Horror Hair

Once, while I was in my first year of college in a small town a few hours away, I had a serious Hair Horror event. It was like a big trick was played on me, and I didn't know what had happened until the end.

I was wanting a trim, maybe a wrap, but really just wanted my ends clipped. When you have Natural hair, and you wear poofs/puffs a lot, the ends of the hair dry out quickly and get quite crinkly. The ends become permanently split and damaged if they aren't wash or regularly rehydrated, so after a little while of mistreating my ends, they needed to be clipped. No problem, and at my university they had a Cosmetology department--apparently with someone who knew how to do Black Hair.

I'm thinking, it's a college! There are black people all over the place, so one of them must be in there! Yeah, no.

I go there, told that I'd have to pay $45 for this, because of my hair type. Alright, no problem. But before I know it I'm going to the shampoo chair, and she's getting it wet. Of COURSE she thought nothing of it, until it actually got wet and huge and started to mat when she... I'm going to have to change the format of this to better explain it.

After she got it wet, and realized that it was growing from it's previously pressed flat state to a matted fro (she was white), she put a towel over it and disappeared to somewhere. She came back with a different shampoo and conditioner set, and said that I'd need to get a deep conditioning treatment that she called a ProtoPack. She continued the wash, not even attempting to get close to the scalp (where all of my product buildup is). She then started applying a protopack, much like the Olive Oil Hair Pak in my products post. But it was smaller yet, and required two. Okay, no problem...

My hair was huge, and continued to mat as she put it ON my hair, just squirting it about and trying to move it around, and my hair just kept swelling. Imagine a full on 70s fro. Right here, where at most black salons they would put in a leave in and a cap and put me under the dryer for 30-40 mins to set the chemical, she decided to do something else. Because she couldn't find a cap that would fit my hair, she found a Walmart bag and put it over my head... And then...

She decided it would be a good idea to give me a tour of the Cosmetology department, around the little salon, and to the back where the classrooms and ALL of the people were. I'm walking around in a cape and a blown up Walmart bag when I should have been under the dryer in a real cap and not dripping water down my shirt ad back.

Eventually she put me under the dryer, but because my hair had grown so extensively it wouldn't cover properly, and the heat would melt the plastic bag, she had to keep it far away from my hair. She then went on a smoke break... Actually two smoke breaks. By now, and hour and a half had passed, and they would be closing in an hour.

Once I got back in the chair and she started to dry my hair... But instead of separating sections and detangling the hair (which wasn't completely free of the conditioner) she went at it with a diffuser and just waved it about drying it in a hard, dried out, crunchy fro. I wanted a trim! Possibly a wrap if she could get there but... Gah!

She then stopped drying once she realized she was running out of time. With half an hour left, and a fro-set, she had a lot yet to do. She started breaking my hair to get it into sections, and although she didn't have a pressing comb, she swore by her FLATIRON. She started separating into thick sections, and coating the hair (the hair shafts!) with beeswax, hard, smelly, beeswax. She then just started racing over the sections because her teacher was telling her that she needed to wrap up. She recruited two other students to work on other parts of my hair, and they were passing the beeswax back and fourth just laying it on and making it sticky. That's as good as putting vaseline on it, just stickier. They were all using their irons, at different settings, on different parts of my hair.

With about 20 mins to go, the teacher came by and said that she'd have to close down the register and that I'd have to pay now for all of the work they were doing. ???!!! I started to give her the $45, but then she said it was doubled because they used two ProtoPacks on my hair. ???!!! And that if I had come earlier they wouldn't be running late.???!!! She was the very one who said that her student knew how to do black hair! Her basis? Her boyfriend is black. Anyways...

By the time they had gotten through it all, I had 80's "pump it up" hair. I refused to be seen walking around campus like this so I just tied it back as best as I could.

I was actually planning on going out that night, to Applebee's with some dormmates, and as soon as I got back I had to rewash my hair, condition it, and dry it. I did this in less than half an hour, and I braided it in the next 15-20. Shows who's getting paid for what!

It took the rest of the week to get the beeswax out, to where my hair stopped binding itself to mats.