Afro Forever

Book excerpt: Transformation In Loree's Beauty Shop hot combs sizzled against wet oily scalps branding grown woman fantasies into tender young heads. Thick busy afros became long glossy black curls transforming natural Black queens into commercial mahogany princesses (Boyd, 14). This poem by Julia Boyd from In the Company of My Sisters is tragic, but it happens all the time. Afros and natural hair is transformed into something artificial, "fake boobs, fake hair, men don't seem to care whether a woman is real or false." The hair salon is the main site where the transformation happens. This paper accompanies the web-based project Salon Utopia (now defunct) that aimed to transform its clients in a natural way. In the virtual realm, it is not yet possible to do any hairstyles to transform anyone, but the site did aid in transforming the source of where hair comes from, the mind.