De La Petrillo-Foste, 22
Hair Type: 4-A, 4-B, 4-C
Products:
M: What do you do?
D: I’m a software engineer. I’m working at Snapchat at the moment.
M: Talk to me about your hair. Do you have any specific routines or products that you use at the moment?
D: I switched back to Carol’s Daughter. I do like a deep wash once a week. And then just throughout the week, wet the hair and try and keep it a bit more moisturized. but I haven’t figured out something that fully works yet.
M: How long have you been growing out your hair for?
D: I guess I’ve had an afro since I was eight. And I haven’t cut it. But there’s been varying times of proper care and less proper care. And if you don’t take care of it right, you’ll lose a ton of hair. I had a lot less than freshman year because I was not taking care of it properly, like four years ago, so I guess more healthfully taking care of it like four years.
M: Are both your parents Black?
D: No, my mom is white and my father is black.
M: Did your mom teach you anything about black hair?
D: Yeah, she was the one who predominantly took care of our hair throughout my life. My dad was not the best at that.
M: How did she learn?
D: I guess through other black family members, she just wanted to learn more about it. So she could take care of our hair properly.
M: Do you get any overall comments or compliments about your hair?
D: Older black bald men are saying “I used to have hair like that”. If you’ve ever heard that. Sometimes some black women other times, white people asking to touch my hair type of thing.
M: Does it make you feel uncomfortable?
D: Kind of never. Because like my hair’s always been a part of me. So I’ve tried dreads at some point, cornrows, and others, depending on what sport I’m playing sometimes you can’t have a fro. But I feel very comfortable in this form.
M: Is there anything specific that you wish people knew better about black hair?
D: I don’t know. I feel I’ve been trying to do more research into it lately. And I feel we’ve tried to make it more simple than it is from 4-A, 4-B, 4-C, like my hair. I don’t know if it’s because I mixed or any number of things, but like, I don’t think I fall on that spectrum at all. And I don’t know, is that an everyone thing? I wish there was more conversation about that because I’ve tried a bunch of people’s different measurements for like different types of hair, different philosophies. I haven’t quite figured out something that’s worked for me.