This is a more recent article about Dominican salons. I figured it was timely given the recent posts about Dominican blowouts AND the article mentions LHDC.net's December 2008 Feature of the Month!
Clients Take a Flier on Dominicans, and Stylists Tear Each Other's Hair Out - By: Corey Dade
CAPITOL HEIGHTS, Md.—Delshawn Rollins once trusted only fellow African-Americans with the delicate task of styling and straightening her tightly curled brown hair.
But that meant enduring hours of salon gossip, ordered-in lunch (and sometimes dinner, too) and occasional mishaps, like the time the ends of her hair snapped off after she had it dyed.
Fed up, the 35-year-old respiratory therapist last fall pulled out a flier she had for a new salon that promised to "work magic" using "Dominican styling." She was in and out of The Hair Co. USA, which displays the Dominican flag in the front window, within two hours, sporting a straight, feathery "do" for $20 less than she had been paying her old stylist.
"My hair has this flow," she says. People ask where she has it done.
Armed with a blow dryer and brush, deft wrist action and shrewd promotional tactics, immigrants from the Dominican Republic are snipping away market share from African-American stylists whose mastery of black women's hair ensured for generations that their customers wouldn't, or couldn't, leave them. Promises of seemingly healthier hair, swifter service and far lower prices are wooing away a growing number of black women.
Ms. Rollins and most other African-American women require a chemical "relaxer" to straighten their hair and get touch-up treatments every six weeks or so. She and many other customers say another benefit of the Dominican technique is that it extends the life of straightening chemicals, thus reducing the frequency of application and potentially harmful effects.
The defections have infuriated African-American stylists who insist that their methods are safe and that they are more highly trained than the Dominicans are. "It's hard enough in these times, but they are undercutting our prices, even passing out fliers to our own clients," complains Atlanta hairdresser Jannifer Jackson, whose cancellations and no-shows began piling up once a Dominican salon opened about a mile away last summer.
Many traditional black stylists accuse Dominicans of misrepresenting their services as "natural" because nearly all Dominican salons perform relaxer touch-ups. Traditionalists say the "Dominican blowout" technique can cause severe hair breakage. Both sorts of stylists wash, set hair in rollers and seat customers under big dryers.
