Black women with natural hair find new hair care methods and fellowship in Austin, a predominantly white city.
Dec. 2, 2021
With her box braids freshly done and cascading down her back, Milly Fotso smiles into the mirror, her eyes dancing over the “Your Hair is Magic” decal placed underneath. Laughter booms throughout the room; four Black women sit sipping wine and trading business tips as Fotso glides over, offering banter and smiles.
Fotso, owner of The Braided Haus, founded the salon in early November; she moved to Austin with the dream of creating a safe space for Black women to connect and empower one another. Austin, a predominately white city, offers very few resources for people of color with natural hair. “A lot of us came from probably more diverse places than Austin, so getting here can feel really isolating,” Fotso said. Despite this, she said she has found fellowship and community with many Black women where she can freely express herself.
Geometric prints and photos of Black women’s hair braided into intricate patterns and designs color the walls of the salon. Publications about afros, books about Black activists and Ebony magazines are placed meticulously on the shelves and tables.
Born and raised in Cameroon, Fotso’s late mother taught her how to braid hair. Fotso’s mother died when she was only 7 years old. Even as a child, she realized that much of her identity as a Black woman was attached to braiding. Reconnecting with her roots came with a resurgence of a love for braiding, she said.
“Whenever I would go back home during the summers, all the women were braided, people were doing hair on the streets,” Fotso said. “It’s very much a part of the culture and very much what felt like home for me.”
The Cameroonian-born hairstylist has lived in 6 states and 8 countries on 4 different continents and worked at Loreal, Facebook, and built her own non-profit healthcare organization to mold her knowledge of the business industry. Along the way, she said she dreamed of contributing to the beauty industry to make it better for Black women.
Fotso said she has witnessed racism in the beauty industry firsthand. Often the only person of color in the office, she had to combat microaggressive comments and behaviors from her peers. At one company, Fotso talked her colleagues out of naming a makeup product marketed toward Black women “ghetto gold.”
“Part of the reason that I opened the Braided Haus was that, within this sea of whiteness in Austin, I want us to have an essential place where we can explore our identity and connect with other Black people,” Fotso said. “I felt like that was really missing.”
Tiffany Hughes, a doctoral student in the College of Education in the Education Leadership and Policy program at The University of Texas at Austin said, “attending a predominately white institution can be isolating if you don’t find a community.”
Hughe’s research explores the experiences and amplifies the voices of Black and marginalized students at historically white colleges.
As a higher education professional who has worked in many sectors of the college experience, Hughes said she must challenge racism toward Black students while also empowering herself.
“I think the desire to assimilate and be accepted is steeped in a fear of rejection or being ostracized for being different,” Hughes said. “But in embracing my natural hair, it’s almost a declaration that I am good enough as is and I don’t need to change myself to find acceptance as long as I can accept myself.”
When University of Texas student Kendall Walker was a freshman, she said other students would often ask if her hair was real and if they could touch it. She became self-conscious and critical of how she wore her hair, she said, often choosing to wear it straight and with extensions.
“I definitely didn’t wear my hair as expressively as I would have if I didn't go to a (predominately white institution). I did feel that I had to wear my hair in ways that are more popular and not too unconventional,” Walker said. “I've definitely grown out of that as I've gotten older.”
After her first semester at UT, Walker decided to throw away her flat iron and embark on a “natural hair journey.” Now a senior, she tries to promote the health and growth of her natural hair but said she doesn’t know of any ethnic hair salons in Austin.
“I pretty much never have gotten my hair done professionally in Austin. ” Walker said. Despite struggling to find resources for her hair as a new student at UT, Walker said she now proudly embraces her natural hair.
“It's definitely been a journey very much about me coming into my own autonomy, power and competence as a Black woman on campus,” Walker said.
In the past, Walker made an appointment with Femitan Ajayi, a UT junior and self-taught hairstylist who specializes in box braids and faux locs.
Parting the hair into even sections, intricately braiding in the long strands of extension hair, singing off the stray hairs with a lighter, dipping the ends in scalding water, fanning the long tendrils with a blowdryer, and finally coating the finished box braids in mouses and gels, these lengthy hair appointments last anywhere from 4 to 8 hours. Nevertheless, Ajayi said doing hair for others has been a worthwhile experience and she has learned a lot along the way.
Ajayi started doing protective styles for others during her freshman year of high school and said she has grown in both skill and confidence. Since starting college, she said she has also noticed the lack of resources for natural hair in Austin.
“The first and only time I've been to the beauty supply (in Austin) was my freshman year, I had to take the bus,” Ajayi said. “It was kind of a really bad experience because it was so far, I didn't get everything that I wanted and it was just more expensive compared to Houston,” her hometown.
Despite having to go out of her way to find supplies for her clients, Ajayi said that doing hair for students at UT has helped her find fellowship on campus. The hairstylist said many Black students have reached out and built a close-knit community where she can express herself.
“I think it's quite helpful for Black girls to know that there is someone on campus that can help them do their hair,” Ajayi said. Natural hair symbolizes history and ancestry and doing hair for others connects her to the small population of Black students at UT, she said.
As a former client of Ajayi, Walker said it is important that she connects with and encourages other Black women. “I’ve just been supporting my fellow Black queens trying to make a hustle here on campus, ” Walker said.