Even growing up in a city as multicultural as London, mainstream hair salons have, for the most part, been ill-equipped to deal with textured hair. As a result, the few black hair salons that do exist are often vastly oversubscribed. According to one survey, the UK has just 314 afro hair salons out of almost 45,000 registered hair and beauty salons. The options are extremely limited, and when the supply doesn’t match the demand, customer experience can suffer. Every black woman I know has a horror story about multiple hour-long wait times and less than optimal service, to put it mildly. Even for those who can afford a more luxury experience, for a long time the options simply haven’t existed.
