Jamaican-born, Maryland-based Susan Peterkin sounds like an evangelical preacher when she dives into the intersections of how Black hair is perceived and, more importantly, how much it matters to the person whose head it is on. “We’ve been told all our lives that our hair isn’t attractive,” she preaches. “We’ve been told our hair is rough, it’s nappy, it’s unpleasant.” She goes on to say, “As natural hairstylists, we not only have to take care of the physical part, we also have to deal with our clients’ emotions.”
Her Roots
Peterkin is the CEO and co-founder of the Natural Hair Industry Convention (NHIC), the first Black hair conference that focuses strictly on natural hair. The annual event gathers professionals in this relatively niche field for two days of talks, seminars, networking, and, importantly, fun. This year, instead of its usual conference-style affair, Peterkin and her team hosted the Release, Heal & Re-create Retreat. The week-long wellness retreat was held at Jewel Grande Resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
The retreat concept arrived fully formed, Peterkin recalls. “God loaded everything into my head. I wrote out the entire plan in 20 minutes,” she explains. Immediately she got to work with her beloved and irreplaceable team consisting of Anita Hill-Moses and Kiana Johnson. The retreat went off without a hitch, a feat in event planning. It moved from prioritizing stylists, to being open to everyone. “As the months went on, we realized that our clients needed healing too,” Peterkin explains. “We decided to open it up to everyone.” At the retreat was an exchange of ideas across gender, profession, and age. “It was Black women and a few Black men, loving on each other, knowing it was a safe space,” she gushes.
The Challenges
The relationship between a Black person, their hair, and their hairdresser is one of the most intimate professional relationships, Peterkin explains. There’s a parental aspect to it – someone spending hours with their fingers in your hair, locking, curling, or unspooling curls. It’s no wonder that hairdressers and hairstylists have to often pull double duty as therapists.
Peterkin has stories. She’s an ‘OG’ on the natural hair scene in the United States, and was a part of the coalition that helped pass the CROWN Act, which protects Black people from barriers to employment opportunities, based on longstanding racial stereotypes associated with hair texture and style.
Peterkin has been styling and helping groom natural hair for over 35 years. “I’ve had to do a big chop on a 12-year-old. I had to hold her, hug her and tell her she’s beautiful,” laments Peterkin. “Her hair was so damaged by heat and chemicals, and I knew cutting it all off was the best thing for her. But, me, her, and her mother were crying.”
Setting Boundaries
This amount of vulnerability carries baggage, and Peterkin has had to take steps to create boundaries for her peace of mind. “When I go to work in the morning, before I step through the door, I’ll say a prayer,” she shares. She does the same at the end of the work day. “Before I walk through my door, I go: ‘Okay God, all those things that were said to me, all the debt, all the trauma, I have to let that go,’ because I have to deal with my kids.”
With all that baggage, who do hairstylists lean on? Who does Peterkin lean on? For most of her life, it was her father, someone who Peterkin calls her “rock.” Many of us suffered during the pandemic, careers stalled and we had to bury loved ones. Peterkin lost her father to a battle with cancer. It devastated her. She’s still emotional when she speaks of him. His passing forced her to head to her home country of Jamaica to manage his estate. There, she reconnected with old friends, and they spent two days together. “We went to the beach, we went to the waterfall, and we stayed up at night. We laughed, we talked, we cried,” Peterkin says, noting how good it felt to talk and have that release. Then one of her friends dropped the idea of hosting a retreat in Jamaica.
What’s Next
By then, NHIC had transitioned to online in the wake of the COVID pandemic. But, between the death of her father and burnout, Peterkin knew she didn’t want to host another online function. So, she ran with the retreat idea, and it became a major success.
Peterkin is currently transitioning away from active styling. She’s ready to be the foundation for the next generation, like her mentors were for her. The retreat is just one avenue through which she’s supporting her peers and the Black community. However, she’s not stepping away from hair – she couldn’t do that even if she wanted to. Next, Peterkin is partnering with Dr. Chesana Kindred, one of the country’s leading dermatologists concerning Black skin, to form “PeterKindred,” the world’s first full-service dermatologic salon that prioritizes scalp care and hair restoration. Peterkin might be leaving the chair, but she’ll never leave the world of hair.
