Un-f*cking-believable. Yes, It’s time for yet another hair post, thanks to a regular reader at my pad, Fritz, passing on this tale of race-based bullsh*t by Dillard’s hair salon in Montgomery, Alabama.
Vaughan Thomas and seven other women are suing the salon, charging racial discrimination because Dillard’s policy is that black customers are charged more than white customers because “ethnic” hair is harder to clean and style.
You have got to be joking. How can a salon make a blanket judgment about hair care pricing by race? Here you go…
A defense brief submitted in Alabama federal court cites numerous supposed characteristics of black hair that make treating it more “time consuming and technically demanding than fulfilling the minimal (or non-existent) conditioning needs” of the typical white customer.
“The rendering of professional hair care is a personal service typically tailored to the specific needs and preferences of the individual,” Dillard’s scientific expert, Mort Westman, said in a deposition. “Numerous factors exist and must be considered during the process of cleansing, conditioning and styling, rendering the resultant treatment somewhat unique.”
OK. What is Mort talking about? Natural kinky hair, pressed hair, chemically straightened hair? Is it all the same to him, because all “ethnic” hair is not the same, any more than hair of a “typical white customer” is not natural, permed, colored, curly or even kinky.
The “science” goes on…
The brief, which is based in large part on Westman’s declaration and a study published in 2003 in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, highlights the “highly brittle, tightly curled” texture of ethnic hair as a factor that prolongs the cleansing portion of the treatment.
The brief also refers to “lack of resiliency” and the frequent use of “intricate coiffures” and extensions as other factors that affect the complexity of drying and styling the hair of black customers.
“These factors would typically indicate that the pricing for the shampooing, conditioning and styling of the African-American client would normally be higher than that of the Caucasian client,” Westman claims.
WTF is this about prolonged cleansing? Gee, it took me about five minutes to lather up and condition my locs just a few minutes ago. It definitely took even less than that when I had a short natural afro. What is this assclown talking about? How can washing my hair take more time that it does to wash straight hair of “typical white customers” that is full of styling products such as gels, sprays, creams, etc.? I don’t use any “product” on my hair after washing and conditioning it — no blow drying, no rollers. Hell, no salon. I don’t need to give anyone money to do my hair.
Perhaps the highly trained professionals at Dillards are prone to ripping “ethnic” hair from “ethnic” scalps because they don’t know what they are doing.
And extensions…let’s see, how many white celebrities can I name off the top of my head that are known to wear them — Britney Spears, the Simpson sisters, Paris Hilton, the list goes on and on, geez, just pick up an US Weekly magazine and they actually tell you who’s wearing fake hair now.
So, if Paris Hilton and Tyra Banks both walked into Dillards, Tyra would get the negro surcharge for the same extensions? Nice.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs presented their case two weeks ago in support of their argument that Dillard’s alleged pricing scheme was part of a systematic effort to charge customers across the country solely on the basis of race.
…”It’s amazing to me that a Fortune 500 company would use this kind of pseudo-science in court to prove that it takes longer to wash African-American hair,” [lead attorney, Patrick] Cooper said.
“The day they can show me that every black woman in the country has the same hair is the day I’ll ask the judge to dismiss the case immediately,” he said.
If the salon wants to make sense of its pricing structure, it should be guided by actual complexity of service. Perms, whether to straighten or curl should cost more than a wash and blow dry. Washing a short hairdo, whether it is straight hair or kinky natural, should take the same amount of time to do, and thus cost the same.
About the only service I can imagine that might cost more and would apply more often to black (or kinky-haired) customers, is a press-and-curl with a hot comb, which takes skill that those race-based Dillard’s stylists are probably not familiar with.
41 Responses to “Dillard’s salon: kinky hair harder to clean”
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Sounds like the old “women pay more for dry-cleaning because their shirts are harder to press.” Or something.
BTW: I used to pay an extra fee at Tony and Guy in Tokyo because I had to get my hair done by the Gaijin (foreigner) specialist.
Dear Dillard’s
When in hole, quit digging.
When I saw Montgomery, racial discrimination, and salon, I thought that maybe an African-American lady had been asked to give up her hair dryer for a white lady.
These people are morons.
My hairdresser would cringe when I’d come in because my hair was so thick and coarse that every time it got wet it would tangle up like a motherf*cker. And it went down to my waist. She and the shampoo girl would spend at least an hour trying to comb out my hair after it was washed, with me generally whimpering and screaming in pain for most of the time.
