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Interesting Washington Post article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...icleTechnology

Of Curls and Cultures
At the Dominican Salon, a Tangled History All Comes Out in the Wash, and Set

By Teresa Wiltz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 14, 2007; Page C01


The women are specialists in the subduing of spirited hair -- wizards of blow-dryers and curling irons, of brightly colored rollers and creamy Caribbean unguents, of bobby pins and potent frizz fighters. Kinks and coils are not welcome. Curls are to be quashed into submission, lassoed around restraining devices, baked under a bonnet and then brushed and brushed until they concede defeat.
At the Sashelvis Hair Salon & Spa in downtown Silver Spring, the only good curl is a curl that knows its place: prone.
There are those who like it like that, notwithstanding the fraught nature of race and hair. And because of this, women queue up by the dozens at the salon, waiting to partake of this particular brand of communion: the Dominican blow-out, a multi-layered process that results, in the words of a '70s hair commercial, in bouncin' and behavin' hair. "Dominican" is a key component of this particular species of blow-out, a branding that sends its devotees scurrying to find a salon in Phoenix or Dallas or London, posting frantic missives on Web sites: "Bad hair day . . . Desperately looking for a Dominican salon in downtown Toronto."
Which is why, at 8 a.m. on a Saturday, 18 women line up on Wayne Avenue outside Sashelvis, Starbucks lattes in hand. Once inside, all is quiet, save for the hush of hair dryers, the soft murmur of Spanish, the trickle of running water. Then a brusque refrain, one that will be heard again throughout the 11-hour day, punctures the peace: "Next!"
"We work all day long," says Ana Marmolejos, who co-owns Sashelvis with her sister, Carmen. "And at Easter time? Oh. My. God. We've got people lined up, waiting for dryers. Some days, you get those big bushes of hair, no chemicals. We feel like running away."
On this day, Marmolejos and her 15 stylists will coif the tresses of 116 women and girls. (On a really busy day, she says, they'll see as many as 160.) The overwhelming majority of those women will be African American -- 98 percent of their clientele -- with a handful of Dominicanas, West Africans, Jamaicans, Central Americans and the stray white girl tossed into the mix.
The popularity of the Dominican salon -- even in Washington, which has only a microscopic population hailing from the Dominican Republic -- embodies a perfect storm of racial aesthetics, cultural conditioning and a strong hand with a blow-dryer. (In downtown Silver Spring, there are six Dominican hair salons, including one owned by another of Marmolejos's sisters and one that she rents out to another hairstylist. (There are others scattered around the region.) Burbling under the surface is a shared legacy of slavery and miscegenation, of ancestors who survived the Middle Passage, ending up in different ports of call all across the Americas. Dominicans, the descendants of Africans, Europeans, Taino Indians and a few other strains thrown in for good measure, are famous for knowing their way around highly textured hair, renowned for, as Latina.com declares, "the best damn blow-outs in the country." Because of this, Ana and Carmen Marmolejos boast on their business cards, "YES, WE ARE DOMINICANS!"

That's what folks come for.
"Whenever I come here, my hair looks so light and shiny," says Danielle Balfour, 29, a sweet-faced elementary school teacher from Charlottesville, as she stands in line with sopping-wet hair, waiting to have it set on rollers. Every month, she says, she makes her pilgrimage to Sashelvis.

"I can't do [what they do]," Balfour says. "Other salons can't do it. So I stick to here. Everyone who comes here tries to figure out 'What's the mystery of what they do here?' "

Perhaps it's not that big of a mystery. In the Dominican Republic, where it is estimated that 90 percent of the population has at least some African ancestry, straight hair is revered as a symbol of beauty. Over the years, Dominicanas developed techniques to manage curly hair in a tropical climate, mastering the art of the roller set and concocting conditioners in the kitchen.

"It's the technique," observes New York-based beauty editor Tia Williams, who's chronicled her love for the Dominican blow-out in her blog, "Shake Your Beauty."

"It's all in the wrist, some kind of wrist action they have combined with the roller set. No matter how well you do roller sets at home, they do it better. The blow-out that you get is smoother and shinier than you can get at any other salons."
Unlike those pricey retreats where you're served cappuccino and white wine, Sashelvis is strictly no-frills: a handful of seats in the front, a few pictures of glammed-out hair models on the walls, a few religious portraits along with the American flag stuck in a glass vase, impersonating a flower.
Folks come here because it's quick. (Well, relatively, about two hours, start to finish.) It's cheap. (Again, relatively. Cheap for D.C., with prices starting at $35; it's cheaper in New York, the epicenter of the Dominican American beauty parlor.) It's convenient. (Open seven days a week, no appointment necessary.)

