NaturallyCurly‘s Ask a Curl Expert franchise joins leading stylists in the beauty industry to discuss the latest trends, products, and hair care tips for all textures. On today’s Beautycon stage at the 30th ESSENCE Festival of Culture, NAHA-winning hairstylist Michelle O’Connor and celebrity hairstylist Tippi Shorter chatted with NaturallyCurly editor Desiree Johnson about “Hair Tok,” the side of TikTok pushing out all the must-try hair trends. From the viral braided baldie to 4C hair maintenance tips, inviting the pros into community-led conversations helps sift through all of the hair advice for your most healthy scalp, texture and style.
This season, protective styles take the front seat while our exposed scalps call for extra care. “It’s hot, it’s humid, it’s sweaty, and itching is what I’m fighting to do at this very moment,” Johnson said. When taking care of our roots and scalp, Shorter reminds us of a necessary fact. “I think a lot of people forget that our scalp is skin and we need to treat it as such,” she said. “Our scalp needs a routine.” According to the AAD, our hair sheds between 50 to 100 strands per day—even in braids. “If you let that multiply by six weeks that’s how much hair you’re going to lose when you take those braids down,” she said. “You have to shampoo because if you don’t release it then you could get [unintentional] locs.”
Beneath protective styles, like wigs and braids, learning to care for our natural hair as we unlearn texturism is a crucial beauty lesson as well. “Celebrities are really peeling back the curtain and truly showing us their real hair,” Shorter told Johnson, as her favorite beauty trend at the moment. With Beyoncé debunking myths about hair health and wigs, Doja Cat turning her 4C texture into a single cover, and Rihanna making the big chop her new look, the natural beauty movement has hit the hair care industry hard—as has the bob. “The French bob with the bangs but then also, softening the bob and making it more pixie-like,” Shorter said, coining the look as the “bixie.”
Regardless of trends, however, O’Connor said the biggest misconception with hair care is thinking we can handle our texture aggressively. “I see professional hairstylists going in with harsher chemicals, I see… how it’s brushed, how it’s maneuvered with a heavy hand,” O’Connor said. We all remember how it feels to sit between our mother or grandmother’s legs, or even at the salon, as they yank through our coils and burn our scalps. “It requires more delicate hands, more gentle chemicals, it requires all of that.”
While part of the conversation to unlearn unhealthy relationships with our hair is treating our texture with care, the other part is knowing which products and techniques actually work. Instead of going from style to style, Shorter suggests taking a break between looks. “We have to roll back because with that we’re having broken hair, hair that doesn’t reach its full potential from a growth perspective, scalp issues, hair loss, hair thinning,” Shorter said. At the root of textured hair care, choosing products and techniques, “it’s education and understanding what you’re doing.”