Did I mention that I’m about the whitest white person you could ever meet? and my hair was long, blonde, and only slightly wavy? (Don’t get me started on the bad ’80s perm experiment - lets just say I was the first white girl with dredlocks in my junior high school. Too bad it wasn’t intentional).
Needless to say, now that I have a job to get to every day, I keep my hair incredibly short. Because I personally don’t want the hassle of spending hours brushing and drying my hair each morning.
But my hair is still deceptive, even short. Several hairdressers have commented that I have about 3-4x as much hair on my head as the “average” person. Which certainly looks great, but my hairdresser now knows to book extra time for my haircuts because I’m so unusual and it takes her longer to cut and color my hair.
You want to charge for the extra time I actually take because of my actual circumstances? That’s fine. Charge by the damn hour. Fair to everyone.
But if I walked into Dillards, they wouldn’t think twice about charging me less. How truly fucked.
As a guy (hold on, lemme check. Yep. A guy.) I now have very very short hair. I used to have it shaved but then the kids starting doing that. When bald guys started doing it to hide their baldness, I let mine grow back in. But I keep it way short, use a #3 clipper on it. BTW, I’m white.
But I pay the same for my haircut as a kid with full hair. My hair takes about five minutes to trim. They spend way less time on me than average clients. But I’m charged the same.
So… WTF?
Clearly the standard is race-based, because it ain’t labor-based.
“The rendering of professional hair care is a personal service typically tailored to the specific needs and preferences of the individual,� Dillard’s scientific expert, Mort Westman, said in a deposition. “Numerous factors exist and must be considered during the process of cleansing, conditioning and styling, rendering the resultant treatment somewhat unique.�
“Which is why,” he went on to say, “We felt the best method was to apply broad, impersonal, non-tailored pricing on the basis of how much melanin you have in your skin. It’s perfectly logical.”
The expert then requested that everyone ’stop looking at [him] like that’.
Ya wanna try charging for actual, rather than theoretical, differences in styling each person, perhaps?
‘Cause I refuse to believe that everyone with kinky hair, even those with really short hair, automatically take more time, effort, and product than my waist-length hair.
I have done hair for years. I worked at Saks Fith Avenue for a few of those years and the subject of charging equally for haircut & blow between men and women was the issue a few years ago. I guess legally, we couldn’t have one price for men and another for women, though the time it took was much less for the average male haircut.
Also, regarding black or ethnic haircare… Most white hairdressers have little to no training in how to work with black hair and that is a crying shame. It is not taught in predominatly white areas. I learned black haircare from a client, then a roomate then when I went on to become a trainer for an international haircare product line I learned more.
With that said, I believe (and professionally I worked this way) the service should be time based charges. Regardless of race it is the hair and what that hair needs time and product cost wise. I had black clients with different amounts and textures of hair and the same with white clients and all the colors in between.
Additionally, it takes no no more to clean black hair than it does any other kind of hair. What *may* take longer is product in the hair and the amount of hair and texture. I had a white client with so much hairspray build up it took me half an hour to shampoo her - yes I charged her more.
If I was black or had very curly fragile hair I would be EXTREMELY careful about letting a white stylist use a press comb, unless they have had experience with high heat and working close to the scalp with the comb. I know that sounds like I am bashing the white stylist - but honestly I have trained in about every state in this country and white stylists who know black hair are far and few between.
I doubt Dillards intended to be racist (I rarely stand up for any corporate entity), I think it was most likely ignorance on technique. Stupidity basically. That is not to say racism in an unaknowleged sense was not present in the people in the salon. Although most hairdressers (in my experience), are not freaked out about race, gender, politics, religion or anything else that make each of us unique in our human skin. Hairdressers, on the whole, are pretty cool people.
Just my opinion and some thoughts.
One additional thing: If Paris Hilton showed up in my salon it would cost her a fortune. She is high maintenence. And I might consider an idiot tax for that one too. Why is that woman famous? I still don’t get it.
Sounds like they’re confusing racial characteristics with over-processed hair. How much of the problem is due to women having to use relaxers, straighteners, etc. to get a “white” hairstyle and thus trashing their hair condition as a result?
BTW, I used to have hair down to my knees. Salon? Ha. Once it gets long enough to snip off the split ends by oneself, there is absolutely no reason to go to a salon. Oh, and don’t bother to blow-dry it. Wash just before bed, loose braid, flip braid over head of bed, no problem. Air dries by morning, usually.
