Managing African Hair and Skin - Skills You Need When Emigrating

When Sally came to Germany for the first time to work as an au-pair, the language and the food were not the only challenges she faced. What about her hair? How would she manage it during the one year she would be abroad?

Sally's dilemma is a common one for African women abroad. Many women have permed hair (relaxed or processed using chemical means). A perm requires regular treatment and re-touching or renewing. In African, these services are readily and cheaply available at every saloon around the corner. In Europe for example, the one available saloon may be miles away, and such a visit costs no less than fifty euros at the least.

Many African women are so used to the saloon services in Africa; many do not even bother to find out whether their hair is fine, medium or coarse, and have no idea how to put rollers into their own hair or how to use a blow-drier or a pair of tongs. For many women in Africa, their hair care is a community project: one of the many relatives, children or neighbours oils their hair whenever necessary, and professional braiding is affordable.

Hairdressing in Africa is a lowly-paid job, and many women who feel that they are on the way up neglect to learn even basic skills like plaiting, braiding or threading. The fact is that knowing how to plait or braid hair will not stop you from becoming a lawyer or whatever else if you want; but it will prepare you to deal with your own hair if the need arises.

If you plan to leave Africa for a life elsewhere, it is likely that you will be forced to manage your own hair. Even if you can afford the perm and retouch, it is very likely that you may not have the time to go every week for a wash and treatment and styling.

It is therefore a good idea to acquire the following skills before you leave:

1. First of all, you need the right information:
Next time you are in a saloon, find out what hair type you have: fine, coarse or medium. Do you have a sensitive scalp or a normal scalp? Which chemical preparations achieve the best results for your hair? Of the chemicals products used, which strength is best for you: regular or super? How long does the hairdresser keep them on your hair? In case you ever have to buy and apply your own perm, you will know where to start.

Find out which treatment works best for your hair in between re-touches: do you need a cholesterol-based treatment,, which is more nurturing and leaves the hair feeling softer, or a henna-based treatment, which makes the hair stronger? Similarly, find out what kind of hair oil or hair food works best for your hair.
2. The next thing you need are practical skills:
Cultivate a working acquaintance with rollers, blow-driers and tongs. You will then be in a position to quickly style your own hair at home, even if you need the occasional saloon visit for a professional perm. Learn to oil your own hair.

3. If you perm your hair continuously, it will eventually break and thin out. In addition, the autumn and winter may not agree with African hair. This is a good time to braid the hair and give it a rest. It will then grow and acquire volume, with good results for the next perming.

Take time to learn basic plaiting, braiding, weaving and threading techniques. With practice, you will be able to do a decent job on your own hair. Even if it lasts just a week or two, it gives your hair a rest. The alternative is to spend quite a sum for someone else to do it (in Germany up to one hundred Euros for braids and at least thirty for simple cornrows).

But that is even not the biggest challenge: finding someone to do it is the biggest challenge. The one saloon in my neighbourhood is always fully booked. Every African woman I have ever met in Europe is constantly on the lookout for someone to braid their hair. And if you have regular employment, that further complicates the situation because you cannot always find time to do your hair when you have found someone who can do it. If you can braid or plait decently, you may even be able to exchange services with others.

4. Skin care is less complicated. You can buy an adequate supply to take along for the duration of your stay if you are visiting. If not, note what type of skin care products you need e.g for dry, normal or oily skin. Identify the active ingredients, so that you can find similar products. Do the same for make-up. Sometimes though, one can find the exact same product in afro-shops.

When Sally flew back home after a year in Germany, she said she was determined to learn how to care for her own hair should she need it again, and not simply look down on these skills because they are so cheap and readily available in Africa. But she had to learn the hard way because her hair suffered damage, since she could neither braid nor retouch it herself, and she could not always find someone to do it. You can decide to be better prepared when you emigrate.

Lamaro Schoenleber writes about African beauty care issues in her new short story, A HaiRy Tale - how Sosii got her Curl back, available now at amazon.com:http://besthairandbeauty.blogspot.com/lamarolaker

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