Leeana’s love for natural hair

Natural hair style specialist Leeana Charles’ nimble fingers were busy at work locking and twisting the dread of a male client when People walked into “On Top” beauty salon at Palm Plaza, Arima. The young man of average build had come in for his regular hair grooming. His hair, decorated with bobby pins, was a sight to behold. However, he was anxious to get under the dryer for his 15-minute dry-shampooing. With not a second to spare, Leeana was already motioning to client number two — a young woman who wanted to transform her short pony tail hairdo into long, flowing cork-screwed tresses made with synthetic hair. The hairstyle was picked on the spur-of-the-moment from a hairstyle magazine Leeana kept on her counter.

Leeana, 28, of Malabar, has made a name for herself in the East, working with expert hairstylists since age 13. “I used to watch my cousin Tiny braid people’s hair and I decided to try it.” She already had the knack for styling hair, being the eldest of six girls. A school drop-out, she grew up in a single-parent household in Wallerfied, and began working to assist her mother with the finances. “I used to comb my sisters’ hair all the time, and even canerow my brother’s hair whenever he grew it.” Before long, Leeana was getting clients in neighbouring villages and later, all over Trinidad. Just then, the timer sounded on the dryer, signalling that client number one was done. “Fire under dey boy!” he said. Leeana quickly took out the pins, secured his locks in canerows, sprayed it and client number one was off.  

“I more specialise in ras’ (dreadlocks) and more natural styles,” said the hairstylist. Why? “Because a lot of people are into dreads these days. The women are tired of hair relaxing and complain of hair breakage, and the fellas like the dread look.” She also does hair wraps, lock extensions, classic canerows and hair treatment. I enquired of the hairwraps. “Those having problems with the fuzziness of the dread, we place wrapped extensions over it and right there the problem is solved,” she explained. “The lock extensions are done on persons with short ras who want length. Sometimes we sew on human hair braids or afro kinky braids, or ras.” And Leeana meant “real ras” — human hair that is sold to hairdressers and hairstylists like herself. For the Carnival season this year, her wish came true. “I prayed for an artiste to come to the salon and one did — it was Bunji.” Actually, Leeana and Bunji both lived in the Wallerfield area and were practically neighbours.

“His (Bunji’s) hair was damaged. He was complaining about the hair breaking at the roots because of the interlocking. This is done with the needle and the needle damages the ras, especially when done too tightly and too often. He wanted to cut off all the dread and I gave him the best advice. I told him if he does at least three steams, one every three weeks, he could save the dread.” Bunji took Leeana’s advice. “I gave him the first steam that day, I reduced the fuzziness by palm rolling the dread and the fuzziness was gone.” Bunji’s last visit at Leeana’s was the day after Ash Wednesday, in preparation for his tour abroad. But Leeana was more concerned about proper hair treatment and offered tips to prevent hair breakage and general maintenance of natural hair. She said: “If you are a first timer, three months after you’ve grown your dread then you can start ‘wetting’ them. Too much ‘wetting’ makes the dread take longer to lock.” For shampooing, she uses Organic Roots herbal cleanse.

“Long ago people used bees wax and that stays in the ras. After a while the hair would look just like if termite eat wood.” Instead of using bees wax, Leeana puts together her own concoction. “Also, when dreads get very long it has a tendency to pull on the scalp because of the weight. The scalp becomes tender and the pulling causes the cuticles to come out. Additionally, ras itself is a form of dead hair and too much interlocking could damage the hair, so there is need to do deep penetrating steams which is something like one to two hours under the dryer.”