When I worked in a multi-cultural urban area (and in the area I live in too), salons had/have to deal with a wide variety of hair. Salons actually advertise that they handle “all types of hair” in order to draw in customers. This is actually a bonus IMHO, because my son’s curly hair has been cut poorly more times than I can remember (and now he rarely lets anybody cut it, partly as a result of suburban disasters). They also seem to be able to handle my fine-textured but very thick and wavy/curly hair.
Where I used to work, “all types” meant African, Latino, Jewish (which can be as nappy as African), Irish (ditto), European, etc. Pretty much the whole run from straight and fine to failing the pencil test.
Rather than charge by race, which is absurd and very ill-defined in even the best situations, the salons I go to charge by lenghth of hair and services rendered.
Because my hair is long, I pay more for a cut and blowdry than if it were shorter. This makes sense, since it takes longer to cut it and blowdry it. If I hade it braided, I’d be charged for braiding. Hair extensions are charged as extensions. Trimming locks? Same as trimming. Straightening is charged for what it is, as are perms, coloring, etc. “Big Hair” up-dos for weddings are the same story. Set on rollers is charged as “set”. Maintenance for various natural African styles (tightening) has a price schedule. Some services are charged on a per-hour basis. Clients may be steered to certain stylists, but that is because they are more expert in what the client wants than others (e.g. Karen cuts mine because she’s good at long hair).
This isn’t rocket science. It’s a menu. If you provide specialized services, you can’t take the “all you can eat buffet” approach. Sounds like Dillard’s is making the same stupid excuses as the dry cleaners around here that charge women three times what they do men for oxford shirts and suits because they are “small” or “different”.
By the way, the woman pictured looks like my mother and has pretty much the same hairstyle. Only my mother is nearly translucent in skin tone.
It doesn’t surprise me that hairdressers charge for hair based on race: I don’t know a hairdresser that doesn’t charge for hair based on gender.
I have very short hair, and I just like a plain dry cut when I get it cut: trim it off and make me tidy and I’m done. I go to a barber’s shop when I can find one that will serve me, because a barber’s cut costs less than a hairdresser’s cut (much less, for the same effect) but I used to uncomplainingly pay hairdresser’s prices when I had to… until the day I walked into a “unisex salon”, looked at the price-list, noted the price for a “dry cut”, and asked if they could take me right now. They could: they did: they charged me twice what the price was on the list. When I protested, the manager told me that the price on the list was for a gentleman’s cut, I was a lady, so they’d charged me a price for a “lady’s cut”. When I looked at other “unisex salon” price lists, I noted the same effect - sometimes the haircuts were given different names on one list than the other, but always, invariably, women were just routinely charged more than men.
If hairdressers are allowed to ramp up their prices for women, why not for blacks? If it’s legal to charge a woman more just because she’s female, how can it not be legal to charge a black person more just because she’s black? And conversely - if it becomes illegal for hairdressers to discriminate by race, should it not be illegal for hairdressers to discriminate by gender?
What amazes me has nothing to do with whether Dillard’s position is right or wrong or sort-of right but misguided in implementation - it’s that of the entire organization, from the VP of public relations down to the legal secretary who typed up the brief, not one person read it and said, “Holy fuck, you want to say this out loud? In ALABAMA?? Are you TRYING to make us look like stone racists???”
Uh, how bout letting them charge whatever they want, and letting consumers shop whereever they want?
That would be … Ta Da … Freedom.
Oh no, wouldn’t want to allow that.
A much bigger problem in the “hair” business is the insame protectionist regulations in many states for things like hair braiding, which effects black women more than anyone else (depriving them of the chance to make an honest living). For info on that issue, see the Institute of Justice Website.
Libertarian - They’re already charging whatever they want on gender lines, and as a female with very short hair I cannot ‘go elsewhere’ for a cheaper cut. Everywhere charges more - about double for a female. I also wore a buzz cut for some years, had to pay the higher rate for that too. You may consider this freedom, I just find it annoying. If this salon can charge more, why won’t every other?
I don’t think it’s OK to charge differently based only on sex and / or race, I’d like to hear a reason why it should be.
I have very thick hair. Every time I go to a new stylist, they have a fit about half-way through, as they realize they are only half-way through.
Even washing it takes time–at home I have to have a massage showerhead to power through it.
But I’m lily-white and my hair is straight, so discount at Dillard’s!
