I’m at a cross road. I always like to stay positive and support black own and run businesses. But I find myself saying the same thing about black own business that I said about the presidential election. I will not vote for a person or shop at a business just because the person is black or the business owner is black. For politicians their policies must be in alignment with mine own. For Black Own Businesses they have to deliver quality goods at a reasonable price. What I find hard to tolerate is black business taking advantage of their community and black people taking advantage of each other.
So with a heavy heart I find myself expressing my negative experience with a black owned and run shop in Jamaica, NY. I have not mentioned the name of the shop because this is my experience and may not reflect the general experience of others who have gone to this salon to have their SL installed. If some in tri-state area would like to know what shops I tried contact me directly.
After trying for several weeks to reach out to both certified consultants and trainees from the SL web site with little success I expanded my search to recommendation from family and friends. I had some restriction that I was operating under as far as travel time but other than that I was somewhat flexible. I reached out to some of my friends with traditional locks and got several recommendations. I called the shops to see if they also installed SLs; a number of them claimed that they did. These were not small shops, these were well established shops in NY (10 plus years in business). I had a phone consultation with one … The price was out of my price range. The second shop was reasonable and I had been their before to get my twist done. He was on the web site from a different state but he was not using the SL tool and I wanted my locks started with the SL tool. The third shop was where a friend of the family went to get her SLs installed. She has about 3-4 inches of hair. I saw her at her three month mark and her hair looked really pretty. Before making the appointment I also met another woman at a conference with short SLs that also went to this shop for her installation. By the time I met the third person I had convinced myself to make my appoint while I waited for the home office to confirm my consultants training status.
Why did I take chance with someone who was not on SL web site … After speaking with a co-worker who has SLs and took the class over 10 years ago she convinced me that just because your name was not on the list did mean that you were not trained. Some people only choose to re-tightening or just work on family & friends. If you have seen their work and you feel that it is acceptable then try them. I should have known better. Now that the embarrassing part is over let move to the installation.
Install date 4-20 to 4-22 - My installation experience starting from the day of installation:
- Originally scheduled for three days, ended up finishing in two for a total of about 19 hours
- Apparently he was used to working on people with shorter hair then mine and with less density.
- Error on my part: The Friday before I mixed my leave-in with water and lightly (I thought it was lightly) spritz my hair. This had to be washed out before he could start.
- He started in the back at the hairline and worked his way towards the front without sectioning the back and later, sectioning the front at the end of the first day and combining the front sections the next morning.
- The first day he installed about 150 locks (at the time I thought they were small & Medium but after seeing what small and medium should actually look like and remembering my test locks – I decided that he installed medium and large)
- The second day he installed about 135 to 137 locks (at the time I thought they were small & Medium & Large but again after seeing what small & medium & large should actually look like and remembering my test locks – I decided that he installed large and x-large)
Finished Installation:
- My scalp ached; I took two Advil the first day and had to take two more the second day. After the second day I avoided manipulating my hair for a few days
- My locks were extremely hard. They felt like rope.
- I only had about 285 - 287 locks (two reminded of small Bantu knots, they may have been locks that were slipping)
- About eight rows on the top of my head had locks slightly smaller then a mouse cord
- The locks looked cute. If I was going for a more traditional lock look there wouldn’t have been a problem.
When I was finally able to run my fingers through my hair, I started noticing some inconsistencies. I asked my son to take some pictures so that I could get a better look. He seemed to get tired and didn’t always maintain the pattern on the lock, I had gaps in quite a few locks, and the sizes in the row fluctuated from medium to large to x-large. At first I thought: I want to go back to my consultant and ask him to add three or four additional rows. There are 20 locks per row this will give me an additional 60 – 80 locks. Bringing my total to around 350 but more importantly making the locks on the top of my head less dense. I posted a few question in various places about lock size and received inconclusive answers. I posted my concern to the SL web site after they did not re-turn my fourth attempt at trying to reach them via the phone. They recommended seeing a different consultant and having them evaluate the locks. I contacted several trainees (I went though a few prior to my first installation). The last person I contacted returned my message (later on one other person returned my message, prior to installation only one person from the web site returned my message). After the consultation I was nicely told that I did not have SL and shown some photos of her work. We discussed sizing and what to expect as far as the number of locks. I will post separately about my new SL Consultant.
Apparently, my original loctician is not providing SL but his own locking and sizing technique packaged as SLs. I'm pretty sure he used the SL tool. I think out focused to much on pictures of SL that where more than a month old. When my first installation was done my hair looked liked I had my locks for if not several months at least several weeks.
Final notes - Self Hate:
- You must really hate yourself to be able deliberately execute fraudulent behavior against your own people. As a black male with his own business in a predominantly black community you would think that he would be role model to the young boys and girls trying to make a better life for them selves.
- You must really hate yourself and not have enough confidence in your self and your abilities to be able to try and piggy back on someone else’s hard work and determination instead of standing on your own two feet. He took the SL brand name applied it to his own personal or tweaked technique and called it SLs. Instead of coming out and saying this is my locking technique and this is why I think it is better then someone else’s technique he used their name for his work. If your so confident in your work then put it out their and stop hiding behind someone else’s name. He is taking little risk. If it becomes popular he can later come out and take credit for the technique. If it doesn’t his reputation doesn’t take a hit, Dr. Cornwell’s does.
Suggestion to Dr. Cornwell: Create certification card and/or certificate for all trainees and Certified SL consultants to be handed out at the completion of training. Have a unique identification number associated with it. Allow the interested clients to search online for the Ids. Certificate/Card can be a different color for trainees and consultants. Certificate/Card could have a unique watermark.
