One of my favourite movies contains one of my favourite lines. You may have seen the 1989 film, Steel Magnolias about a group of women in the South (USA obviously). One of the characters, Ms Truvy, played by Dolly Parton, is a beautician. In the movie she says, “There is no such things as natural beauty”. As a beautician, of course she would say that. Many of us would agree with her. We also subscribe to another common maxim, “No Pain, No Gain”. While, I agree that it applies to exercise, in that you must burn that fat or muscle in order to tone those abs, glutes etc. What I don’t agree with is that we should subject ourselves to painful and harmful hair care practices in order to look good. This is because we all know that if it hurts, it will not work out very well for you in the end.

The pictures below are what I experienced when visiting certain types of hair salons in Zambia. Red, swollen sores filled with puss. Eish! There is no way I am doing this to myself ever again.

You can see the red skin on a sore, which also has one infected part that is filled with puss. Gross!

This is a slightly more wide shot, not as close up as the first. But still, you can see the results of pulling hair too tightly. Sadly, for some people, they have accepted such damage as a normal part of life. Not worth it IMHO. Just saying…

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