Braiding is more than a hairstyle. For generations, African American hair braiding styles have held deep cultural significance, telling stories of survival, status and self-expression. What may seem ...

INDIANAPOLIS — When the Indiana General Assembly started regulating hair-braiding salons in 1997, Nicole Barnes-Thomas lost her job, her apartment and, quickly, her life unraveled. Once ...

Mesyah, 10, said when she first got her hair braided as a little girl, she loved how it made her feel free and like herself. But since entering a more diverse school district in the city of Troy with ...

A beauty writer takes us into her service at Harlem's luxury African braiding shop (and why it's worth the price).

By the time Diessou Kante opened JolieDen’s Beauty Bar in 2018, she already knew what she didn’t want. She’d spent years watching her mother braid hair in less-than-ideal conditions, and she was ...

Griffith-Knight’s appreciation for hair braiding began when her single mother who was raising two girls did not always have time to do hair. “When I was younger, my mom used to braid my hair all the ...

On a recent night at the Lock Loft Salon in Vancouver, Amber Starks' hands worked almost as fast as her young customer's mouth. While Starks turned her customer's frizzy pile of brown hair into row ...

Hair braiding has been practiced for centuries in African communities, and by African-Americans and others in the U.S. It doesn't require any chemicals, hair dyes or cutting. But to legally braid hair ...