The blogosphere is all a-buzz about the Wall Street Journal story yesterday that reported Dominican hair salons were taking a big bite out of the black hair care business.
CAPITOL HEIGHTS, Md.—Delshawn Rollins once trusted only fellow African-Americans with the delicate task of styling and straightening her tightly curled brown hair.
But that meant enduring hours of salon gossip, ordered-in lunch (and sometimes dinner, too) and occasional mishaps, like the time the ends of her hair snapped off after she had it dyed.
Fed up, the 35-year-old respiratory therapist last fall pulled out a flier she had for a new salon that promised to "work magic" using "Dominican styling." She was in and out of The Hair Co. USA, which displays the Dominican flag in the front window, within two hours, sporting a straight, feathery "do" for $20 less than she had been paying her old stylist.
The full story here.
The story is hardly new. The Root took an extensive look at the economics of black hair in 2009. Our Natalie Hopkinson reported on the competition in her coverage of the Golden Scissors Award, the Olympics of black hair. Interestingly, the same Dominican salon featured in our story, Sintia's, shows up in the Journal story. It's nice to know the folks at the Journal are reading The Root.