Friendly Gougers Always Make Money

I am in the process of coordinating my "hair braiding experience". What is that, you ask? Well, that will be me spending a small portion of my life in a chair, getting every possible strand of hair braided on my head. Due to the pregnancy, I am no longer relaxing my hair (to spare the baby of all those chemicals). Because of this, I am slowly returning to my natural state (think, Macy Gray). This look is perfectly fine for others, but it is not cute on me.

Anyway, in order to save face for the next few months (since my ponytails are completely out now, with my new growth coming in), I've opted to have my hair braided. I'm exciting and dreading it, both at the same time. The braids I want are micro in size and will, undoubtedly take hours away from my life. Once done, I know I will be happy but....oh! The hours and hours and hours. I'm not looking forward to that part at all!

So, what's with the gouging title? Well, Utah isn't exactly bursting at seams with folks who know how to do ethnic hair, much less braiding. I found a lady who is willing to do it without charging me a mortgage payment to do it. Unfortunately, it was the buying of the hair that killed me. Each package (and I bought two) were around $32.00. The entire time, I was thinking about the Korean shops back south, who sell the same hair for half that cost. I've never paid that much for a hair piece, much less a bag of hair. What the hell? Anyway, I bit the bullet and bought the dang hair, citing "support of black businesses" and such. Don't they realize, that's why their sales suffer? If we were smart, we would learn Mandarin or Cantonese and work with the distributors in those areas, then sell the hair for a decent price, while still making a profit. The person who finally does it will never be for want of anything. Believe that!

So, here are the styles I'm scoping. I think they'll be nice for the fall:

(I'm not sure which one I like better. They're pretty much the same, except the second photo shows the model with her micro braids pulled up.)