While growing up in Davis, T & L Exotics Total Beauty owner Tina Jones recalled having to drive to Sacramento to get her hair done because most local hair salons and barber shops didn’t know how to deal with her hair.
Years later, the 32-year-old said the problem persists, leading her to take matters into her own hands by opening a hair salon – located at 179 First St. near the Woodland Public Library – that caters to all hair textures.
“What I mean is curly hair, straight hair, it doesn’t matter,” Jones emphasized. “We know how to provide those services for each and every hair texture. There is no other salon like ours that specializes in all textured hair” in Yolo County.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 1.8% of Woodland’s and 3.3% of Yolo County’s population are Black. This has made finding services that cater to their needs, particularly hair needs, difficult for many of the county’s Black population who often need to incorporate travel costs outside of the county to get their hair done.
“That’s exactly why I came out here because we wanted to help,” Jones stressed. “I remember growing up in Davis as a Black woman, I had literally no place to go get my hair done. That’s why I had to learn how to do it myself. Then I would do the other little girls in the neighborhood’s hair because there were few Black people, but there are Black people in Davis.”
Jones opened the salon with her mother, Lasonja Porter, after her father was killed by an off-duty police officer in the Bay Area.
“My mom has a nonprofit and he was going to the Bay Area to help her with that nonprofit,” Jones recalled. “Our family was just crushed. He really wanted me to do hair and wanted to see us make it to a salon.”
Porter noted that opening during the COVID-19 pandemic was difficult but necessary to provide services for the many people who still had to go to work.
“We opened up Monday to Sunday to serve those people that were in need of that and it made us feel good doing it because we, as women, know how that feels to be locked up in a house and can’t get your hair done,” she remarked. “We just continued to please our customers and come in when our customers needed us.”
However, the pandemic did come with some challenges, the most prevalent of which was developing the business’ clientele in a new area of business. Jones said she had previously been working in a West Sacramento salon booth where business was slow and starting over in a new town was daunting.
“We knew people in Davis but it’s still a commute,” she explained. “But once people saw how we work or the quality of our work, they just started coming back and they never left.”
Jasmine Desiree Manny is one of the business’ regular customers. She’s a graduate student at UC Davis who recently moved to Woodland and said she appreciates the salon’s trusting environment.
“I kind of came here in a fragile state with a lot of medical issues and family emergency stuff going on, and it’s like I came to the right place because (Jones) and her mom, when they were working on my hair, I felt like I was honestly getting a therapy session that I really needed,” Manny highlighted. “It kind of just added some life back into me at the time that I really needed.”
The business has made Manny feel like a part of a community and she has started returning the favor by encouraging her friends and family to make the trip to Woodland to get their hair done.
“Every person I’ve talked to I’m like, ‘Hey, come get your hair done. I don’t care what city you’re from, it’s worth the drive because it’s nice here,’” Manny said. “I see them not just as my acquaintances now, they’re my friends.”
Fabiola Porcayo, who has been working at the salon for several months, argued that providing these services in Woodland is important “because a lot of shops here are basically all straight hair” businesses.
“I don’t know of any other shop that does textured hair around here in Woodland,” Porcayo said. “A lot of services that we offer here, you don’t get that in Woodland. It’s literally like a one-stop shop.”
Furthermore, Jones argued that the salon has not only filled the void in the area by providing hair services for Black people but also provided much-needed help for foster parents who don’t know how to take care of their kids’ hair.
“We get a lot of people who actually are foster parents that have Black children and don’t know how to maintain their child’s hair, so they come to us instead of going all the way to Sacramento,” Jones said.
Jones said she will be holding a $400 braid training course on March 23 and 24 that will include lessons on single braid techniques with extensions, hair preparation, knotless and knot techniques, hair and scalp maintenance, and sanitation. Additionally, Jones will provide participants with a free mannequin, a braiding starter kit with tools and a certificate of completion.
If you are interested in learning more about the salon and the many services it offers, visit tandlexotics2020.com.
