Salon pros, get ready to elevate your skills and be a part of the change! Texture VS Race Summit is back and it’s ready to continue its mission of tackling the industry’s long-standing textural discrimination problem. Now in its fourth year, the annual event will be taking the conversation of diversity and inclusion in the salon professional industry to a whole new level.
This year’s summit will take place on November 27 — 29th in Baltimore, Maryland, offering three transformative days of textural education, networking, and community building. Led by event founder and salon industry DEI consultant, Keya Neal, attendees will learn first-hand how to cut, color, and style all hair textures with a hands-on approach as well as how to interact with and serve a rapidly diversifying clientele and culture. This next-level education will address topics such as how to formulate for highly melanated and texture hair, the basics of natural styles, and techniques to accentuate and compliment curly textures.
As the theme of this year’s event is “Fabric + Community,” attendees can expect a safe space to learn how to identify, work with and talk about hair as a fabric by understanding its unique properties and. Additionally, there will also be a focus on exploring race through the history of texture discrimination and the cultural signifance of natural hair.
Since its formation in 2019, the Texture VS Race Summit has worked to challenge the salon industry’s education standards which have primarily focused almost entirely on straight textures, and has worked towards eliminating texture discrimination.
“It begins in the schools. Stylists receive little to no education on how to work on curly, coily, or natural hair. Instead, our education primarily focuses on techniques for straight, finer hair. Undereducated stylists or colorists who cannot work with textured hair shy away from it because of their lack of knowledge,” says Neal. “This cycle perpetuates the notion that curly and highly textured hair is ‘hard to work with’ and reinforces racial stereotypes surrounding hair. This ultimately leads to clients being turned away simply because of the hair that grows out of their heads. That’s not the client’s fault! These are all signs that the institution failed these students.”
By equipping stylists of all races with the skills to work with all hair textures, Texture VS Race Summit hopes to maximize their potential and create more openness in the industry when it comes to learning about various hair textures. And, this mission extends to supporting diversity and inclusion in the hair and beauty industry behind the scenes, too. Working with their brand sponsors Blonde Solutions, Essations, Joico, SalonCentric, Schwarzkopf Professional and more to come, the event hopes to build towards creating an industry that naturally evolves with our culture and clientele.
To register and secure your ticket for the Texture VS Race Summit, make sure to visit www.TextureVSRace.com. Currently, payment plans and Afterpay options are available to help finance your ticket.
And, to learn more about Texture VS Race, follow Texture VS Race and its founder Keya Neal on Instagram.
