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Despite afro hair texture and maintenance being quite the enigma outside most African and Caribbean communities, every year there is an event where the secrets, tips and tricks for afro hair are revealed, showcased and celebrated, and that is at the Afro Hair and Beauty Show London.

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This year the hair and beauty ‘carnival’ took was held at its newest location, the Business and Design Centre, Islington (nearest station- Angel); and having been selected by Black Hair Magazine (aka The Hair Bible), I was uber excited about not only attending but being part of the events festivities.

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Having recently passed my one year mark as a natural, it was encouraging to see more natural hair workshops, products and information than I have ever seen at previous AHB shows. A few of the workshops and seminars over the two days were:

  • Natural hair styling I am natural…Now what
  • Simple steps towards growing healthy relaxed afro hair: Work with it
  • Eyelash extension workshop & seminar: Enhance your business
  • The secrets to lockalious hair with nature’s parlour
  • Love your hair with natural care & beautiful textures…
  • Sculpt beauty make-up master class
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Hair modelling for Black Hair Magazine

Black Beauty and Hair Magazine vs. Black Hair Magazine

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On occasion people get confused between Black Beauty and Hair Magazine and Black Hair Magazine. Being that they are both successful publications on black hair, fashion and style; I often get asked which one is the better of the two. (In my opinion), Black Beauty and Hair Magazine does not come close to Black Hair Magazine. It’s a premium publication if you are interested in well researched, well written, on trend and on topic conversations and features on black fashion, hair and style. Furthermore, it has fewer full spread adverts and wider and more balanced variety of natural and relaxed hairstyles plus and much better quality of editorial content.

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So for future reference, if you have always been confused between the two, IN MY OPINION Black Hair Magazine surpasses in quality and quantity. Boom, I said it!

Anyways, back to the point, Black Hair Magazine were looking for natural hair models for the AHB show, so having gave my availability to Keysha Davis, Editor of BHM, she agreed to pair me up with Charlotte Mensah, renowned natural hairdresser and owner of Notting Hill based salon Hair Lounge.

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Charlotte would be taking a modern approach to an traditional African hair style called threading.

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…I realized that on almost every natural hair blog, whenever people talk about African hairstyles, noone ever talks about thread, and it’s such a beautiful beautiful hairstyle with so many options from conservative to really daring.” ~ sugabelly ->; Taken from Black Girl With Long Hair

The threading technique (also known as Ghana plaits) I believe originated from Ghana but has been adopted in countries all over Africa as a style that mothers often did for their children to stimulate hair growth. Threading can be achieved using ordinary sewing thread or plastic thread. On this occasion Charlotte used plastic thread to tie my hair, she created sections using a fine comb and wrapped the thread around my hair. As my hair is quite soft and at times slippery (even without oil), she tied the ends and created a bow type design so that the threads don’t open.

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I was both surprised and excited with the amount of people that came over to view Charlottes threading demonstration, many of whom had lots of questions. Here are some FAQ from the session with some answers:

  • How long can you keep them in for? You can keep them in for up to two weeks
  • How do you watch your hair if it’s in threads? This style is not meant for frequent washers, it is recommended that you do not wash your hair until it’s time to take the threads out.
  • How can you thread long hair? You do this by folding the hair up on itself, and tying the thread around the folded hair.
  • Where can I get the plastic thread? This particular thread is from Ghana, but ordinary sewing thread works fine providing it’s not too thin.
  • Where can I get my hair threaded? You can get your hair threaded at Hair Lounge, Notting Hill, prices start from £7 onwards.
  • What are the benefits of threading? Threading stimulates hair growth and helps to stretch natural hair without the use of extreme heat.

So if you are interested in threading be sure to contact Charlotte and her team at @hairlouge1999 on Twitter.

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Meets and greets

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The AHB show was a great place to finally several tweet peeps whom I either subscribe to or talk to over Twitter but had not got round to meeting. At the show I bumped into the lovely Natalie creator of Beauty Pulse London, Ms Fola B, creator of Black Girl Flow, media mogul and enterprenur Cyril aka Orignal Scars, African Fashion Designer Simone Williams, art & creative director Ola Shobowale and hair naturalista Tina, creator of Manestream Beauty.

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In addition to the hair based festivities, there were scheduled fashion shows showcasing innovation in African design. However, the only designs I really liked were those by Simone Williams, the rest didn’t stray too far from what we have seen on previous ASH shows. I hope that’s one area that can be focused on for next year.

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Otherwise it was a fun day out, with lots of samples, magazines and brochures to try and test out and although I didn’t spend much, I did buy an Organics inner hair deep repair, and was also excited to see Miss Jessie doing live natural hair demonstrations! I believe they will be retailing through Paks soon!

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If you went, let me know what you thought!

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