Berline Exantus
Mat Wenzel
ENC 2135
April 4, 2019
Weavie Wonder
On a personal level, I can relate to the average able-bodied male’s hatred of shrinkage. I too suffer from shrinkage! As do the many women in the natural hair community that identify with the 4C hair type. The 4C hair type is the pattern of hair that coils, rather than curling or waving. This pattern of hair makes it more difficult for the scalp oils to make its way down the hair shaft. Which creates a need for moisture, unlike no other. So, hair products based with water rich compounds and oils are needed to keep these coils elongated. When the water from the leave in conditioners, hair masks, cremes, and curly custards evaporate, the coils no longer spring. Dry hair is unpleasant for all hair types, but when it comes to the 4C hair type, this means that the hair strands will shrink and tangle upon one another. This leads to knots. The most commonly practiced way to avoid the displeasure of knotting and tangling is to wear your hair in a protective style. Any style that keeps your hair separated and helps retain moisture is considered a protective hair style. The goal is to prevent breakage by not having to handle your hair for long periods of time, and my personal goal is to achieve that in a cost-efficient manner by doing the passion twist hair style by myself.
My mission was to infiltrate the black hairstylist community, but specifically black women with natural hair. When speaking about hair within the black community it’s a complex topic. Some women have natural hair, others have relaxed hair, others have relaxed hair but prefer to wear weaves, and some have natural hair that they prefer to straighten. It’s difficult to say what’s preference and what is forced cultural assimilation. In America there were periods of time where wearing a wig was the expectation. Thermally and chemically straightening your hair was important because having “nappy” hair is seen as un-hygienic. In the late 80s and 90s, wearing braids as a main hairstyle (as opposed to braiding your hair to cover it with a wig or weave) became a trend. There were cornrows, zig zags, box braids, fishbones, and so many other patterns to try out. If you knew the right person. Women would sit for hours just to get their hair braided, and time is measured in dollars. Today’s prices for getting your hair done in braids depend on the length, width, and complexity of a style. Some women charge $80 for medium braids that touch your shoulders. On the other end of the spectrum, it costs at least $150 to get small and long box braids done. Some hair dressers require that you buy the hair beforehand. These people want you to come with your hair tangle-free, straightened, and with your own hair products. I’ve never had the luxury (and I don’t use that term loosely) to have this done for myself. Some women choose to leave the style in for months, while others choose to have it in for a week or so. The latter can rack up a long receipt if continued over long periods of time. So, I chose to save myself $150 and learned how to do the hairstyles myself.
A natural hair movement began in the mid 2000’s where black women chose to embrace the hair that grows out of our heads. It was not the first time in history where afros were embraced, but for an entire generation of women, it was the first time they got to see what their own unprocessed hair looked like. YouTube has become a hub for independent content creators to flourish. I recall seeing women doing the “big chop” on camera, and later documenting what their hair looked like when it was wet. It was exciting to say the least, unless you were born with the “nappy” hair. The negative connotations associated with nappy hair tends to stem from the high maintenance procedures that come with maintaining it, as previously noted. The natural hair community on YouTube is generally an audience of women who are maintaining their hair for the first time, and it began without products suited for natural hair needs. Naturally, the YouTube community has evolved the haircare market and the hairstyling community in the process. These women were sharing the trade secrets on how to do things as the professionals do, leading to different variations of the same tutorials. The comments section became a forum of what products might improve the look, what twisting pattern might give a looser curl, or what type of band will cause less tension.