It works something like this: You come in, asking for a "wash 'n' set." The receptionist gives your hair the once-over. If your hair is long, you pay $10 more. If your hair is naturally curly or kinky and untouched by chemical straighteners or relaxers, you pay $10 more.

After the initial assessment, you're sent back to the shampoo room, where you get scrubbed down with products hailing from the D.R. and Europe and then slathered with ultrahydrating conditioners. Then it's under a long, conical dryer for 10 minutes while the conditioner does its work. After a quick rinse, you're plopped down in the stylist's chair, where she painstakingly sets your soaking locks on big plastic rollers. Then it's back under the hairdryer for an ear-scorching 50 minutes. Then back to the stylist's chair, where she takes out the curlers and, armed with a blow-dryer and a brush, steamrolls out any remaining bumps and kinks from the hair. Then, you're finished off with a curling iron, ensuring that any remaining hint of frizz is obliterated.

(Frizz is the enemy here. On the way out the door, a receptionist proffers a shower cap to don as you cross the street. It's raining, she points out. Rain equals frizz.)
By the time the first batch of clients are going through the final stages of their transformation, a haze hovers over the salon, the byproduct of multiple blow-dryers going at full blast at the same time. Over the speakers, Dominican balladeer Bonny Cepeda croons about lost love, begging and begging for what once was and what now isn't. Some of the stylists sing along sotto voce, egged on by Marmolejos's 13-year-old daughter, Sasha.

Back home in Santo Domingo, there's a beauty shop on every corner. Office workers are expected to adhere to a strict dress code, Marmolejos says -- carefully coiffed hair, no ponytails, or buns -- and so women haunt salons, popping in every few days for a touch-up, trying to beat the heat and humidity.

"Every Dominican girl knows how to roller-set their hair," says Angelina "Gigi" Alcantara, the salon's 24-year-old receptionist/bookkeeper. "It has to be real straight."
Sometimes, of course, a hairstyle is just a hairstyle. But some see this obsession with straightening hair as a desire to erase all traces of any connection to the Mother Land. In his upcoming novel, "The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," Dominican American novelist Junot Diaz writes about the color complexes of Dominicans at home and abroad, how straight hair is a status symbol, something to indicate that you are more Taino or European than African, and therefore somehow better.

Observes Bernadette Sanchez, a Dominican American psychologist in Chicago: "Based on my own experience with my family and with other Dominicans, there is a complex about having black ancestry. There are many Dominicans to me who are clearly black but will not identify as black. A lot of shame in the Dominican culture about having black heritage." And historically, Sanchez says, that attitude translates into prejudice against black Americans.
Much like African Americans, the stylists here, all Dominicanas, are an assortment of colors and hair textures, from fair-skinned and kinky-haired to deep brown with silky, straight tresses. But they seem to like it best serving up hairstyles with a healthy helping of lye.

"A lot of stylists don't want to deal with, let's say, African hair," Marmolejos says. "They're afraid of it. But we are black. We're all mixed, but how can I consider myself white?"

"You have this perception that women from the islands think they're better," says Carol Walls, a 46-year-old author and poet who lives in Southeast. "But they're women just like us. That was a different perspective, seeing other women from different cultures going through the same stuff."

By 5 p.m., the last of the clients trickle in. In one chair, a Cameroonian woman, dressed in traditional dress, chats on her cellphone, gossiping and laughing in her native language. Fewer clients emerge from the shampoo room. One by one the stylists with wet hair begin to take their places in chairs, towels draped around their necks. Now it's their turn.

By 7, the last of the clients have gone and the workers get down to the final business of the day: Taking care of each other, wielding blow-dryers and scissors, curling irons and bobby pins, winding hair round rollers, then baking it until it does their bidding.

Intersting article
but I am quite sure you will find many of these attitudes in much of the formerly colonised world
from india to kenya to the caribbean

but black american and west indian women been straightening their hair for years too so they cant talk. Plus dominican men still rock they knapps so it isnt necessarily about white washing. Them big huge asses many dominican women have and love definately aint taino and ive heard many even say they prefer coloring in their skin because they dont want to be mistaken for a puerto rican.

