Dominican Salons, in my humble opinion, have been the saving grace for ethnic hair. I'm biracial with muli-textures and have never been able to go to a "white" salon, for obvious reasons, however I always found that black salons always "fried" my hair.
Growing up in Spanish Harlem made it easy and inexpensive to have my curly/course hair done for pennies, but when I moved to Pittsburgh...my very long (at least 4 inches past my bra) hair suffered severely.
Before moving I purchased the same blow-dryer that my salon used, bought my rollers and a hardhat dryer, but it was no easy transition. I had all of the products, but lacked fundamental skills. For instance, my hair tangles a lot and the method in which I washed my hair was making the tangles worse.
I was also using rollers that were too small, so my 3-hour sit under the dryer turned into 5 hours and my hair was still damp. I was not getting remotely close to the results that I got at home. I cut my hair to about 2 inches past shoulder length, thinking that would make things easier...not so.
I moved again, to central pennsylvania and thought that I’d struck gold because there was one Dominican salon...she charged $35 and up for a wash-n-set, compared to $15 that I paid in NYC, but hey...it was worth it, right? WRONG. I could hear each hair breaking off from her wrapping my hair round and round on the brush and pulling really hard.
I cut my hair super short and learned to take care of it, but agree completely with JerseyJill, use caution with heat. I roller set and use the high setting of my dryer for only 20 minutes, I then turn the temp down to moderate or cool for the remaining hour. When I’m not in a rush, I just leave the rollers in as I do housework. After pulling out the rollers, I blow only my roots (I have A LOT of hair) just to get out the curl, but I am left with tons of body.