As I read the comments to see the critiques and advice, I took notes and clicked the next recommended video to see what others like me have watched. Then it dawned on me, I know someone who could help me despite not having done this hair style herself: my sister. I had the pleasure of being the accidental break up baby, so I was constantly looked after by my much older siblings. I also had the pleasure of not relaxing my hair for the first 11 years of my life, because my mother and my eldest sister maintained my hair in a rotating schedule. Other women who’ve joined the natural hair community have had relaxers in their hair from very early ages, as young as 4 years old. My sister would do the aforementioned zig zags, corn rows, and other braiding patterns with just my natural hair. My interview with her focused on what supplies would actually be worth getting at the local beauty supply store. I took everything she said with a grain of salt because she was much more nuanced. She wouldn’t need to buy clips and a rat tail comb because she knows how to keep hair separated with a comb and get a clean cut with a napkin. I had my mind set out on what type of hair style I would do but I need to know if the beeswax, crochet needle, and hair packs were something that she would use on my hair. She relayed to me that none of it matters if I straighten my hair. I reminded her that I am a part of the natural hair community that doesn’t use heat in my hair. To which she informed me, “your hair will become frizzy in a matter of days versus weeks if you chose to straighten your hair.” Then another issue came up, the fact that I’ve never had to part my own hair before. I asked her if I should buy a new mirror to see the back of my head and to get clean straight lines. She gave me a useful tip on how to get a consistently clean line: make sure the comb stays flat on my scalp. At that point I felt more confident with myself.
The pleasant part of YouTube being a free online forum and a video sharing platform is that women from all around the world can contribute to the conversation. The Passion Twist hairstyle has been coined by a woman on Instagram and YouTube that goes by the moniker, The Boho Babe. In the video she goes through steps on how to create the look of the passion twist on her client. She doesn’t go through the complete process which is one of the difficulties of having this session be prerecorded. I cannot ask her to start at the moment of when her client’s hair was freshly washed or ask her how to handle this as someone who has 4C hair. That doesn’t stop the people from all around the world from asking her. After six months in a sea of 976 comments, the chances of her replying to every single comment was slim but the question that Janique Brown asked was still valid. “Have a question is this style doable on 4c hair?? Her hair straight so it blends nicely. But with 4c hair it may come out different.” This was the same question I had asked my sister and I browsed through the comments section to see if she had gotten a better response than I did. She did not, but the comments still provided some necessary feedback, so I did not become disappointed when my own hair began to stick out of the twists. To combat the issue, I decided to braid my hair with the weave as a start rather than to twist it. The more I learned about the difficulties of the hair style while browsing through various comments and videos the more I enjoyed how people worked around these issues.
When it came to doing my hair the comments section made the final product less of a passion twist hair style and more of a passion protective style. The Boho Babe’s tutorial included straightened hair, she used a gel to smoothen the hair as well, and she tightly twisted the hair around the base of her client’s head. If my hair were to be straightened it would become dry and brittle. So, to add a gel to that would not only make it worse but would be a waste of my funds. As I watched the Boho Babe twist her client’s hair beyond recognition it clicked for me that this was not the route that I would be taking to protect my hair. The reason I chose not to follow her complete tutorial is not because she isn’t a skilled individual and hasn’t been doing hair for years, but because the community allowed me to see the issues with her specific methods. After each twist she would pull the hair in apart to tighten the twist and give it more friction, which then created knots and tangles that are difficult to remove (nappyheadedjojoba, 2019). I avoided this method by braiding my hair with the weave. Once I reached the end of my own personal hair I began the actual passion twist. I avoided twisting my hair beyond recognition by following Natalie Duncan’s reply. She suggested that doing the passion twists in a rubber band method was the best way to do so.
Once I got a clear picture on what I wanted to do and what I wanted to avoid I went to the beauty supply store on West Tennessee street. In the black community, any hair store that caters to black hair is considered a beauty supply store, regardless of its actual name. The goal was to save money. As stated previously, going to get your hair done can cost a pretty penny. According to a quick search on StyleSeat, it costs between $150-$200 to get passion twists done by a stylist. That cost doesn’t include the $6.99 per pack hair, the hair gel or moisturizer, or the other products used to cleanse and straighten your hair. I walked out with $49.41 in Crochet FreeTress hair, $1.99 on a crochet needle, $1.07 for clear rubber bands, and $2.99 in alligator clips. For a grand total of $55.46, but the crochet needle was actually cheaper than that. I initially went to Sally’s for the needle due to the proximity, but I got the wrong needle and had to make another trip to the beauty supply store. Overall, I was able to save myself at least $150 by doing the style myself.
