Girl, no shade, but ain't no way in hell I'm letting a non-black stylist touch my hair. I am a huge advocate of supporting black talent and businesses, and would rather my money go there than ride the bandwagon of some social media sensation.
Vincenzo dude is going around butchering heads for fame, and then have the nerve to tell her, oh, the next time we will be coloring. But when London bridge came tumbling down, he pulls the "It Ain't Me" card, blaming everyone and everything but himself in an attempt to seek sympathy. Off day and death threats my foot. I don't believe one bit he received any threats.
I see your point but I also see
@YvetteWithJoy point as well. My first curly hair cut/trim went to a black business and they F.ed my hair up too
from then on out I went where I saw consistent results and great reviews.
Thanks for the posts,
@Rastafarai and
@BillsBackerz67.
Sorry for the length and ramble below: I cut and paste and now the order of topics is weird/repetitive, but I can't go back and edit. I have to meet a colleague.
I hate to post this, 'cause I might get flamed, but for me it's less about race with stylists and more about the stylist's training, background, reviews, and whether I have some video or personal views of them cutting hair.
My white stylist trains folks in natural hair care. It's her specialty. She's been doing it for years and years. I only went to her after researching extensively, watching her work, and interviewing her after getting stung about 6 times with black stylists. Some of those times made me cry. It didn't make me give up on black stylists, but it made me put skill first.
I try to keep my dollars in the black community, but something . . . just in my own opinion . . . is going on where stylists aren't up on natural hair care like they are on relaxed hair care.
And I only feel this way now after going natural and realizing that I've gone to about 7 salons where the stylist CLAIMED to be able to handle natural hair, and I've gotten damage or a bad cut or something else negative where I never even made a follow-up after the initial consultation from 5 out of 6 that were black stylists. That means that 1 out of 6 black stylist was good and 1 out of 1 white/Spanish stylist was good. I haven't seen more white/Spanish stylists for obvious reasons. But . . . that's when I stopped caring about race and went deep on researching and prioritizing skill.
I have short/medium -length hair, and I'm scared not to let the DevaCurl-trained white/Spanish stylist in my city who has hundreds of 5-star reviews and video demos on YouTube that I found in my city cut it. I'm not ready to say, "I know you gave me a great dry cut before, but I'm going to keep bouncing around with folks who don't have as many reviews or whose work I can't watch on YouTube, 'cause they look different than you."
I am open to finding a great black stylist, though. It just so happens that the stylist I found is white. I was shocked. And she's great, and I'm loyal to her. About a week or so ago I went to a stylist away from my home city. She is at Curltopia. She's black. She knew way less than me about natural hair and products. As she was telling me how she got into doing natural hair, I was relieved I didn't let her trim my hair.