Miss Jessie's: Creating a Successful Business from Scratch---Naturally

by Miko Branch

  I was glad she went away happy. A couple of months later, Simone came back for more. Her hair was growing out faster, and now that she had something close to her desired length, she wanted a look that would be even easier for her to maintain.

  Customer Education Checklist

  1. Be as transparent as possible. Provide all the information BEFORE you start the process or service.

  2. Take the time to patiently explain what is going to happen, why, and the results that can be expected. This is especially important when you are offering something new in the marketplace and there are no other points of reference.

  3. Develop a vocabulary to be as descriptive as possible.

  4. Remember, a well-informed customer is more likely to walk out a satisfied customer and become repeat business as she works with you to attain her long-term goals. She will value your services more and appreciate that you are involving and treating her as a collaborator in the process.

  “Our easiest style solution to give you wash-and-go curls would be a Silkener to make it longer, looser, more defined, and manageable,” I told her. “But we will need to use a chemical to make it happen. Want to try that?”

  “What’s in it? What does it do?”

  I explained the whole process to Simone. It was a touchy subject for some women, and I wanted to be sure she understood each step. Back then, there tended to be two extremes of women: those who relied on straighteners, weaves, and wigs—basically anything to cover up the hair they were born with—and those who were strictly natural. We were encountering more and more of these natural-hair diehards since our reputation as curly specialists had spread, and some were easily offended by the suggestion that we use any kind of chemical treatment. But the Silkener was a nice compromise, and when she understood exactly how it worked, Simone was all for it.

  When we were done, she had loose, stretched-out, shiny, and defined curls. “Oh my God, Miko. You know I keep a picture of Pam Grier on my fridge door, to remind me of why I did the Big Chop in the first place. This is how I always wanted my hair to look. It’s perfect!”

  In between Simone’s visits, I started to notice an explosion of business. We had so many bookings, we could barely keep up. In particular, we were noticing a lot of African-American women with naturally curly, untreated hair, often in a really tight kink or coil—exactly the kind of customer I felt was underserved in the market. About a year before we started specializing in curls, whenever we asked these women how they’d heard of us, they mentioned this chat room CurlTalk, on the website NaturallyCurly.com, founded by a woman based in Texas, Michelle Breyer, and her partner, Gretchen Heber. Well before the advent of social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare, there was a handful of online chat rooms dedicated to the beginnings of the natural-hair movement as we know it today, often specializing in hair for women of African descent. NaturallyCurly was quickly becoming one of the friendlier hubs and one of the leaders of an underground culture that we were only dimly aware of at the time.

  BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT

  The fact that our curly-hair focus at Curve salon took place around the same time as the birth of this natural-hair discussion was a fortunate coincidence. We were not deliberately dovetailing with this preexisting trend, which had its own origins and momentum. These were women who did not chemically treat their hair as a matter of principle. It was a long overdue backlash against the social norms of striving for bone-straight hair. We were always aware that it was out there, and we understood why it existed, but we’d never consciously connected the dots.

  Back then, generally, natural hair as it related to people of African-American, Caribbean, and African descent meant braids, dreadlocks (or locs), barber cuts, and Afros. There were some wonderful locticians, or dreadlock specialists, and natural hair-care providers like legendary Adémola Mandella of Kinapps in Brooklyn and the Locks N’ Chops salon. Many businesses were inspired by Adémola, and we started seeing wonderful shops pop up in Brooklyn, like Loose Ends by Kimberly Hendrix and Black Roots by James McDowell on Flatbush Avenue. These salons and stylists did amazing and meticulous work with braids, locs, and extensions. Some of them had a solid barber’s background, too. But none of these salons catered to curly hair; natural hair was not even widely referred to as curly at the time. As we drove up Fulton Street, I told my sister, “One day we will see signs hanging outside these salons saying, ‘We do curly hair.’”

  In the early 2000s, not one salon in this country was using our techniques for curly, kinky, and wavy hair, like shingling—a styling method created by Titi. There were two popular salons in New York City that catered to curly hair: Ouidad and Devachan. Though both companies were innovative and creative, it seemed like their core business was not the tighter-coiled curl that often belonged to women with an African heritage. This represented a phenomenal business opportunity, and who better to do it than us—we had the skills and the hair to go with it!

  Until we came along, if your hair was not identifiably naturally curly without the manipulation of a twist or spiral set, curly hair for women of color usually meant a Jheri curl; not many salons or stylists were focusing on this chemical curl service anymore simply because it was out of style. My own experience as a busy mother, and the lack of services for women like me, helped me to realize there was a space for us to make a difference with more specialized services.

