Are Stylists Hating The New DIY Trend?

Every Saturday starting around age 5 or so my mom would take me to the room where our clothes were washed, wrap me in a towel and place me strategically in front of a huge double sink.

She would shampoo, condition, add aloe vera or something else I considered gross, re wash detangle and style my hair right in there. To be honest I really can’t remember when it all started, I said 5 because that’s probably as far back as I can remember.

We had a routine, I hated it and I loved it for many reasons, all of which were mostly kid stuff because I am sure there was more fun stuff could have done with my Saturday morning, like play Duck Hunt on Nintendo for instance.

But then again I loved talking to my mom at that time, it was bonding time and I appreciated that, we had a thing and all the girls at school were doing it with their moms too.

If you really think about it, the DIY trend has been around for years, our moms took care of our hair the best way they knew how when we were kids and to this day we have moms doing what was traditionally passed on to them as they wash and style their own daughter’s and sometimes son’s hair every weekend.

Fast forward to our teenage years and early twenties, we started exploring salons and using stylists more often because of course having relaxed hair was the thing to do as early as 13 years old and even younger if you were ‘lucky’.

Saturday was now spent again still with mom but at the beauty shop with your favorite stylist and all your girlfriends at that time were doing that too. Like an addiction, we supported the cosmetology industry even when we were broke.

And even though we appreciated the services we received good or bad, we did it at the expense of not learning anything about our own hair care. Women literally put their hair in the hands of an established professional and trusted that she or he would do the right thing.

According to a British survey conducted by Tresemme, the average woman spends a shocking $50,000 on her hair over her lifetime. Now considering that black women are not exactly ‘average’ as numerous studies have shown that we spend up to 6 times more than other races, you can imagine the mind bending figure that we black women actually spend over our lifetimes on hair salon visits and hair products.

The statistic may not have come out of a science text book, but it’s not too farfetched as most of us can attest to the amount of money we spent at the salon. Back in the day the salon industry was thriving, relaxer sales were up and things looked good for the stylist.

If we continue to fast forward to present day we have seen a shift in the trends. We see a YouTube video of a woman in the bathroom on a video camera showing us how she applies her conditioner to her newly big chopped hair.

With many women going natural now, we also see blogs popping up everywhere with women who have walked away from the stylist’s chair and documenting their natural or relaxed hair journeys, sharing their ups and downs with the world and getting wonderful results.

It would appear that women are slowly backing away from the salon and googling ways to do it themselves at home creating what we are referring to as a new ‘Trend of DIY’ and quite frankly some stylists are not very happy.

Do stylists really hate the new DIY trend?

It seems logical that generally if women are doing everything themselves then the salons will start to lose business and of course that doesn’t make a person depending on that income very happy.

However as we change so does the industry, you may be on YouTube but so are they. Stylists are taking to YouTube to re-engage their customers by doing demonstrations, creating product lines and embracing the new consumer who is more likely to buy the color off the shelf than get ‘turn up’ at their round the way salon.

Social media has changed our society, if as a business you aren’t tweeting what you are doing, then you might as well not do it. Stylists, who are sticking to their business, tweeting, Facebooking and posting pictures on Instagram and filling out profiles on blogs like ours, are now selling themselves more than ever.

In other words, the great salons, and the experienced innovative stylists have found ways to change with the trends and still keep business booming in the salon. Even the girl on YouTube that does it herself most of the time, might go to the salon every now and then to get her tresses pampered up.

Burned by a bad experience at the salon?

The question that is even more relevant is not if stylists hate the new DIY trend, but rather how are stylists working at winning the hearts of women who have been burned by a bad experience.

We have realized that it is not enough to just say, Come see me I am great at doing hair but you have to be well rounded. You have be licensed and know how to cut, color, relax, barber, maintain natural hair, cut curly as well as straight hair and literally meet the demands of every sector of the ever changing hair industry to be somewhat successful.

Things are harder yet very interesting because if you are a stylist this is the perfect time to put your game face on and claim your clients in ways that you have never done before.

In my opinion education is the key to everything, we have decided as the consumer to take our hair into our own hands and have decided to get educated about it and how it works so stylists are no longer the only ones in the ‘know’ about hair care.

It does not matter what side of the fence you are on, natural hair or relaxed, we as clients have studied our hair and even though we don’t have the benefit of years of experience that stylists have, we are very capable of finding our way around a scientific journal so now the playing field is pretty level.

The challenge has now become going to the salon and learning something new, finding out what is being done to our hair and why and most importantly, feeling ok about it.

We challenge all stylists to work with the customer focusing more on education and trust, acknowledging our experiences and that there is no cookie cutter way to deal with every woman that sits in your chair.

When you do it yourself you feel special, you feel as if you are doing the best thing for you and despite any setbacks that you may experience along the way you know how to bounce back and what’s best for your hair.

This is what you want to feel when you enter a salon. You expect that if you tell the stylist that you swim weekly, that the regimen she recommends will be slightly different than if someone came in who said that they do not have an active lifestyle and that their main focus is length retention.

Recently we have heard stylists say things like We are not all bad and You need to see a “Master Stylist” for the best results and while we agree, realistically we all can’t afford to see the “Master Stylist” even though we would love to. And truthfully it only takes one bad experience to realize that the stylist is not that great and who wants to put their precious hair through that?

The point is we all have to work together to get the great results we are looking for. We need our cosmetologists to be educated and to educate the consumers in turn on best hair care practices, not just concentrating on the styling side of things.

We also need manufacturers to fully disclose everything they are selling to each of us, this way the circle is complete and whatever losses the stylist or salons might be suffering will be quickly eliminated by women returning to their chairs trust restored.

So do I think that stylists hate the new DIY trend? I say the smart ones aren’t! What do you think? Comment below!