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Eureka! Dominicans on the Beauty Trail

by Carol Amoruso, Hispanic Village Feature Writer

One Saturday afternoon several months ago three mutual friends, a Haitian living in the East Village, an African-American from Harlem, and an Irish-Colombian from Brooklyn, chanced upon each other on Manhattan's Upper West Side. They converged at Herby's Unisex Hair Salon, and I was intrigued. (Missing from the group was my Haitian friend's mother who has been a client of Herby's nearly since its inception.)

Herby's has been owned for eight years by Yecenia Germoses, Yessie, a Dominican women and her husband. "We had the money, so we did it," she explains, saying they kept the incongruous name Herby given the shop by its previous owner.

A vast number of the hair and beauty salons in or near Latino communities throughout the city are owned by Dominicans. Within those salons, a majority of stylists are Dominican. Herby's is no exception. Yessie says it's not that Dominicans get favored status but, "They are the ones that walk through the door.," explaining, "Dominican women like to look good, they know how to look good, and want to help other women to look good as well." Patricia Ramirez of Sheina Esthetic Center adds that even women with little means in the Dominican Republic are very attentive to their grooming and find natural ingredients, such as avocado which are used in face masks, to enhance their beauty.

To look white

But, there's another aspect to this that makes Dominicans so eager to style hair. Says Patricia, "In our country, we do not say that we are black. We invent a lot of names for our skin, like indio claro, indio lavao or indio canela, but never black. So, the idea is to make you look white if you are black. They teach us that in the Dominican Republic."

In fact, the stylists I spoke to said that nearly all of the women who came in with African hair wore it relaxed. They prided themselves on the care they took in relaxing hair, a delicate business, without damaging it. Patricia was quick to aver that she had no agenda for her clients, that she would treat their hair in any way they preferred unless it were sure to damage the hair.

Unsettled, I called Dominican musician, activist, and friend, Willian Aleman. He wears his hair in waist-length dreadlocks. Willian said the issue of color consciousness and denial amongst Dominicans was real and part of the fiber of his people. "I'm not a Rasta," he said, "and I resent when people, especially Dominicans, call out to me, 'Hey, Bob Marley!' but I wear my hair in dreadlocks so that people will understand I'm a Dominican with African blood, a criollo, and that many of us are Dominicans with African blood." He added, "I also want to show people that our hair texture is good, not pelo malo, even if it is not the standard of beauty that they show in the media."

Education

Sheina's is what Sheina Maria likes to refer to as a "full service spa," one that offers all the indulgences that the toney salons on Madison Avenue do. Originally a make-up artist, Sheina came up from the DR with her two sisters, Maria and Carmen. She first had a salon in Washington Heights, but moved "downtown" to the Upper West Side about 6 years ago.

It was an education for me to learn from Sheina and sister Maria (whose full name of course is Maria Maria) about permanent make-up-semi-permanent tattooing of the face, most typically a line around the lips to make them appear fuller, or one around the eyes to make them seem bigger, more intense-collagen seaweed masks to reduce wrinkles, aroma therapy massages and more. Maria is trained in all of the trendier techniques, including liposuction which she does at the spa under a physician's supervision. Third sister Carmen is general hostess and receptionist.

It was also illuminating and a little naughty to learn that men are treating themselves with more and more frequency to the kinds of bonbons women indulge in. They are a growing clientele at the spas, and, at the salons, preferred by the stylists. Yessie explains, "Men are our fantasies: they need their hair cut every two weeks." Patricia let the cat out of the bag: "They do eyebrow waxing to make their eyebrows thinner, electrolysis to remove the hair on their chests, massage, even facials, everything!" And that's Latinos as well as Anglo men, straight and gay.

Location

Herby's and Sheina's are both in an area once heavily Latino, but now gentrified. There's still a smattering of Dominicans, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, mostly working class, on the upper Upper West Side, and a sizable number of Haitians.

Herby's is on Broadway, upstairs behind an expansive floor-to-ceiling window that gives a panorama of Broadway as it once was, with small shops with old-fashioned tin signs and people of every age and hue on the streets. Clients wait for their stylist and chat on an aging, no worse for the wear and slightly deflated red pouf Victorian divan. Yessie, whose salon is close to Columbia University, has several students as clients. She says she can't begrudge them their upkeep and lowers her already low rates for them. "I'm a mother and it's good to help our children," she inputs.

Sheina Esthetic Center is in a sleek, large corner space on the street, decorated simply and comfortably in yellow and navy. A tiny American flag was stuck into a large potted plant like an outed cigarette when I visited.

Fatigue and discussion

The estheticians complain of fatigue working up to 8 hours a day on their feet, but they are grateful to have moved down from Washington Heights, New York's largest Dominican community, where prices are even lower and they had to work many more hours for the same or less pay. Patricia recalls working up to 12 hours a day in the Heights. Now, with shorter hours, she can devote more time to her other commitment, representing artists and selling their paintings.