Libertarian, where would you suggest women get haircuts or have their shirts dry-cleaned?
Beacuse even barber shops charge a premium for the same style if you don’t have a penis. And no matter how tall you are, your shirts are harder to press if you don’t have a penis.
When all the stores band together to discriminate on racial or gender lines, capitalism alone isn’t the solution.
Yes I’ve seen different prices for men’s and women’s cuts, which makes no sense to me at all. How can it make any sense that if I have exactly the same hair type and length as a man, I go in and ask for exactly the same cut, it will cost me more?
Maybe women are more likely to want more complicated cuts, but why not just charge by ‘type of cut’ or something like that, or by the time it takes, not by gender (or race of course). If I’m just going for a haircut, I honestly don’t see why my gender is anyone’s business.
Freedom, if you don’t like it, go somewhere else, or do it yourself.
My hair is one half inch long. Haircut costs $17.00, same as the guy with long hair, or a complex cut (mine is simple). Who cares. I choose the place, I like it, I go there. I could find cheaper, but like the cut I get and the convenience.
If a barber or hairstylest want to restrict their business to blacks, or whites, or Jews, or non-Jews, that should be their choice. I think it’s stupid, but I don’t want them telling me what to do either.
Uh, how bout letting them charge whatever they want, and letting consumers shop whereever they want?
Nice try, but you know and I know that markets work that way only in your imagination.
If one dry cleaner charges $1 for a male shirt and $3 for a nearly identical female shirt, the others will do it to and make the same lame excuses as all the others for the vast difference. Until the state gets involved and notices the gender-based discrepancy.
Oh, but we can’t do that. Stopping price-fixing would be BAD state INTERFERENCE in the FREE MARKET.
PBP!
This doesn’t surprise me at all. I grew up in Nashville (live in Cali now) and there are several Dillard’s there and I would never get my haircut there. I’m not sure what sort of training is required to get a job at a “Department Store Salon”, so I don’t trust them. Like Mark Spittle above, I keep my hair very short now and Lina (my “stylist”) does a great job and charges me the same as everyone else who gets the same cut because she pays rent for her spot in the salon. She doesn’t have a fee schedule based on race. It’s based on what kind of haircut you get.
So “Libertarian”, let me get this straight, you’re FOR discrimination against minorities?
Because that’s what your “freedom” would tolerate. And you have to be accountable for the EFFECTS of your policies on others.
Grow up and get a reality-based notion of what a civil society is, already. And a conscience.
Scrutator
Yes, I believe private parties should be FREE to buy or sell to whoever they want, associate (or not) with whoever they want, hire whoever they want, etc.
If people want to be bigots, then being free means allowing them to be stupid in that way.
I think I am grown up, last time I checked (I sure have a lot of responsibilities for a non-grown up). If you can figure out how to take a few years off my age, I’m all ears.
Um, Big-L-ibertarian, any physicist can tell you that the free movement of a particle or atom or molecule becomes constrained by some rules when interactions with others are involved.
Unless you can argue that human societies would reach their lowest energy state for such interactions through your vast oversimplifications, that “freedom” you suggest for the shopkeeper easily becomes “shunning” for the potential customer, hardly a state of “freedom”. Shopkeepers become constrained by their communities, and customers become constrained by blanket discrimination. Similarly, your right to “do whatever you want” on your property ends where and when it interferes with my right to do whatever I want on my property. In other words, you can’t ruin the water on my property with the waste from your autobody shop and expect me to put up with that in the name of property rights.
Sorry if collusions, interactions, and such are a much higher order than any theoretical libertarian can handle - unfortunately, they are both a fixture of natural atomic/molecular behavior and human behavior as well. Oversimplifying everything is the hallmark of libertarian cogitation.
Yes I’ve seen different prices for men’s and women’s cuts, which makes no sense to me at all. How can it make any sense that if I have exactly the same hair type and length as a man, I go in and ask for exactly the same cut, it will cost me more?
Try asking for the shave and a haircut. It’s only two bits.
I pondered whether to add my voice to the reason countering “Libertarian”’s nonsense, and came up pro. So here it is:
ms kate is completely right, and I’ll add another perspective. If you believe that private parties should be free to BUY OR SELL to whoever (sic) they want, you might also believe that dawn and dusk should exist at the same moment in the same place, and that Pam Anderson’s boobs are real. If everyone is free to buy from whomever they want, that means the merchants are not free to discriminate: they must sell to everyone with the means to buy. If merchants are free to sell to whomever they want and only the individuals or constituencies they choose, then those doing the buying are by definition NOT free to buy from their merchant of choice.
