Following closely behind church and Grandmama’s House, the third most important cultural center/gathering place in the Black community is The Shop. This can be the barbershop or the beauty shop. I don’t know much about barbershops outside of a few visits with my brother when we were young. They aren’t for women, unless you have a young son who needs a cut and his dad or uncles are otherwise unavailable to take him. Sometimes you can get away with going if you’ve got a brush cut or a taper that needs fading and your stylist isn’t so good with the clippers. They could tape a sign on the door that said: “He-Man Woman Haters” and Black women wouldn’t bat an eyelash. The barbershop is a sanctuary for Black men and Black women respect that.
The beauty shop, though, that’s the place for us women. Equal parts spa and purgatory, it’s the place where every don’t can become a do. Where you can get it “fried, dyed, and laid to the side.” Where rips in the space-time continuum mean that the cut and style that only took three hours last month takes eight hours today, but it’s okay because you planned for an all-day affair. Dee is going to tell you that you only have “fifteen more minutes” under the dryer when he really means fifty, but he’s as good as a therapist if you’re having a bad day. Jamilla sings soprano in her church choir and has growing hands; that’s who you wanna see if you’re trying to get your edges back or want to get enviable length. And Rochelle has an insane grip and can braid like the Africans, but she’s got a short temper and a slick mouth. Don’t go to her if you’re tender-headed or hearted. Somebody is always going to the gas station or around the corner and will get you a bag of chips if you want, or is selling plates for $8.
My favorite thing about the beauty shop is that there are no Strong Black Women. No Angry Black Women. No Phenomenal Black Women phenomenally-ing all over the place.
It’s just Black women.
You can be a sad Black woman. An anxious Black woman. A loud or a quiet Black woman. A regular Black woman. There’s no pressure for Black excellence. Just the comfort of a few women that look like you and sound like you and need their hair done like you.
Another thing I love about the beauty shop is that any place can be a beauty shop—and I mean any place.
Your bathroom: The Shop.
Dorm room: The Shop.
The after-school care teacher’s kitchen counter: The Shop.
My cousin Dee’s living room: The Shop.
My current shop is a small room in the back of my church with two dryers, a portable sink, and a styling chair. It’s an upgrade from my stylist’s last shop: a cramped cubicle sectioned off from his older sister’s daycare. All of that shared the space with his parents’ church’s Fellowship Hall.
For a brief period, I ran THE Shop out of a little classroom in a 100-year-old white clapboard school building deep off in the woods of Talladega County.
I am not a licensed cosmetologist, not like my current stylist. In reality, a license is a formality. If you have two hands and working opposable thumbs, you can be a stylist. You really ain’t gotta even have that. I saw a video once of a Black double amputee doing his wife’s hair and makeup in their bathroom (The Shop). The moment you learn to braid, to twist, to lay edges, you are a stylist. If you can cornrow, you are a skilled stylist. I cannot cornrow, my grip is pathetically weak, and I don’t have growing hands. Luckily those services were never needed for me in my shop, room 114 of Talladega County Central High School.
My first year as a classroom teacher was right in the height of the Great Transition, those years between the late aughts and mid-teens where Black women everywhere were swearing off the creamy crack and making the transition from relaxers to natural hair. Having never had a relaxer, I was a Guru Supreme to my students who wanted to know what products to use, what styles to try, and what should happen next after the Big Chop—even though I barely knew (and still don’t) what hair porosity means or the difference between 3C, 4A, or 4B.
My first client was a student whose self-administered weave tracks were slipping. After suffering through a group of boys making fun of her for two days straight, I pulled her into my classroom during my planning period.
“Do you have a comb?” I asked, not exactly sure what it was I planned to do.
“Yes ma’am,” she answered quietly. Like any good Black girl, she had a rat-tailed comb; it was orange with two missing teeth, at the bottom of her purse under candy wrappers and Carmex. I used a pair of children’s scissors to cut the dark brown threads that she used to sew her tracks in.
I fussed at her as I pulled glossy mocha tracks out of coily hair at least two shades darker. My fingers flew as fast as my words. “Girl, why did you fold these tracks? You’re supposed to cut them to size. And I know these ain’t plaits. Bobby pins? Essence, really? Can you cornrow?”
“No ma’am.”
“Well…me neither,” I said. “Next time, ask your grandma to braid you down. And stop using the brown Ampro styling gel. It flakes too much.”
By then I had managed to remove nearly all of the thread and tracks and was digging bobby pins out of her hair so it wouldn’t snag when I detangled it. “All this soft hair,” I murmured. I felt like she needed to hear that. “It’s nice and thick, too. Folks would kill for hair like this.”
She didn’t say anything, but I could see her smile. I didn’t say much else either the rest of the time I spent detangling and combing. I unbraided each plait and carefully parted her hair down the middle. I didn’t have any products other than that blasted Ampro styling gel that was at the bottom of her book bag and some nearly dried-out edge control. I ended up giving her two afro puffs and added a little water to the edge control to make it pliable so I could smooth down the small fine hairs around her forehead and temples. I found myself wondering if she was okay with the puffs; they seemed a little juvenile to me. She was more than okay. She was all smiles for the rest of the afternoon.
After that, business boomed. Of course, I worked for free, but sometimes there would be a bag of tortilla chips on my desk, or a bottle of lemonade. Pink Starbursts and Reeses.
“Ms. Kelley, can you retwist my hair? It’s coming down.”
“I have a job interview after school. Can you curl my hair?
“Can you do me a twist out? I can’t get mine to do right.”
And so I did retwists. I did barrel and candy curls. I did twist-outs and braid-outs and finger coils. I never learned to cornrow. I did learn about college dreams and visions, which HBCU band was the best, and which Homecoming was the most lit. I learned about favorite types of lip gloss and you weren’t nobody if you didn’t have at least three different tubes on you at all times. I learned that Gorilla Snot is not a euphemism for ejaculation, but is the brand name of an extreme holding gel. I learned about boyfriends and new songs and how to put on lashes.
You know, all the good beauty shop gossip.
I learned which girls had mothers who just didn’t understand and which ones could only speak to their mothers through plate glass or headstones. I learned who was scared they were pregnant and coached them through phone calls to parents and clinics. I learned about court dates and mandated anger management classes. Who had to work illegal hours because of light and gas bills. Which teachers said, “You’ll never be,” and which parents echoed it. I taught all day long, but at the end of the day I learned and I learned and I learned.
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