What is the hair situation in your city?

[Cherokee-n-Black]

I realized that the hair situation in my city, NY, is actually not bad. I see a lot of people with hair past shoulder length and some armpit lengths - beyond, nice looking natural heads, and maybe the chewed up look twice a day when commuting.

Omak, Reporting from NY city.

Yo...what train do YOU ride? LOL. This is weavetown USA!!! Most of the natural hair I see past shoulder length is not African American, and I swear most women I see without weaves (and a lot of them with weaves) look to' up! These ladies have allowed the Dominicans to fry their hair within an inch of its length. I know there are some dominican blowout afficionados on here, but that mess put me in braid-out therapy. 7--yes 7 years later I am finally at BSL. I see all kinds of edgless wonders, stalactites and stalgmite ends, or , if well-styled, completely short, cut and relaxed. Now, I live in Harlem, by any chance are you in BK? I seem to see healthier, more well-cared-for and natural hair there.

 

[Cherokee-n-Black]

An' another thing...the kids??? Ohhhh the kids []. Almost every day I want to stage an intervention. The toddler perms, the breakage. The teenage mess that is hair...Don't get me started on some of the multi-racial, multi-ethnic trainwrecks I have seen in strollerville. I just want to do a PSA: PLEASE learn how to style your partially african american child's head!!! It does not have to by dry, uncombed and matted!!!! I have to say, though, more education, better products, and forums like these are helping...slowly but surely...

 

[lalla]

Dakar, Senegal (according to my cousin):
The land of fake; if your hair is natural, your are not Senegalese. Mostly weaves and wigs, a few braided hairstyles, sparse hairlines.
Most styles look good, but at the expense of the hair underneath ie burning the hair that sticks out from a braid.

In general people don't care about health, they are obsessed with style.



Bamako, Mali (another cousin)
Half of the styles are hairdresses. Most people, except Arab/Touareg/Fulan/SOnghai are relaxed. The hair is often short and damaged. A lot of (tight) braided hairstyles. SOme badly done weaves, others are OK. A few long and healthy heads of hair.

 

[Imani]

I'm in a small town in Alabama. Surprisingly I don't see too many super jacked up heads. Just usually heads that are...regular. No naturals as far as I can tell. All relaxed, usually around SL, and occasional creeping towards APL. But no one's hair impressed me as far as style, shine, fullness, or being bouncy, blow in the wind. Its just...there.

I spend alot of time in Atl as well. I see everything there. seems like I see more weave than anything, tho. But there are naturals, straight naturals, and relaxed folks of all lengths. its not unusual at all to see some really banging hair in Atl.

 

[Uber]

poor to say the least

 

[Naturae]

Reporting from Dallas:

There are probably about 30% more naturals here then when I first moved to this city 10 years ago, (I'm from Cali). I'm not sure if that is beacuse the growing population of this state is largely due to folks moving here from other parts of the country or what. Even at my job, out of the 500 employees in my office, there are 2 sporting TWA and the other naturals who are SL and longer are in cute PC styles- the reason for that is I crack a whip around here. You better not come to work with your ends hanging out dragging across your shoulders!
Now that my once neighborhood has officially turned into just 'hood', I am seeing a few half moon-hairline synthetic lacefronts and some chewed up NL relaxers, other relaxers are Fantasia inspired styles.

The kids: oooh Lawed they got the babies wearing wigs now! I was in Walmart (bad example but still) and this woman had her 4 year old wearing a sew in and the 9 year old wearing a lacefront. Mama's hair was in a matted phony-pony. I almost wrote down "google LHCF" on a pice of paper and handed it to her but that would have been out of line i guess...

The young guys are now sporting that ole skool gumby cut called the 'whop' from the 80's, or this one cut my DH calls the BOOTY. cuz it looks just like a butt with cleavage on the back of the head.
The older men seem to sport a low fade or dreds.

ETA: The caucasian females seem to be over doing it with the flat iron and highlights. And a few of them have opted to do A-line cuts.

 

[tocktick]

In London the vast majority of black and mixed race girls/women have messed up weaves and/or messed up hair. I never ever see a healthy head of hair whether relaxed or natural...

I'm in London too. I see my fair share of busted hair and lots of weaves. However, I can't say I've never seen a healthy head of hair in my experience. I see quite a lot of healthy relaxed hair of varying lengths. I also see a lot of curly heads and locs. The naturals I see are mainly mixed race women of all ages but I also do see quite a few younger black girls (teens) with natural hair. Seeing another black women though with loose natural hair longer than twa is a total rarity - even seeing a black woman with twa is scarce.

 

[redecouvert]

Dakar, Senegal (according to my cousin):
The land of fake; if your hair is natural, your are not Senegalese. Mostly weaves and wigs, a few braided hairstyles, sparse hairlines.
Most styles look good, but at the expense of the hair underneath ie burning the hair that sticks out from a braid.

In general people don't care about health, they are obsessed with style.



