Olivia Alleyee, 21
Curl Type: 4-B
Products:
M: What do you do?
O: I’m a senior at NYU studying sociology. I’m doing a major in global public health, I’m thinking of doing something like entry level in the public health field like planning or something.
M: Tell me about your hair and your hair routine.
O: I actually just started wearing my hair like this. It was something I really wanted to do for a while. One day I woke up and I just made and an appointment at a natural hair salon and went and got my haircut. And that was that and it was like, the best decision ever. I love my hair like this. My routine is long. I was always very lazy about doing my hair before this so it feels like a lot more work but it’s totally worth it. I wash my hair once a week on the weekend. It takes like two hours with drying it and everything.
M: And previously to this style, you were doing braids?
O: Yeah, braids, locs mostly. I stopped straightening my hair once I left high school. I think I just got tired of it.
M: Any specific compliments or comments that you get about your hair?
O: I think I get compliments by black people a lot. I feel when I was getting my hair braided I would get mad compliments from white people or other people. I think maybe now they feel awkward about commenting about my hair because they don’t want to be that person, commenting on an afro. I guess sometimes I get the little black power fist. I be rockin with it, I be rockin with it.
M: And your parents have also had natural hair?
O: My dad is bald L-O-L. My mom, she had cut her hair after she gave birth to me. She had a little perm-pixie cut and then she wore it natural. But she quickly went back to her weaves. She was more comfortable in that.
M: Were you taught growing up to have natural hair?
O: I think my mom, she forbade me for getting any extensions or doing anything unnatural. Completely forbade me from doing that. She always had my hair in braids for years. I think she just didn’t really know how to do hair all that well also. So it was easier for her.
M: Any specific products that you’re using right now? That you love!
O: I love Uncle Funky’s Daughter - curl stimulator. It’s been the best. I think that was like the main thing that changed like the way my hair curls and Innersense products.
M: Any products that you hate that you’ve tried and you’re like this is not right for my hair?
O: Actually no because these were the products that were recommended to me by the person that did my hair. So I’ve just stuck to it religiously. I have not changed anything about my routine and that works so I haven’t tried anything else yet.
M: Anything you wish people knew more about black hair?
O: I’m not sure what it is. I think that they have some idea that like, I think culturally because of how we’ve spoken and made jokes about how we don’t like wash our hair that frequently or like manipulate and do stuff with our hair all the time that they thought that somehow our hair was like, dirty, or like smelly like go talk about the product smelling like and it’s just I feel like yeah, I would say no, that that’s like just not for real. Like that’s completely wrong. That’s not how our hair works.