To Whom it may concern:

Two weeks ago, I went to Harlem in hopes of finding a decent place to braid my hair. When I got to Harlem I was solicited from the train station by a woman who handed me a business card and told me that she would braid my hair at her salon. I went there, and got my hair braided, but the girl braided the hair so short, when she burned the ends of the hair she burned my hair with it. I told her to braid the hair longer, so that she did not burn my hair, but she insisted that if she made it longer it would ruin the hairstyle and refused to take my advice. It seemed the hairstyle was more important to her than the ultimate health of my hair. When I realized this I told her to leave the hair as it was. She still charged me the same price even though I had to finish the job myself. When I took out the hair two months later, my alopecia was almost gone I decided to go back there despite the mishap because in general her braiding my hair had done no harm. When I got to Harlem, again I was solicited from the train station. Only this time it was a different salon. I told her I was going to another place, but she insisted that she would fix my hair nice and give me a good price. As usual I warned her that my hair was natural and that I did not want my hair braided too tightly. She told me that that would be no problem and that I would be satisfied. I decided to give them a try.

When the stylist began braiding my hair she complained about my hair being natural, I told her if she could not braid it let me know but she said she could. Constantly I complained when the hair felt tight. She assured me constantly that she was doing a good job. She told me the reason why I felt the hair was so tight was because my hair was natural. I told her this was my first time feeling pain, because I had done this hairstyle five times in the past. The hairstyle is a loose style, five corn rows going up into a bun. The strange thing was that the back of my hair which was short did not hurt, it was only the front.

When She finished I told her that it still hurt. But she told me that that was normal that the pain would go away in a couple of days. I went to class that afternoon and could not concentrate at all because my head hurt. The second day, when it continued to hurt, I told my friend that I was going to go back there. She told me to bear with it and not to take out the style since it would have been a waste of my money if I took it out. I agreed. That particular style usually lasts me one month. But I ended up unbraiding my hair after two weeks because two areas in the front of my head still hurt. When I took out the braids, to my horror, I discovered that my skin had pealed off around the two spots that were hurting. I was so horrified that I immediately called the studio. When I explained to the girl that picked up the phone what had happened, she hung up the phone on me. I called the lady who had braided my hair at her home phone number that was on the card. After I explained to her what happened, she asked me what she could do for me. I told her I wanted my money back. She told me that she would not give me my money back and that all she could do for me was to braid my hair over again. This infuriated me considering that I knew I would never want them to touch my hair again. As the conversation continued, she got upset and told me that I was African and was supposed to understand that she had a two month old. When I told her I wasn't African, she got extremely upset, and told me that I was no good because I couldn't understand her situation. She told me that Africans were her only good customers. I asked her what she wanted me to do with my bruised scalp. She told me to go to the studio. I told her that I would go that day. She said she wouldn't be able to make it until two months later.

I realized that I wasn't going anywhere. So, I went to the studio. It seemed that the ladies there were already informed of my arriving. They all turned against me and refused to consider my complaints. I was infuriated by their un-professionalism. I realized that these people did not deserve to be in business. It is not fair that I should pay 50 dollars only to get my scalped pealed and no one who was willing to do about it. These people are not professionals and should not be allowed to braid people’s hair. There are plenty of good hair braiders out there who are not only good but know how to run a business within business laws. Therefore there should be no reason to allow people who are not professionals to. I don't think any black woman would agree to pay money to get headaches. There are too many thieves out there who are robbing black Americans of their money in the name of African Americanism.