  Initially, I intended to do only curly hair. The business plan was never race- or ethnicity-specific. Just curls. But after a while I found myself homing in on those with a tighter-coiled curl. I thought these women needed to know they had a treasure right on top of their head. All these years, many thought and were told they had bad hair. But really, it was the best hair in the world, versatile and beautiful. Not only was there potential for a growing business, but also the fact that this customer was not being addressed at all lit a fire in me. I had uncovered one of the biggest misconceptions that generations of women of color had not widely known—black women have naturally curly hair! They did not realize that kinky hair is just tightly coiled curls. The curl was already in there, waiting to be revealed. Many of us did not know it, including Titi and me growing up.

  It was surreal to think that we had uncovered something so amazing and had all the styling techniques to handle and showcase it from soup to nuts. This discovery made women come to Bed-Stuy from all over the world to see what we could do for them.

  The focus on tighter-coiled hair wasn’t to the exclusion of other customers—our business has always been multicultural—but I loved seeing women with textures regarded as “too challenging” for other stylists and being able to show them how their hair could be transformed to its beautiful potential. Their reactions when I held up that mirror and revealed the results never got old. Some were so happy, they cried. It was as if they were seeing their own true beauty for the first time in their lives. We loved being a part of these moments of discovery.

  YES TO THE ’FRO

  This woman was being totally ignored on most fronts, and she deserved better. She had no services, expertise, or products catering to her unique needs. There weren’t even any images in the media of the tighter-coiled/kinkier curl. The images that spoke to this highly textured customer were mostly of straighteners and weaves. It was a Eurocentric ideal of beauty—everything she was not, making it hard for this potential client to imagine embracing her God-given hair texture. It was difficult for this customer to imagine how she would be received by friends, family, or the workplace. There were no images to support the fact that highly textured hair is beautiful and can be accepted in the mainstream. There was certainly no information on how to care for it.

  If anything, this customer was being insulted by biases and images in the media on a daily basis. In 2007—not so long ago—an editor at Glamour notoriously announced to the world, “Just say no to the ’fro,” in response to what was seen as professional in the workplace, making millions of women feel bad about what they were born with. Around t
he same time, radio personality Don Imus infamously called young women “nappy-headed.”

  Identify the underserved customer and get to know her needs and desires. It will help you corner the market with a steady stream of loyal clientele.

  But it was what women weren’t seeing that had the most impact. At the time, few celebrities would be seen in public without a long pin-straight weave of some sort. There were exceptions, like actress Joia Lee, who was ahead of her time. She had it right as she rocked her natural-textured amber-colored hair with what looked like a loose two-strand twist-out. Actress and comedian Phyllis Yvonne Stickney also wore her natural hair texture in free form. But these women were on the cutting edge.

  Even our clients’ own mothers and grandmothers had unintentionally made them feel ashamed of their natural hair, drumming into them the notion that they needed to spend hours under the hot iron, pull their hair back tight, chemically relax it, or hide it under a wig or a scarf. In homes across the country, girls were given the “Ace comb test.” If you could pass a lock of hair straight through a fine-tooth comb, it was seen as a sign of beauty. That had to change.

  Every culture has its baggage. The view we have of our hair may go back to the days of slavery, when the lighter-skinned women with the straighter hair got to work inside as housemaids. The whiter the look, the greater the preferential treatment, and that thinking may have carried over to the self-hatred tied to hair in its natural state for some.

  Even after the Afro culture of the seventies and an Afrocentric boom in the nineties, it’s been only in the past couple of years that we’ve seen beautiful women like Viola Davis, Alicia Keys, and Jill Scott in all their naturally curly glory, as well as the Miss Jessie’s customer. People are really embracing big, highly textured, in-your-face curls, and it’s gratifying to see how the world is changing. These days you can’t turn on the television or look in a magazine without seeing at least one curly girl advertising a product. That relatively new phenomenon has gone mainstream quickly. It is now preferred.

  Getting our customers to believe in new possibilities for their hair didn’t happen overnight. It required me to be a cross between a self-esteem coach and a curly-hair evangelist. Our customer needed to be told about the naturally gorgeous hair she’d been blessed with, which may have been hidden for many years under relaxers, braids, or weaves. She needed proof that she really did have a valuable and gorgeous texture on her head. After all, natural hair is the only thing that defies gravity. It points straight up to heaven. That has to mean something!

  Many of the women we saw did not know what they had, due to straight styling from an early age. These women needed to understand, believe, and trust that they had curls and not unmanageable “kinks and naps.” They needed to be reassured that they had good hair and not bad—contrary to what some may have told them over the years or what they may have come to feel about their own hair.

  Figure out what works, regardless of conventional wisdom. Just because something has been done a certain way doesn’t mean that it should continue. The most successful business owners are also the greatest nonconformists. Think Sir Richard Branson; Def Jam; and Phat Farm founder Russell Simmons; Steve Jobs; Body Shop founder, the late Anita Roddick; BET founder Bob Johnson; or designer Betsey Johnson. In many respects, these leaders reinvented their industries. You can do the same by finding your own path. Our entire approach to business, and hair, was finding the right solution to a problem, regardless of what everyone else was doing.

