Natural Hair Stylist Lucy Weighs In On The Clicks Debacle

We continue our coverage on the eff shutdown on click stores around the country, as well as get reaction on the retail store's online. Controversial pictures of a black people's hair being described as dry and damaged our reporter ambali tetani, is in a mid-rando johannesburg and she is at a hair academy that focuses specifically on natural hair, styling mali. What puts you there this morning? Well, tommy. We are telling the story of black natural hair and, of course, coming here, was quite significant, especially on a day like this, where we know that the eff are leading that protest stemming from that advert, which did label uh black hair as dry and damaged, and it Brought us to this hair academy and they've been around now for quite some time and they specifically focus on uh black natural hair. We are now joined by lucy. She is the co-founder of this brand called ruto's lucy. You know one would ask if you can just tell us and take us through your hair journey when it comes to black natural hair, okay, so, basically right um, i've been great, like you know, like as a child. Your hair is very coarse, it's very hard and my mom started like putting a relaxer on when i was a child, and i remember very well is because the hair is very close. I have to sit almost like 30 to 45 minutes with a relaxer and back then we used to use what they call venous. I don't know if anybody knows venous, it's very, very, like it's strong and then even after the 30 minutes or 45 minutes, the hair will not still be like. It seems like it, wouldn't be like being relaxed to still be hard. That kind of that kind of thing, but then in 2014, was like. I think i was tired, because when i wear the weave and i wear the wigs, my hair will always itch and then you know you keep going like that yeah. So i had to then transition and then grow my hair from scratch, and then it did bring me to like the journey on how to understand my hair to be able to know what the right things i need to use and even also took me to the Journey of um studying to become a cosmetic scientist, because then i know like okay, my hair needs x y z, because we have the perception that you know what the oils the butters do, the magic, but with our hair we textured him is more than just butters And oils it's beyond that. You see yeah lucy. If i can just um just bring you in as well growing up with natural hair, it's been quite difficult to take care of it and going to a hair salon with an afro um. You know you know that the hair salon, the stylists, are quite apprehensive when it comes to actually taking care and allowing you to come in and of course, you have offered a number of black women um with the opportunity to come in and style natural black hair Yeah, so the thing is like everything everything has to do with the foundation. I think first of all, the foundation of everything was wrong with us, like without community, because, like even when you go to cosmetology school or when you go to like the hair schools. Normally they don't teach us like, they don't teach like how to handle natural hair, and i think that stems that causes like the problem for the studies as well, because they become frustrated, because if you don't know how to do something, there's no way you will want To do it, you understand anything about this here. Is you really need to understand? You need to understand this majority of the stylists 99.9 percent. Don'T understand natural hair and ends their frustration as well, because remember when they go to cosmetology school when they go to the hairdressing schools they they taught with like straight hair. So for them is they've been seeing straight hair, even when they're at school, and now you bring like textured very tight kinky, it's them, so they don't get it. So i think that also frustrates them as well. But but one thing i know is whoever is willing to learn if you're willing to understand the like hour here, you'll be able to handle it, you see yeah, and why was it so important for you to offer a service like this specifically to black women? Okay, because um the women who actually want to wear their hair natural, those women are women that have done like they. They learn it. They know what they want. They'Ve done their research, so it will not be it's not makes sense. You know what, if i've done my research and then i go to a salon whereby you know what i'm saying, because it doesn't matter where you go so, whether you go to sunshine to canal, walk anywhere, you go, it doesn't matter where you go to, like all The other places you can think of is you still get that that's like that wall. That puts you to say, because you have natural light. I can't answer them so for us, it was very important to be able to learn and to train people to say you know what it's easy to handle this here. If we can just learn how to handle it, you know so and then another thing is: we also wanted to empower people. We don't want to be the only one who knows how to do it, because we can't handle everyone. It'S a lot of people who are natural, so the more people who can learn and the better for our community lucy we find ourselves a black hair and black natural hair is once again back in the spotlight. Why do you think that society keeps on going back to questioning, especially when it comes to black woman's hair? Why do we find ourselves continuing to discuss this matter? I mean now stemming and looking into this protest, which is being charged by the eff when it comes to natural black hair. So i think um we keep going back to the media. We keep doing it back and forth thing is because, first of all we don't understand our hair, then! Secondly, is you might okay? We might look at the big giants and everything. So if we don't understand, they also don't understand right because it takes one who understands to be able to be employed by the big giants for them to be able to explain to say you know what this is wrong. You get my points right, so so everything starts from us. We don't understand it and the only way we can understand this is by education, and the only way they can understand as well is by educating by being educated, because if i work for you right and i'm educated about my own hair right i'll, be able to Educate my boss and say you know what this xyz is wrong, so everything stems on education, yeah and, of course, you've left a number of your clients, quite happy uh, who especially those who want to keep their hair as natural. Yes, we try our best. We do what we can do yeah, but anything is for us, as is important to us, and excellence is key to us and we always want the client to leave to see. We don't want to have that. We don't want them to have the perception to say you know my hair is too hard, it can't be managed, we want them to be. We want them to say, you know what i have this natural hair good gift to me and i can manage it. If i learn how to take care of it, you understand yeah all right. Thank you very much tammy that is uh lucy they're, just speaking about her brand uh ruto's, of course, what she started just a couple of years ago. You know when it comes to the issues around black natural hair, saying that in the past a number of people did not understand how it is to take care of a black natural hair and, of course, as she has started at the spread. She'S also started an academy uh just teaching a number of black women how to take care of their hair, saying that well. Education is quite important when it comes to this and and asking society to continue to try and understand and educate themselves when it comes to a black natural hair. Oh mali, thank you! So much and and really this is a conversation - that's uh not only a topical uh but one that's very sensitive as well, um, and - and so thank you very much in bali for being there and touching on that particular aspect of it as well. The education around it all