Straight Hair and Another Salon Adventure

If you follow us on Instagram (@yaisnyc) you've probably caught some straight hair pics coming from me. Last Saturday I spent the day at the Asanda Aveda Spa Lounge in Soho with a couple of my friends. We had a 5-hour spa deal from Groupon which included full body massage, facial, mani-pedi, and a blow-out. I was very nervous about getting my hair straightened at a salon (the only other time I've been was to get color at another Aveda salon at the Elmhurst Mall in Queens) but I decided to suck it up and give it a try. I ended up calling the place and asking them if they had any stylist who could work with very curly hair, which I recommend natural-hair folks to do, and they assured me the did. In fact, they called me back within an hour to let me know that there were two stylists that would be in tomorrow to take care of me. One thing I did NOT do is describe my hair as "problematic," "nappy" "unmanageable," when speaking on the phone because I don't want a salon to view my hair in that way.

 So after an amazing facial and massage - two things which I never had before - I had my mani-pedi by a woman who was nice enough to let me know that she was natural under her wig and that they would do a good job with my hair. I expressed that I was a little uneasy about my hair being done and she said that Aveda trains stylist in "ethnic" hair (which I semi-knew already because SP was trained at Aveda schools). I felt even better when my stylist Jessica asked me questions that let me know she was very familiar with my hair type: did I wear my hair natural all the time? How often did I heat straighten? And then assured me that she had a weave in her hair but had hair very similar to mine! So we chatted about how she specializes in curly hair and she shared her salon experiences as a child where her father took her to salons to get her hair straightened and she would always come out with a poofy afro. I even chatted with a stylist who had a TWA and she chimed in about natural haircare, so it became fun. Jessica washed my hair, deep conditioned, blew it out, (mentioning that she would normally do it with a comb attatchment,) de-tangled with a denman-type brush, and said that because I don't use heat often she would get my hair pin-straight with a flatiron. She totally did!

Freshly done

I was super tired after so I didn't take immediate length shots like I wanted, but I managed to on Monday. My hair was a little poofy and uneven, but I'm past BSL and I've since had my hair trimmed and shaped by SP, who co-signed on the fact that Jessica did a great job (kicking myself for not taking a picture with her!) It rained this week so I actually put on a hat and wrapped my hair in a scarf to get around. I'm also getting so much better with wrapping so my hair has been straight!

From IG

And there we have it! A second salon experience as a die-hard natural. My next excursion will be to find a place to do a wash-and-set, so I'm mustering up the courage to call up a place near my house. I'll be keeping my hair straight until my trip to Puerto Rico next weekend and then it's back to big, poofy and curly!