Washburn Black Student Union hosts Don’t Touch My Hair March 25 in the Memorial Union from 7-8 p.m. The event took place for students to learn about textured hair care, maintenance and bonding over the community.
There were over 20 attendants. The event also had four vendors; each one representing a hair salon or barber shop. Desiree Cain, junior psychology major, opened the event by introducing the speaker for the evening.
The event invited employees from Perpetual Growth Braiding Salon where they gave information about their salon. Justa Thomas and Aphesian King, the co-founders of the salon, talk more about hair care.
“We are here to help people with textured hair, so people with more curls or who don’t know what to do with their hair,” Thomas said. “…Here to promote our growth serum to help textured hair.”
Thomas and King gave a presentation about textured hair and texture-challenged hair. They discussed information about hair types and debunked some myths.
“Something you have to make sure when wearing your protective hair is what do they look like: Are they building up at the roots of the braids? Are they trying to grow micro bumps from not having any washing happening?,” King said. “If you are taking your braids up for 6 months and you have locks in the base of your hair and you haven’t combed that out, you are losing more hair than you gain.”
King talks more about their company’s products and how they work on different skin textures. She also explained how you should be responsible and serious about hair care.
“You are not going to see any progress if you are not doing yourself,” King said. “They [our hair products] are therapeutic…they also combat things like alopecia and dry skin.”
Later, Toni Burks, the owner of Perpetual Growth Braiding Salon, demonstrated some of their hair products on Thomas. Burks talks about her expectations from the event.
“…People will know that there are natural hair growth salons in Topeka; try to help them not to have to drive to Manhattan or Kansas City to get their hair done,” Burks said. “Mostly I am trying to get out there for biracial kids here; we figured if we go to a bunch of these kinds of events, we will be able to actually see and actually hear that we are here to help these kids.”
Cain announced the raffle giveaways shortly after the Burks finished her presentation. Three winners were selected from the giveaways.
There were vendors where the audience could visit later to get to know different hair care companies within Topeka. Tylesha Pryor, one of the employees from Olori’s Beauty, talked about their company’s hair products and her thoughts on the events.
“I think it was very informative and just like a lot of good information,” Pryor said.
The raffle tickets were $2 for each person. The hair care products donations were donated to the children at YWCA. The audience went to the vendors as a chance to encounter the hair community.
Edited by Aja Carter and LeSha’ Davis
