Guides
Reference on the things this platform is built around: hair texture, the work a salon actually does, and the cloth behind the clothes. No filler.
Type 4 hair, and what a salon needs to know
The type number tells a stylist less than most people assume. Here is what it does describe, what it leaves out, and what to ask before you sit in the chair.
Silk press, honestly
A silk press is straightening without chemistry. That makes it reversible, which is the appeal, and it is also why the heat question decides whether it stays reversible.
Locs, and what maintenance actually involves
Locs are the longest commitment in hair. The method they start with and the hands that maintain them decide most of what happens over the following years.
Braids, tension, and the hairline
A protective style only protects if the installation does. The difference between braids that grow hair and braids that take it comes down to tension, weight and time.
Colour on dark hair, honestly
Most visible colour on dark hair starts with removing the colour that is already there, and that is chemistry with consequences. What a good colourist tells you before you book.
Ankara, and where it actually comes from
Ankara is West African in identity and Indonesian in origin, by way of a Dutch factory. The history is more interesting than the myth, and it is also how you tell good cloth from cheap cloth.
Adire, the Yoruba resist cloth
Adire is indigo resist-dyeing as the Yoruba developed it, centred on Abeokuta. The technique names tell you how a cloth was made, and the reverse side tells you whether it was made that way at all.
Kente is woven, not printed
Kente is cloth built strip by strip on a loom, which is why the real thing is heavy, seamed and priced in weeks of work. Much of what is sold as kente is a photograph of that cloth.