Count up the calls your salon declines over a month: those where you hang up and say, “We don’t do that kind of hair.” That number isn’t zero, and it represents a clientele that is looking for you.
This is a rare situation in hairdressing: a demand that is solvent, regular, already present in your catchment area, and very poorly served. It has another particularity that no campaign can buy. A client with kinky hair who finally finds a salon that knows what they’re doing will stay, because she knows what it costs to keep looking elsewhere. Here is what she looks for before calling you, what you need to sort out before saying yes, and how to make yourself easy to find. What happens next, once she is sitting in your chair, is the subject of a separate article: welcoming clients with kinky hair.
In my workshops, one phrase came up again and again, spoken by women who had come to learn how to style their own hair: I dream of being able to go to the hairdresser like everyone else. They weren’t asking for anything extraordinary; they were asking for a salon. This clientele is waiting for you.
Ghana Elin, founderA demand that passes by your door
What these clients do while they wait is instructive for a business owner. They style their own hair for hours, using videos. They go to a home stylist found by word of mouth. They take the train or cross the metropolitan area for an appointment, and accept delays of several weeks. In other words, they are already paying the price of a service in time, travel, and uncertainty, without a professional in their neighborhood seeing a cent of it.
This demand also has attractive commercial characteristics. The average spend is high because the service is long and almost always includes products to take home. The pace is predictable: a complete Rituel Texture® is repeated at home every seven to ten days, and treatment, cut, or protective styling appointments naturally fit into a calendar. Loyalty is also far above the industry average for a simple reason: local competition is weak, and the experience of a bad salon has left its mark.
The only real obstacle is technical, and it is being overcome. Most techniques learned on straight hair produce the opposite of the expected result on kinky hair, as our article on what salons are missing today points out.
What she looks for before calling
A client with kinky hair does not choose a salon like any other client. She isn’t looking for an atmosphere; she is looking for proof. Before dialing your number, she reviews three things, often in this order.
Your photos
She is looking for a texture that resembles her own, not a large curl on shoulder-length hair. A website or account without a single kinky hairstyle tells her that no one in your salon has ever worked on it. Publish real results, with the clients’ permission, including simple styles: a well-detangled and hydrated hairstyle speaks louder than a staged photo.
Your words
“Kinky and curly hair,” written in black and white in your list of services, is worth all the promises of inclusion. Conversely, a “special hair” or “difficult hair” section is enough to make her close the page. Vocabulary can be improved, and our kinky hair glossary provides the right terms.
Your timeframes
A service advertised as taking forty-five minutes tells her that you haven’t understood what she is looking for. A realistic timeframe, displayed without comment, reassures her more than a sales pitch. Our guidelines are gathered in the service duration guide.
What you need to sort out before saying yes
The schedule. Dense kinky hair requires time at the two moments when we are accustomed to having some to spare: detangling, which precedes the backwash and is done by hand on dry hair, and drying, which is done in small sections. A complete Rituel Texture® takes between two and a quarter and three and a quarter hours, depending on the style and whether a cut is included. Book this slot honestly, and ask the client about the length, density, and history of her hair when she makes the appointment so you can adjust it.
The prices. Charge for time and length, as you would for any long or dense hair. A surcharge based solely on texture is experienced as discrimination, quickly becomes a talking point, and costs the salon in the long run. A high price that is explained by an advertised duration is not a problem for this clientele, which knows what the work entails.
The equipment. It is modest. Wide-tooth combs, a horn comb for detangling on sectioned lengths, processing caps for processing times, sulfate-free shampoos that are not too harsh, and something to dry the hair in small sections. The diffuser, often bought for this purpose, is only useful in rare cases on kinky hair: it does not replace drying by hand.
The team. Avoid leaving this clientele to a single person. As long as only one schedule can accommodate her, a single absence is enough to lose her, and she will not call back.
The services that make her come back
The first appointment sells itself as long as you are easy to find. The second depends on what you have built during the first. Three services establish a routine rather than an isolated visit.
The deep treatment first, with The Repair Mask worked section by section and left on for ten minutes under a processing cap, followed by detangling with a comb on sectioned lengths. This is the service that produces the most visible immediate effect, and the one that makes her want to return.
Then, protective styles, which mechanically bring the client back to have them installed and then removed. The duration depends on the extensions, the tension, and the condition of the scalp, and this condition must always be stated. Our guide to protective styles in the salon details the cases.
Finally, transition support for a client who is stopping chemical relaxers, which takes several months and creates the strongest relationship of all. See supporting your clients through their transition.
What makes you invisible
- A list of services where “kinky and curly hair” does not appear anywhere.
- A “special hair” or “difficult hair” section.
- A photo gallery where no hairstyle resembles her own.
- An appointment duration calibrated as if for straight hair.
- A surcharge based solely on texture.
- Only one salon schedule capable of accommodating her.
Making yourself easy to find
The best salon in the neighborhood is useless if it remains invisible to those who are looking for it. This clientele searches online, asks around, and consults lists of trained salons. Make sure you are on them: our partner salon directory lists professionals trained in the Rituel Texture® in France and the French overseas territories, and that is where searches by city are conducted.
Word of mouth does the rest, and it spreads quickly. A satisfied client brings in several others, often from her family, sometimes with her children. Conversely, a bad appointment spreads just as quickly, and that is exactly why acquisition is ultimately won or lost in the chair: everything that happens between the moment she sits down and the moment she leaves is detailed in welcoming clients with kinky hair. This is a demanding clientele because it has been poorly served for a long time, not because it is difficult.
