and again…and I don’t mean getting braids from the Africans (they hurt too *sad face*)

  7. I understand your frustration. I live in the Dallas area and they think taking care of natural hair is straightening. When I want a good hair cut, I go to a Hispanic woman who works in Nieman Marcus. She is so gentle when she de tangles and I’m always happy with the Deva cut from her. I truly wish black own salons in the Dallas, Garland, Plano area would go to Atlanta, New York or somewhere and take some classes.

    1. I am in the Dallas area too. I’ve been here less than a year, and I tried one salon and I was trying to get advice on hairstyles that I could do myself since I was beginning to transition. I asked about doing a roller set and the beautician told me that my near shoulder length, extremely thick hair was too short and too thin to use rollers on. Complete lack of knowledge. I knew I couldn’t go back then. I’ve seen women with only an inch of hair use perm rods, etc. Since when is shoulder length too short? And since when did your hair have to be so thick to use a roller? Rant over lol.

      1. The situation with the stylist telling you that a roller set wasn’t able to be achieved is either because she didn’t know how to do it or didn’t want to do it. Believe it or not sometimes people have their way of turning down money as well. Wet sets are healthy no matter what type of hair you have.

        1. I really think she didn’t know how. I didn’t even ask her to do it, I just asked about doing it myself since I was beginning to transition. I was just kind of baffled that she didn’t want to give me any advice. She made it seem like I was just trying to go natural because it was a trend. She encouraged me to continue getting relaxers.

  8. I know what you mean! I bought into to the myth that to have healthy textured hair you needed to frequent a salon. I haven’t been to salon in five years and my hair is healthier than ever. Here in the PNW (WA state) the schools only teach them to process chemicals and because black stylist here make the majority of $$ on chemicals they don’t attain cutting skills. For years, prior to my natural journey, I would get my relaxer then go to a salon where they knew how to cut. When I began to get weaves many stylist preferred GLUEING the weave in, I would refuse, then one stylist put a weave on top of a curl!!! That was my last visit- I was sick and tired of stylist not respecting my time, $$, and health.I now realize that many black stylist did not know anymore about healthy hair than I did. I hope this changes.

  9. I can understand your frustration but only being limited to South Jersey, I don’t think you speak for the majority. I admit I am a hairstylist who knows more about Caucasian hair than I do my own natural hair but I am learning and I accept client feedback to help me achieve my goal in sitting they leave happy. You also MUST understand that up selling is part of the business. Some places will let a stylist go if they can’t achieve higher sales.We stylists may not agree but it’s part of our job. You did make a good point about excessive heat but that is not limited to the black salon. I’m glad you found a stylist you like but your nick picking one particular salon is not fair when these problems lie in all types of salons.

  10. you’re absolutely right…I used to go for a while then would stop when the madness got to be too much..one hairstylist was always late, even for her first appointment, and once when doing my hair she was overbooked so let me sit with perm on my head for an extended period. Needless to say, I was burned in more ways than one, and now I’ve been wearing locs for 12 years…

    1. Hi Celeste,

      Arriving late is another issue…..when I was in Beauty school we were taught to put on a persona, but NEVER be late, even make the client think you were busy by not accommodating an appointment from time to time. (LOL, I’m spilling the beans). However, lateness was also a bad habit displayed when I worked in the salon by other stylist. Your perm situation was pure carelessness, one should know to always allow time for that. The stylist should’ve done some rescheduling even if it meant some cancelled appointments . Glad you were able to overcome that experience. Again, I was always pro-natural when it came to doing hair for others. Of course I’ve had my share of relaxers, until I had my own bad experience from another fellow stylist who just got lazy about three years ago and back to natural for good now!

  11. I fond your post to be quite informative and agree with everything you’ve said. I use to work in a salon doing natural protective hair styles. All of what you said about location, lack of knowledge, cost and wait time are all true. I couldn’t understand how some of the customers would come for Sevices, other than what I offered, for the other stylist and wait hours, pay so much and travel far to get there. It would frustrate me to no end; the real problem with the wait time isn’t the time it takes to do the hair, but the DOUBLE BOOKING. Needless to say, many of the clients that were originally someone else’s ended up in my chair from time to time or permanently because no one could do or was willing to learn how to do what I did. I no longer work in n a salon, but I do hair for a selected few for little or no cost because it’s not that serious to deal with the hassles that come with that profession.

  12. I moved to Houston, TX back in 2008 and I STILL haven’t found a black, natural hair care salon. Anyone have any suggestions? I live in Cypress, TX (North West of Houston). I also have almost waist length locks in my hair. I am searching for an “all natural” salon. I was told there aren’t any in Houston. But I see a lot of people that do their own….i refuse to believe that Houston, TX has NO natural hair care salons.

  13. I live in south jersey too in need of a trim. I’m finding it hard to trust salons for fear of hear damage. Where is the place you get trimmed?

  14. Went to a black salon for a shampoo and deep condition. She didn’t even own a pick….so you know how that turned out! She handled my hair so rough…needless to say that I never went back. I think she did that crap on purpose. When I want a different style from my nappiness, I throw on a wig!

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