  Like any new movement, it required an education. Transitioning to curly hair or back to natural was a matter of teaching our customer how to work with what she had. She needed to understand that hair is a fiber, like cotton or silk, and it can be manipulated with the right techniques and products. Titi and I were studying hair on a granular level, understanding curl patterns as individual as thumbprints, and transferring that knowledge to our customer.

  Once the client was made aware that the texture she was born with had its own beauty and abilities, she needed change agents like us to help her manifest the look and style she most desired. She honestly did not know what to ask for. She needed to see our positive images and reinforcement through before-and-after pictures to prove that this was real. She needed products to support her brave transition, and finally, she needed courage to make this move. She had choices to make: Big Chop (cutting out all the chemically treated or heat-damaged hair); Transition (easing the gradual growing out process of relaxed hair); Shingling (a special layering effect to better enhance the curl); Two-Strand Twist (a way of defining curls by hand-twisting two sections of hair); or wash-n-go (essentially applying product to damp hair and allowing the natural curl to come forward once dry). All these new decisions could be confusing, even agonizing, but they were also exciting.

  CHAT-ROOM BUZZ

  Much of that enthusiasm was being generated by our new friend Simone in 2001. Unbeknownst to us, Simone was a regular on the NaturallyCurly.com CurlTalk boards and had been posting about our salon. She possessed a whole Shutterfly folder of her hair looks and had been showing the women what we’d done for her, with rave reviews and commentary along the lines of “Hey, guys, I got my hair blown out for the first time today since going natural. I went to a place called CURVE salon for a trim. Ladies, if you are in Brooklyn, CHECK THIS PLACE OUT!”

  She continued to post, showing how her hair was growing out, sharing how she was styling and maintaining at home, and telling everyone about each visit to Curve, constantly posting pictures of her tresses before and after. The women were fascinated, but when she raved about the Silkener process and described how it gave her a more uniform curl, she got some serious backlash from some of the more militant natural-hair members. In one hilarious posting Simone described being “kicked off of nappy island.”

  “Traitor!” one of the posters wrote. “You’re not natural anymore!” said another. “That stuff is creamy crack!” “You have been lying all along and using chemicals in your hair,” the gang continued. “That’s not your real texture!”

  Simone defended herself. She desired the kind of curly hair that would allow her to live her life and not have to think twice about jumping in the water at Martha’s Vineyard, or running through the rain if she happened to forget her umbrella. Like the majority of our clients, and naturally-curly women in general, she just wanted her hair to look good, with the ease of maintenance that would free her to live life to its fullest. “We do all kinds of things to beautify. We put on deodorant and lotion. We don’t just get up and go. Whether it’s hair or makeup, we do things to look a certain way. I just want a nice curl . . .”

  The discussions got nasty. This was a lightning-rod topic, and the CurlTalk posters were often in fights about whether you cut your hair dry or wet, whether certain ingredients are kosher if they aren’t strictly natural, whether or not it’s okay to use silicone. There was a great deal of contention because the topic often touched on a lifetime of self-esteem issues that revolved around skin tone and race. We were sure Michelle Breyer and Gretchen Heber were marveling at how out of hand these spirited women got. Michelle once shared that they had to step in when the topics got too racist, mean, and nasty.

  On some level, I got it. Titi and I have never been about political statements when it came to hair. Good grooming is good grooming. But for many, there’s a long history of pain associated with natural texture. As many women do, we sometimes define ourselves by the way we look, and hair is one of the first things we see. That’s why the discussion was often about much more than hair. At the end of the day, do what you like with your hair. It is absolutely wrong for someone to judge, criticize, and exclude you because of your hair choices.

  GOING VIRAL

  The lesson of all this attention we were getting through Simone, even the attacks, was that we didn’t need to spend a dime on advertising. Why would we, when people were already talking about us? There is no more powerful advertising than the recommendation of a satisfied
customer.

  The chat-room buzz more than made up for the fact that we didn’t have a shingle outside our brownstone. It was exactly like that line in the Fabergé Organics shampoo commercial from my childhood: “You’ll tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on . . .” But it only took one person talking about us in that space for word of our salon’s services to spread like wildfire. Simone had lit the match, and there was no going back.

  We chose not to participate directly in the dialogue. It seemed too self-serving to promote ourselves directly to these potential customers, and we wanted to remain above the fray. But in 2002, we built our first website with the help of Simone, who, in addition to being a hair trendsetter, was a tech-savvy young lady with some serious design skills.

  Once it was set up, it occurred to me that I wanted to show before-and-after photos. Simone didn’t see the need, but she shrugged and gave me a template so that I could upload as many pictures as I wanted. Visuals were key. We were serious about curls, kinks, and waves, and were about to change standard images of beauty by offering a new solution—mostly transitioning kinks to curls. We’d watch the back-and-forth between these women, complaining about a particular hair challenge, and post before-and-after pictures that specifically addressed those concerns. It was a pivotal move.