On day 1 of starting my hair it was a complete failure, I tried multiple approaches. I followed my sister’s suggestion when it came to starting the twists off as a braid so it doesn’t slide right off of my hair. It was like I was braiding the same strand of hair over and over again because the hair was unravelling itself. I couldn’t see my progress because I began in the back of my head. I tried the Boho Babe’s twisting method, still no luck. I proceeded to try YouTuber NoLifeAsDaletia’s method of separating my hair while adding the crochet hair into the middle in order to tie the hairs together with a rubber band. Unfortunately, it’s a lot easier said than done on the back of one’s head when that section of hair is out of view. I bought the products necessary to do the rubber band method but as the time came closer to do my hair I became weary of the process. I wasn’t sure how my hair would hold once the rubber band would pop. Would a random twist just fall out without my noticing like I’ve seen so many times before on other women? I was certain that the rubber band would pop because the specific type I bought was meant to break before breaking your own hair. During previous YouTube rabbit hole experiences, I learned that clear rubber bands are designed to break so the hair doesn’t face too much tension, which is wonderful and healthy. Unfortunately, this led to an issue for me when it came to longevity. The alternative was to use a black rubber band, but from my own personal experience those tend to melt into my hair. So, I thought long and hard about Duncan’s reply about the rubber band method being the easiest method. For the sake of convenience and impatient-ness, I waited for the next day to come so I could get a new crochet needle. The crochet needle method involved me tying my hair down, sticking the crochet hair piece into the needle, then sticking the needle through the base of my hair and pulling one end of the crochet hair out. So essentially, I laced my hair with the crochet hair.
Day two! If YouTube created the option to reply with images on videos like a true forum, I would’ve replied with my first successful passion twist. The success wasn’t long lived though, as I went through row by row I realized my fatal error. I could feel my own hair sticking out like a massive sore thumb! It was like my sister came back to say, “I told you so.” I couldn’t call her and ask her what to do without straightening my hair because it was after midnight. The chances of getting an immediate reply on YouTube were slim. So, I accepted fate, I let me hair stay puffy because it was in the back of my head and would be covered by the top layers of twists. As someone who’s been forced to do a science fair project every year in public school, I tried multiple methods to see what worked best. I began to remix my passion twists and create different variations. Some were parted off smaller than the rest and began as braids for the first inch, while others completely started off as braids. The closer to the crown of my head that I got, the more I braided my hair all the way through and began to twist once it was only crochet hair left. I did this because of the complaints I saw not only in YouTuber nappyheadedjojoba’s video but also because of the feedback in the Boho Babe’s comment section as well. Some people said that the hair began to become tangled into their own and it was difficult to separate the two without doing damage. I began to believe them when I noticed that my pack of untouched hair began to tangle the second I took it out of the package. Preparing the hair mostly deals with fluffing it out and making sure the pieces are as much as you need for the strand of hair you’re working on. My sister stated that its customary to prep the hair beforehand, so it doesn’t slow you down during the process. I decided that this hair would be the exception.
When all was said and done it took me a total of 22 hours to complete my entire head. Along with the interview of my sister and my YouTube research, I had the help of my friend. Despite the hair style being meticulously messy, I wanted to be sure that my hair was parted well. I had the help of a fellow natural hair-ed friend. I asked her to come by to watch me as I parted my hair and let me know if I was going off course or if parts were diagonal. I didn’t want her to do it for me because it was something I felt that I needed to learn to do for myself.
