Afro Forever

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.