The Real Cultural Appropriation of Locs

Other cultures are profiting off of the ignorance and “trendy” mentality of women AND men with textured hair (read: Black People) with Faux Locs— and it’s truly sad. I’m not above fault either thought because there was a time that as long as someone was willing to pay the $400+ price tag I valued my time at to install faux locs, I would go to work to do them. Not anymore. The cultural appropriation of locs is belittling the strength that locs truly hold AND taking money from our community.

Faux Locs Started an Epidemic of Appropriation

We’ve all heard about Zendaya and her incident on the red carpet. While I completely agree the correspondent’s remarks were uncalled for and derogatory, I’m not buying the bullsh*t that resulted from that incident— which is faux locs. From that day forward, the day Zendaya wore faux locs and the entire #TeamNatural went into a faux locs beauty uproar, the billion dollar beautiful industry capitalized off of a lifestyle (and a group of people) that weren’t even really represented in that incident. Let me explain…

Over night, faux locs became the latest trend. It was now “acceptable” for people to wear “locs”. However, said “locs” could not be “real” locs with frizz and new growth, they had to be shiny, neat and purchased from an Asian beauty supply store. An influx of beautiful women and men wearing faux locs were now all that was glorified on the natural hair pages that claim to show “natural beauty” but sparingly posted images of naturally cultivated locs. So, it is now deemed “acceptable” to wear locs as long as you paid your money to another ethnic group for them…

Please don’t misunderstand the intention of this article as causing or insinuating division amongst loose natural hair and locs— that is not what it’s about, look deeper. The cultural appropriation of locs is not in other ethnicities wearing or cultivating locs, it is in the profit of other ethnicities over the acceptance in our own community. Its sad that in our own community, you would rather pay an Asian owned beauty supply store for crochet faux locs or, the latest, lace front locs wig, than invest in a black hair care professionals to cultivate your own locs or install loc extensions with human hair (that comes from a black owned company).

And we wonder why money can’t stay in our community or why the hair care industry is a BILLION dollar industry but we don’t have or own anything in “big business”; except Shea Moisture (and even that is now garnishing a profit for those outside our community).

Just food for thought. You can go back to your regularly scheduled trip to the beauty supply store. We can wait.

End Rant.

Here is a list of over 50 Black owned Beauty Supply Stores— shop & buy black!