“But,” you say, cupping your genitals protectively, “why would any FREE person CHOOSE to buy from someone who didn’t want to sell to them?” Because, precious, that’s the only shoe store in a ten mile radius. And mama doesn’t have a car.
Your version of freedom looks like supporting individual rights, but smells like condoning discrimination with the assumption that most intelligent people will discriminate in your favor. You’re not fooling me, and I don’t think you’re fooling anybody else here.
Sam and Caren, we must all be somehow related.
I have almost a literal mane of hair and have made a lot of stylists angry and stressed out. I keep it as short as possible and tend to wait a long time between haircuts. I may someday just shave it all off for a good cause, or something…
The best suggestions I’ve seen so far have been to start charging by the hour if labour is the issue, and to make sure hairdressers learn how to cut and style all different kinds of hair for the good of everyone involved. Dillard’s = stupid, and I wouldn’t be surprised (or upset) if they lost an assload of business from their actions.
[…] I see nothing potentially offensive about this at all! Why, it’s just good business practice to alienate a good portion of your patrons by implying that they’re dirty and difficult and that their patronage is unfairly burdensome to you. Think of it as actuarial hair, aggressive shearing of overhead costs. It’s not like there’s any system that would allow stylists to charge for actual rather than hypothetical service–what more reliable measure of hairstyle or hair maintenance is there than race? Dillard’s is downright progressive! […]
I don’t know about women, but being a black male, I would only warily walk into a Dillard’s for a haircut. White people don’t learn how to cut black people’s hair, so 90% of the times I’ve gotten my hair cut by a white person, I’ve been insanely dissatisfied. They simply don’t learn how to do it right. I feel sorry for a woman who would go to Dillard’s and pay more for incompetence. I really felt the pain in New York; it was difficult for me to find a barber shop in my neighborhood that would perform a good job. However, one barber (in my entire life) in New York was kind enough to warn me that he couldn’t do a good job on my hair but had a colleague in a nearby shop who could do a good job. Thank god for giving that guy a tiny bit of humility.
They should charge me more, too. I’m pale enough to trace through, and I have very fine, thin hair, but my hair is also brittle and just curly enough to stick out and not curly enough to hang in ringlets. (I call the resulting mess of anarchic hair “stringlets.”) I think my hair has decided it would be happier if it got its own apartment in another city. Any stylist who could do something with it that simultaneously looks tidy and doesn’t require massive amounts of blow-drying and upkeep (which makes it frizzier) would deserve extra money.
Libertarian,
What you seem to forget is the demand side of the laissez faire economy. People, who are customers and potential customers expect and yes, demand a specific level behavior. For the most part that demand of behavior is based on constitutional specifics.
What you seem to be advocating is a supplier controlled economy without any restraints and quashing the demand side.
Bottom line is the “shut up and take it” mantra is unacceptable in the real world.
Interrobang, I think we might be hair twins. My condolences. I just resort to a headband and looking funny.
used to live in Minneapolis, which has to be biracial kid central and the best person I ever had do my hair (I’m a black woman) was a white/hispanic lady named Jenny. And this is coming from a woman who previously went to black stylists all my life.
Hwwever, Jenny took the time to deliberately learn to do black hair because she realized the secret that most white stylist haven’t figured out: The average black women gets her hair done once a week like clockwork, in particular if they wear relaxed hair styles. That’s guaranteed money in the bank. Regular consistent money. Most white stylists can’t say that about their customers who come in every 6 weeks for a trim and color.
I’m one of those women. You could send your kid to college on me.
Libertarian–
Thanks for reminding me why I do not claim to be one anymore. To me libertarianism is a lot like socialism or communism– great in theory but lousy in the real world.
I was a progressive libertarain when I was 18. The first time I got to vote for president I voted for Harry Brown. (Aww, foolish youth!) But when I was about 19 it dawned on me that if the U.S. was ruled by a truly libertarian philosophy the civil rights movement never would have happened and most historical inequities would forever be ignored and accepted. We’d have a society where marginalized groups (blacks, Jews, queers, etc.) would stay marginalized because we’d be limited to only traveling or living in places where “our kind” is already accepted. Laws that ban discrimination based on certain classifications make it possible for our integrated society to exist.