YouTube is available worldwide and that’s a wonderful thing, but when you have over a half a million views on a video and 800+ comments the chances of your voice being heard by a professional is slim. The beauty about YouTube is that the comments are accessible and easy to search. With that being said, YouTube isn’t an everyday sort of social media app that everyone keeps their notifications on for. So, the chances of specific woes getting a reply from anyone on a video from over 6 months ago are also slim. This hindered my interaction with the community, it was like I was on the outside looking in. How would I know that a random person in the comments section had my hair type and my hair porosity? It was all generalized information and useful but I can’t customize it to my own personal needs. I had to learn to be okay with that and the fact that after my rubber bands popped my twists began to slip off. I had access to the natural hair community overall via my family and a friend with their experiences with my hair and their own. After going into depth, clicking video after video, and searching up related topics I realized that I should have taken a step back and looked at the source material. If I had reflected on the source material after I began, I could’ve come to the conclusion there’s really no right way to do this hair style; it’s meant to look curly and messy. The community consensus is that this is something easy to do. After diving into things I found myself over complicating things with my research. This specific genre of passion twists within the protective hairstyling community has so many different texts on how to do it and a lot of voices. The Boho Babe’s method is the antithesis of protective hairstyling. The method of twisting her client’s hair upon itself and creating friction while twisting down the shaft can not only lead to scalp damage but can also cause breakage. Wearing hairstyles that pull at the root of your scalp for prolonged periods of time can cause damage to the hair follicles and leave clients with bald patches (Akingbola, C. O., & Vyas, J. 2017). Another critique I have of the Boho Babe’s hair tutorial is that her method involves cutting some of the hair off. At the end of each passion twist she trims off a about an inch of hair instead of tapering it off. Overall her video is a great base point for the community to build upon. As I stated previously, there are a lot of different hair types that exist within the natural hair community and the black community as whole. So for her to customize the hair style to suite everyone’s needs is a bit difficult, but YouTube provides a large platform with an unlimited amount of storage for information.
Works Cited
1. Akingbola, C. O., & Vyas, J. (2017). Traction alopecia: A neglected entity in 2017. Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology & Leprology, 83(6), 644-649. doi:10.4103/ijdvl.IJDVL_553_16
2. Benzarti, M. 1., Pailler-Mattei, C., Jamart, J. 1., & Zahouani, H. 1. (2014). The effect of hydration on the mechanical behaviour of hair doi:10.1007/s11340-014-9904-0Billero, V., & Miteva, M. (2018). Traction alopecia: The root of the problem. Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology, 149. doi:10.2147/CCID.S137296
3. The Boho Babe. “PASSION TWIST FULL TUTORIAL! 2018 BY THE CREATOR OF PASSION TWIST.” YouTube, YouTube, 21 Sept. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jSitu6lz
4. Brown, Janique. “PASSION TWIST FULL TUTORIAL! 2018 BY THE CREATOR OF PASSION TWIST.” YouTube, YouTube, 21 Sept. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jSitu6lz
5. Duncan, Natalie. “PASSION TWIST FULL TUTORIAL! 2018 BY THE CREATOR OF PASSION TWIST.” YouTube, YouTube, 21 Sept. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jSitu6lzNoLifeAsDaletia. “Easiest Passion Twist Tutorial |
6. nappyheadedjojoba. “The UGLY TRUTH of Passion Twists - Nightmare Takedown Experience | 4C Hair.” YouTube, YouTube, 26 Jan. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS1kzMfdunE.
7. NoLifeAsDaletia. “Easiest Passion Twist Tutorial | Daletia. YouTube, YouTube, 14 Jan. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXPMP6dgsM4.
8. Renee, Amia. “HOW TO: Super Easy PASSION TWIST.” YouTube, YouTube, 25 Jan. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIb8YcE2d9c&t=298s.
9. Robinson, C. L. (2011). Hair as race: Why “Good hair” may be bad for black females. Howard Journal of Communications, 22(4), 358. Retrieved from https://login.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=67247050&site=eds-live&scope=site