Nails in the workplace, "Good Hair", etc.

[nutrishn]

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This clip is from Chris Rock's 2009 docu-comedy entitled "Good Hair" (IMDB). The film deals with the topic of hair in the Black community, particularly the amounts of money that Black women are willing to spend in order to get "good hair". TBH, though, I think women in general like to spend a lot of money in order to get "good hair" ... but the definition of "good hair" varies between races and cultures.

Using myself as a White woman for example, my hair naturally has a slight wave to it, which I don't have a problem with. However, in some cultures (particularly Japan and China, it seems?), women whose hair has even the slightest natural wave to it (like mine does) spend quite a bit of money to get it stick-straight.

For most White women, though, the majority of time and money that we spend on our hair goes into coloring it. Most White women do not stick with the natural color of their hair (I am a rare exception), because we too seem to measure our standard of beauty by blondes like Farrah Fawcett and Goldie Hawn. We White women also seem to have more of a hang-up about "looking young" than other women (at least it seems that way to me), and that's also another reason why we spend a lot on coloring our hair.

Another thing I couldn't help noticing in this particular video clip was those inch-long (maybe longer? Most likely longer ...) acrylic nails that the hair stylist (the woman with the Caribbean accent -- further research confirms that she is in fact Jamaican) was wearing. How does a hair stylist manage with nails like that? I mean, no matter what kind of hair one specializes in, a hair stylist's trade depends on the dexterity of their fingers, doesn't it? (Of course, when you're working with Afro-textured hair, particularly if you specialize in doing weaves, dexterity is probably even more important, as a big part of the work in Afro-textured hair -- again, with a particular focus on the aspect of doing weaves -- is BRAIDING IT.) Anyway, I can't imagine that having nails that long is helpful to a hair stylist. Also, fake nails take a lot more work to keep clean, don't they? And personally, I don't think that most people who have fake nails actually invest the time it takes to keep them clean. ;-P That's why acrylic nails are not allowed in certain workplaces (e.g., food service), isn't it? I know I certainly would not want somebody with nasty dirty nails touching MY food or MY hair. :-/