If you have Afro hair, you'll probably know all too well the struggle of finding a salon or barber shop that knows how to style and manage your curls. It's a sad reality that the majority of hairdressers cater to straighter locks.
A 2017 study by Habia, the Hair and Beauty Industry Authority, found that there were 35,704 beauty salons in the UK, but only 302 Afro-Caribbean salons. Meanwhile, as of September 2021, there are no colleges in Wales that offer hairdressing courses where education on how to treat Afro hair is a core part of the curriculum.
This imbalance becomes clear anecdotally, with many black people, especially women, experiencing difficulty finding stylists with the right knowledge and experience for their locks. Some who have tried salons that primarily cater to straighter hair have even received degrading and humiliating comments from hairdressers themselves. You can read more about the underappreciated but serious issue of hair discrimination here.
