As a birthday gift for one of my sisters, who came to visit from Boston, back in November, I treated her to an appointment with Dairdre. She, like so many of us, has had some nightmarish experiences with stylists, getting braids, etc. over the years and wants to keep her hair natural. Lately, she’s been wanting to try out maintaining her hair in 2 strand twists and wanted to see how they would look (she’d never had them done before).
My initial intention was to just have Dairdre wash, condition, cut, and blow out her hair and then take her to someone to do the 2 strand twists. However, when I explained what I wanted done upon making an appointment, Dairdre assured me that she could do it all, including the 2 strand twists. I was surprised, mainly because I had a hard time picturing someone at an Aveda salon putting 2 strand twists in ethnic hair, but I took her up on it.
Here are the before and after pictures from her appointment…
If you look closely, you can see how she’s had some damage to her front edges from braids.
From this view, you can see damage to edges around ears from braids.
After Dairdre did the 2 strand twists. Looks nice, eh?
Twists are much less stress to her hair, especially without the use of synthetic or human hair.
She also had her hair highlighted in copper tones, but you can’t tell from the photos. This was my sister’s first time with color and just like I was, she was ready to go more bold with with her tones the next time. Perhaps with the copper highlight color as her base color. I think that would look nice in her hair.
In the end, my sister was happy with her hair experience, however, she is still experimenting at this point with products and styles so I don’t know if I made her an Aveda convert, but she liked the idea of using natural products. Dairdre ran her through the basics in terms of products to use and she purchased some Brilliant conditioner, Brilliant pomade, and Confixor liquid hair gel to experiment with alongside the other products she’s been trying lately.
My sister enjoyed Dairdre’s friendliness and attention during her appointment. Her only issue was that she felt she wanted smaller twists, although it was something she was unsure of going into the appointment. When talking to my sister later in the week, she said that her twists were easy to take out and easier to comb through than she remembered her hair being in the past. Since then, she has maintained twists but has them smaller now.
Freelance journalist and blogger based in Columbus, OH. Administrator for this blog and contributor of natural hair journal entries. Other writings include: Columbus Women's Issues Examiner on Examiner.com, pop culture/entertainment/indie on ifelicious.com, and black culture/news/activism on affrodite.net.