In a now-viral TikTok video, Nerissa Kimble voiced her displeasure with a hair parlor in a Houston suburb. Kimble said she was kicked out of the hair salon for breaking their rules ahead of a silk press appointment. Kimble, who owns and operates NKFitness By Nerissa LLC, believes that the salon’s requirements were unfair.
“You don’t wash Black people’s natural hair back to back in less than 24 hours,” she said. “I’m so mad. I don’t like to be walking around with my hair looking like this.”
Before her silk press appointment, she claimed she had combed “all of the build-up” from her natural hair that had come from wearing faux locs.
After seeing pictures of customers’ hair on the salon’s Instagram page, Kimble said she decided to schedule the treatment that uses little heat and leaves hair feeling straight, silky, and smooth.
She noted that the silk press cost $95, but she was warned in advance that it could cost more depending on the length of her hair.
Kimble then shared a conversation she had with the stylist prior to her appointment, in which the stylist said that when clients remove faux locs, their hair must be rinsed, detangled, then washed again.
“Okay, so I’m thinking that’s their procedure,” Kimble said. “That’s weird, I ain’t never seen it, ain’t ever heard of that, I ain’t ever seen it, but I guess they’ve got to wash it, detangle it, wash it again, if that’s their procedure.”
Kimble stated in her video that she was “excited” about her visit because she had been carrying faux locs for seven weeks. However, when she showed up at the salon with her natural hair in two buns, she said that another staff member was uncomfortable while she was escorted to a sink to wash her hair.
“He was like, ‘Normally she doesn’t do your hair if you just took faux locs out,’ ” Kimble recalled. “So I’m like, ‘What do you mean? I told y’all I was going to take some faux locs out.'”
READ ALSO: Beauty brand unveils the world’s first guide for coding black hairstyles in video games
According to Kimble, the employee went on to explain that Kimble was expected to wash and detangle her hair before the appointment. When the stylist arrived after learning about the situation, the stylist examined her hair and informed Kimble that they were unable to perform her silk press because she didn’t wash and detangle before the appointment.
“Why would I wash and detangle my own hair, when y’all are going to wash and detangle it anyway,” Kimble said she questioned. “It’s natural hair. When natural hair gets wet, you’ve got to go and detangle it, because it’s natural.”
According to Kimble, the stylist then informed her that detangling her hair would need “too many hours” and claimed that every salon expects customers to complete that work before their visit.
“I said, ‘No they don’t,’ ” Kimble recalled responding to the stylist. “I’ve been going to a beauty salon since I was 8 years old. I can see if I asked you to take the braids down, that’s different, or if I came in here with braids [were] still in, that’s different.”
“I said, ‘Why would I have washed my hair last night and detangled it, and you come back the next day, less than 24 hours later, and wash my hair again?'” she added.
After that, Kimble said she was forced to leave the salon without having her hair done. She added that since it was a Saturday and past five o’clock local time, there was no alternative hair salon open for her to use.
Kimble told People that although she hadn’t heard an apology from the salon since the incident, she was able to schedule an appointment with another hairdresser in Houston thanks to suggestions from her TikTok video.
Several netizens shared Kimble’s thoughts on the matter in the video’s comments, which has received thousands of comments and over a million views.