Bamako, Mali (another cousin)
Half of the styles are hairdresses. Most people, except Arab/Touareg/Fulan/SOnghai are relaxed. The hair is often short and damaged. A lot of (tight) braided hairstyles. SOme badly done weaves, others are OK. A few long and healthy heads of hair.

nanga def??? Ma soeur est au Mali en ce moment donc je vais lui demander aussi un peu plus d'infos sur la situation capillaire a Bamako


Bloomington, Indiana:

well I don't interact w/ many Blacks..some are naturals, others were naturals but relaxed their hair, weaves, weaves, relaxers, lots of relaxers
and microbraids
overall it's not too bad

 

[lalla]

Mangui fi.

Demande, ça m'intéresserait aussi. J'aime bien voir les phases des Sénégalaises, c'est parfois très élégant, d'autres fois c'est moins réussi.

 

[Superfly Sister]

Reporting from Scotland...

Not that much to compare with tbh but I see a lot of beautiful braids and twists about. Hardly any natural curls, lots of BAD wigs and BAD weaves! I can tell they've not been to my hairdresser because my hairdresser would NEVER let me walk out her shop looking like some of those ladies

One thing you definitely don't see is lacefronts, not yet!

 

[comatose]

Yo...what train do YOU ride? LOL. This is weavetown USA!!! Most of the natural hair I see past shoulder length is not African American, and I swear most women I see without weaves (and a lot of them with weaves) look to' up! These ladies have allowed the Dominicans to fry their hair within an inch of its length. I know there are some dominican blowout afficionados on here, but that mess put me in braid-out therapy. 7--yes 7 years later I am finally at BSL. I see all kinds of edgless wonders, stalactites and stalgmite ends, or , if well-styled, completely short, cut and relaxed. Now, I live in Harlem, by any chance are you in BK? I seem to see healthier, more well-cared-for and natural hair there.

I'm in Queens LOL. Maybe I have been too optimistic but I swear it was looking way better than Philly after staying there for some time. No offence, Philly people I guess different areas IN a city have different situations.

 

[halee_J]

I see alot of natural styles, especially locs, but glued in tracks and badly installed LFs are becoming more and more popular. Hence chewed up edges are on the rise. The new fad is to dye the scalp along the hairline, to hide the balding edges

 

[spoogeywoogey]

I'm currently in Cardiff

Here the black population is predominantly West African (Nigeria, Ghana) and East African (Somalia, Ethiopia). I don't think there are that many people from the Caribbean. The West Africans got their kids in some super duper thick braid extensions that should give them neck aches. The East got their kids in regular plaits and twists, but some do them a little too tightly. The Somali women are obviously covered and I rarely go to the hairdresser to see what their hair look like. The West Africans wear way too much weave and braids. And I've had the unfortunate experience of seeing one with blond tracks going down on one side of the head and the other side low cut. I seriously don't know what was going one with this girls head. It looked like an animal attacked her head and won. In general, lots of relaxed heads, a few wave nouveau or jheri curls.

With the whites, it was refreshing to see some curls in the summer. I swore these people hated curly hair or something because they were virtually non-existent when I first came up here. But I've seen some majorly horrifying weave jobs on these girls up here. Recently saw a red head with obvious extensions as the other hair was a totally different red and just looked so fake. You could see where her real hair ended. Sad.


Back home in Kingston, Jamaica

Uptown- natural and relaxed, decent looking of all various lengths.

Downtown- lots of weaves and wigs with all colours of the rainbow. Not quite sure what the real hair of these women look like. I'm sure jacked up because they are more into style than anything else.

 

[gn1g]

dallas 27 pieces sew in weaves = short pixie haircuts.

 

[frida1980]

Durham, Snow Hill, and other NC

I am normally the only two strand twist hair in the area. The only natural style is dreds with the rare short fro or wear out. Most of the women here are short damaged relaxed heads, weaves, or braids. There are an extreme few relaxed with long hair Only my family wears press and curls, and ironically all have long APL or longer hair.

Looking at this site you would think more people would be into natural hair, but it's extremely rare here.

 

[crlsweetie912]

Baltimore is the city of exTREMES! If it's natural, it's bright red or platinum blonde. If it's weaved, it's blond or six packs on one head. If it's short, it's gelled with 8 ozs. of brown gel. Very rarely do you see middle of the road styles or healthy hair. In Baltimore, style is first and health is second! People think if they have a weave, they don't have to do anything to it, if it's natural, just get up in the morning and go, wash monthly, use as much heat as you can possibly generate and use the cheapest products you can find.
Few and far between do you see healthy hair! Oh and LOADS of Dominican blowouts!

 

[iri9109]

horrible lol...not many naturals,but the ones that are natural are usually mid-late 20s & up, and their hair is usually nice...as far as relaxed heads, most teens hair is jacked...gelled down into weave ponytails, all different types of colors, so ,much damage and broken off hair, so short but yet they find a way to slick the life out of it into a ponytail with the think short ends fanned out, i call them ponytips lol...most older relaxed ladies have shoulder length or shorter hair, the few that have longer hair than that usually look nice...in buffalo the top hair styles for ages 13-20 are some type of weave ponytail, 27 piece quick weave, tracks, kinky twist extensions, micros, or wrap. ages 21-40, wrap, weave, or rollerset. Cheap poorly applied BSS lacefronts are also on the rise. not included are high % of ppl who just wear a night scarf out in public, i'm not too sure what's underneath but probably short relaxed hair.