I have to say... them Dominicans know how to blow my hair out pin straight for $15 (Mon-Wed)...I can't get that anywhere else but the Dominicans...

My aunt in DOminica has a Dominicana woman working in her salon......jeez the girl know how to work some magic. I used to love her blow outs....my hair would be shiny and bouncy for a whole week. Every evening I would just wrap it and next day comb it out and I good to go. She used to send for products in the DR too. Dominica has a growing DR population too.

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www.youravon.com/vblackmoore

why you on the defensive so? the article claims that in the DR you MUST have straight, nice hair at work, no ponytails, no buns. so getting yuh hair done there is a must and is popular. blk americans and west indians have NOT been straightenin their hair IN THAT MANNER "for years". and who the hell said anything about dominican men?

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yeah, run some credits nuh.

For all those talking shit about the attitudes of women in other islands...as though to show that this issue isn't particular to the DR

Afro Latin Americans in Miami Herald

This may be endemic to many of the former eurpean colonies...but in the DR they have REAL issues when it comes to naps and color. No amount of spin and explanation could hide that.

Cubans also have a issue w being too black esp here in america.i used to hate going to spanish functions growing up
i realized that all of us that are here in america (my entire family), we have all sought to not marry another cuban / hispanic for the mere fact that we were always too black. We wore braids and we didnt act spanish enough.
living in brooklyn my mom and her sisters did the next best thing they mixed in w other islanders.. my family is made up of cuban/ jamaicans, cuban/trini, cuban /bajan. I think also it was helpedby the fact that my gradfather used to travel to other island and taught them to speak island english while in cuba so they adapted to the climate in BK

I never had a latino bf ever just because I was not the typ. cuban girl and I embraced my black side.
to other men that were not hispanic i was just "ahem" a sexy cuban girl

Let us face the facts............
1-Dominicans are masters of hair with any texture.
2-Dominicans use products from their own country, so the Koreans and other non-Dominicans cannot have free market influence on the supply!
3-The real issue is that many Black American hair salons are losing major business to the Africans for braids, West Indians for weaves, coloring and 'dancehall' styles and Dominicans for straightning. Some still use Americans for Jheri curls!
4-Making this a colorism issue may have some validity. But if you a mixed race person it is your right to celebrate YOUR heritage. If you do not want be associated with the people of a low social/political/economic standing then you reserve that right!
5-Black Americans like white Americans are losing Economic power and political influence in their own country. Notice how when blacks who are from the caribbean embrace their ethnicity American blacks challenge them by saying thing like "..you still black..", "...you think you are white.." or "...they are trying to divide us..." . The fact remains if Black American hair salons were making money that article would never been published!

taking hotcombs to your hair IS in that manner. Men wearing conch hair to look more white IS in that manner. Females wearing blonde hair and bleaching their skin IS in that manner. If the entire population wanted to be white the men would be straightening their hair too, like black americans used to do (and some still do, bout good hair).

Im not saying they dont have color issues but no place in the diaspora can point fingers at them cause they doin it too.

Right....because black American hair salons have such a strong lobby that they can influence the publishing or this anti-Dominican article in both the Washington Post and the Miami Herald.

What a dumbass.

I'm done with Dominican salons, unless in a rush and nothing else is available. I am sold on the Ethiopian/Eritrean stylists. Your hair doesn't have to be relaxed dead straight for them to do it. Further, they appreciate natural hair. My stylist does not want me to put any chemicals at all in my hair. She's like, it's beautiful. Not most of the Dominicans, oh no. You better not have much too much of a curl or alot of them will complain. That's my experience anyway...

If you want to support black American hair salons, the Korean wholesale distribution and your right to get a JHERI CURL why insult me? The facts are present the demand of the marketplace dictates that the Dominicans will have a large clientele and need only buy supplies from Dominican suppliers in their own country!
So bake and shark stay care free with your curls

Since when you does go get your hair done at a Dominican salon?

No but when I am in NYC my cousins, aunts, girlfriends and FWB's have all sworn by Dominicans hair salons. But also continential Africans for braids and other Caribbean hair salons for dye jobs and styling! But NOT black american hair salons maybe it is just the cultural divide!