This is what I do not get:
A hair salon is the only fixture, other than a storefront church, a laundromat and a liquor store, than one can dependably find in a strip mall in a black neighborhood. If any major chain decided to deal with black hair as something good to style, their business from black people would skyrocket — and, as stated above, that’s steady, week-in, week-out money.
I might not have a snazzy car, wonderful clothes or a huge house, but even I know better to show up for Sunday service looking shabby.
seriously. they think we’re that stupid? so are they saying that all white people have the same texture of hair and they can do every service on every white person’s head in the same amount of time with the same amount of effort? Of course they can’t, but they aren’t charging the white people with curly hair, or extremely thick hair, or extremely sparse and thin hair that’s difficult to curl, more money…are they? naturally i’m pretty disgusted that they would pain all black people with such a broad stroke (notice i didn’t say surprised). if anything, it shows how completely incompetent they are when it comes to knowledge about hair and probably shouldn’t be putting their hands in anybody’s head.
Bonkers madness: yes, this is right up there with my cobbler, who charges me ten bucks to put new heel caps on my high heels but charges my boyfriend five bucks to re-heel his dress shoes. With an extra heapin’ helpin of racist nonsense.
Sam , Careen, Charlotte Smith and I are hair quads: I have a hell of a time getting my hair cut or even coloured, because the stylist inevitably has a snit fit halfway through the cut when they realize that there’s, oh, 3/4 of a head to go. I have stealth hair which doesn’t look thick, and this just makes it worse. I love elaborate Vidal Sassoon style precision cuts, but hairdressers who do them are almost impossible to find on this side of the pond.
My solution, only just abandoned, was to grow it out long and straight. and get it trimmed in a cheapo salon once every 6 weeks. Women with long hair, if all they want is a trim, are the quickest customers a salon can have, IMHO.
What the hell were they thinking?? I do so hope they get sued and held accountable for every penny they overcharged these people. I can’t believe they thought something like this was okay. My hair is a nightmare…very thick and colored too. I take up much more time than your “average” client… if such a thing exists but I also leave much more than the average tip–if satisfied I leave even more because believe me I like many other women I’m sure(irregardless of race) don’t need a hair dresser or rocket scientist to clue me in on the fact that my hair is a pain in the ass, believe me I know… I live with it, and if someone takes the time to do a good job I will make it worth their while.I’m paying for an improvement or in hopes of one anyway or else I wouldn’t be there. They are going to take away the joy of giving a good tip with all these price rules and regulations and screw the whole damn experience. Some of us may not get our hair done very often and look foward to it. Now with all this drama it’s a thing to dread. What ever happened to the customer being right. All they have gained is a whole lot of SHAME in this whole race nonsense, I mean come on now I’m sure so called “ethnic” hair can’t be any more of a problem than frosting, double processing, and messing with my mop.I am very ashamed of anyone who went along with this type of thing and pray they be held accountable. Do daycares charge more for children who in their “opinion” are more difficult to care for? How about a mechanic with an oil change does the Ford or the Chevy cost more? Opinions are like ass holes they come in many sizes and the ones responsible for this are huge ones and that is just mine take it or leave it and explain it any way you like but it still won’t make it right. I thought paying for a service meant you got the service no matter how long it took. Beauty takes time, these hair dressers sound more like lawyers to me– no offense intended but they do get paid by the hour. Ain’t nothing but a money thing and using someone’s race to earn more just ain’t right.
Damn. I work for Dillard’s. I wondered why I had to sign a very thick arbitration agreement…twice!
On the Kilburn High Road in London, you won’t find a hairdresser who will do white people’s hair, or as they call it, Caucasian hair. They give you appointments days in advance for nails too, although its walk-in if you’re black. I’m white, lived near Kilburn for years and never went near hairdresses because my hair (long, red, very curly) was something I did at home. White hairdressers are not that good if you have very thick curly hair, they like dead straight or slightly wavy hair. I married a West Indian and my kid’s hair needed professional cutting so I used to take him to the KHR salons, they were fine, no problem. I thought maybe they could cope with my hair. Nope, they didn’t even want to know. I went with my husband, they were nicer to me then but still wouldn’t do it.
So that’s the other side of the coin for you.
I live in the Caribbean now. On the island there are several white hairdressers as well as obviously, lots of local ones, they all do everyone’s hair. But everyone’s favourite hairdressers are the Santo Domingan ones, the Spanish girls with their very varied hair textures and colours understand everyone’s hair. And yeah, they charge by the service not by the type.