Your WEAVE is Making You BROKE

Higher health care costs? Unnecessary diseases? No refund weave- layaway plans? Have you ever calculated just how much it’s costing you to try and keep up with BEYONCE??

Chances are that if you’re already reading this, then you know a typical cost  for a sew in can be about $300 per month or if yous a ratchet broad, $300 every two months. Thats just a sew in though. If you’re doing glue, fusion or buying some sort of expensive designer weave so you can look up to par with your favorite celebrity, then you can possibly spend $1000-$3500 per session, EASY.

Now let’s do the math here shall we?

Girl A gets her hair weaved every month and after paying for synthetic hair, and hair dressers time, she comes out the pocket about $300/month. Over the course of 12 months, this adds up to $3600/year. Over the course of 10 years, Girl A finds herself spending $36 THOUSAND dollars on hair alone. If you’re one of the people still stuck on credit crack, $36 grand is a down payment on a house!

Now here’s where it really gets messy. Typically, these types of women are also high credit card users who swear by debt as a resource to their monthly budget. Girl A is no different. Since she found herself having to make the choice between the $300 for her weave or $300 for her car note, she chose the weave and decided to place her car note on her credit card with a 15% APR.  She quickly finds herself doing this every month and at the end of 1 years shes $4140 in debt. Over the next 10 years of keeping up with the Beyonces, assuming she doesn’t try and tackle these debts, she finds herself $94,481.40 in the hole (debt). And she thinks its because of her car note? Wrong, it was because of her weave!

Girl B wears her hair natural and spends..lets say of $100/month on hair care. She is a minimalist and enjoys naturality so she doesn’t find herself extending her income on credit cards each month. Instead she uses that $2940 she wasn’t spending on hair ( $100×12 months subtracted from the $4140/year girl a was spending) and puts that to work for her earning an average of 10% each year. Over the course of 10 years, she finds herself sitting on $50,848.39 in savings, great health and a  scalp free of weave glue damage.

Thats a $145k difference from Girl A’s negative debt to Girl B’s positive savings amount! Should we even do the calculations on increased health insurance costs for women with chronic obesity related diseases from not working out? How about adding those costs onto the woman who chose the $3,500 Naomi Campbell weave special instead of the typical $300 one?

According to an article on the popular website The Grio website, besides the immediate financial implications discussed above, there are serious health implications that can occur from staying weaved up from the butt up:

A government study shows that African American women are 70% more likely to be obese than white women. As intriguing as this statistic seems, the reasons for it are equally as interesting. Factors including time, money and even hair contribute to keeping some black women out of the gym.

Nikki Kimbrough is a celebrity fitness expert who says, “The number one excuse is ‘what am I going to do with my hair,’ and I can relate because I’m a black woman myself and I have the same issue”.

The article goes on to provide these health statistics:

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, four out of five African American women are overweight or obese which increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and many other aliments.

Across the web, even Wikipedia knows something wrong here:

Concerns

“Hair weaves are problematic from a health standpoint too” says Stacy Malkan, author of Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry. “Many contain formaldehyde glues, as well as other hazardous chemicals that beauty workers and their clients are breathing in.”

Now as commander and sergeant of the weave police, I’m sure you know it is my duty to ensure order and compliance for the way weaves are worn in public. However, it is also my desire to retire early and I believe I could make this happen if black women simply learned to love the hair they were born with. When you factor in health implications from glue, obesity from skipping workouts or even  just the upfront costs alone I can’t understand how anyone could convince themselves these contraptions are necessary.

I mean help me out here, I’m getting old. My best days are behind me. I don’t know how much longer I can be out here chasing you ratchet weaves down to issue “improper use of weave” citations now that I’m pushing age 65!

So help me out and just said no. Say NO to weaves and YES to life. Hmm…I like that. I think I’ll make it a bumper sticker..

FYI- you can visit HERE for examples of natural hairstyles that will repair your budget, your confidence AND your scalp!

And here’s a nice lil parody for you to watch:

Signed,

TheWeavePolice

http://twitter.com/theweavepolice