LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18 SPORTS) — Melanie Day has made it her mission to provide access to healthy hair care products and services to college athletes and students, alike, with textured and curly hair. Day is coming up on 20 years in cosmetology and spent the last seven curating the In Living Curls hair care community.
"COVID was the beginning of it. We tried to figure out how to pivot. We didn't know what the salon world would look like coming back in person," said Day. "So, myself, I would always have conversations with students asking about hair. Asking. 'Hey, how can I do my hair on campus? I don’t really have access to the right products. I live in a rural area, what can I do?'"
Day created a program that educates students on maintaining healthy hair even if they can't make it to her salon chair in Twisted on Malabu Drive.
"Our products are 15 dollars or less and we're meeting the students where they are at so they can focus on studying. They can have their hair care and personal care essentials in the process."
Arianna Patterson is a 5th-year gymnastics student-athlete at the University of Kentucky. Once Patterson made Kentucky her school of choice, as a Texas native, she went to work looking for someone who could help her take care of her hair.
"I tried to find who was the best person in Lexington who knows how to work with natural hair, and honestly, the only person that I saw was Melanie. And so I scheduled appointments," Patterson said. "She helped a lot with the health of my hair, so I tell people about Melanie."
According to a study by the National Library of Medicine, 94.9% of Black people have curly hair, and caring for that hair can be a lengthy process. Day recently spoke with a Dermatologist running research out of North Carolina, showing some patients tend to refrain from working out because of their hairstyles.
"We’ve all been there, we’ve all spent money on a straight style or a cute style, but our health is important, but we’ll kind of be like, 'I won’t work out as hard. I just got a fresh style, I don’t wanna mess it up,'" Said Day.
"So hair can also be a potential barrier when it comes to our health, but then you think about it from the sports side, you don’t always have that option, right? So I know this is a conversation, a lot of us in the Black community, as Black females we understand and know, but for those of us that love sports, we may not see the other side of it."
Students told Day they were walking an hour or more to the store for their products. Day has collaborated with several colleges to eliminate that. Berea College and Transylvania have Beauty Product Machines on their campuses, containing products needed for textured and curly hair. Centre College will see one this fall semester.
Day is working to get on one UK's campus as well. In the meantime, she hosts events like the Natural Hair Care Expo alongside groups like Collegiate Curls of UK and the Student Activities Board. Day says 300+ students were in attendance, emphasizing the need is there.
"I wish I had that my freshman year when there wasn’t really a lot of natural hair products nearby," said Patterson. "Everything had to be ordered, you had to pay shipping for all the stuff. And as a college athlete, you don’t have that much money to spend. I think it’s a really nice thing to have, and if anyone sees it around they should use it to their advantage."
Gymnastics is a sport known for amazing physical feats and aesthetics. A part of the competition is also presentation.
"The audience and the people in gymnastics is majority not Black, so they wouldn’t understand our hair textures, our styles, they don’t see it as their beauty norm or what it’s supposed to look like. So that can be kind of uncomfortable for them. I feel like for me, I just have to be fully confident with myself and I feel if you’re fully confident in yourself others around you will see that, and you’ll automatically look more beautiful that way."
Patterson shared that before working with Day when she did her hair, she just wanted something easy and something that would work for competition. Now, Patterson looks forward to doing her hair.
"Before college doing my hair was like, 'Oh here we go again.' Then college I was like 'This is my time for self-care!' That kind of mind shifted a little bit," said Patterson. "Giving myself the power to take care of my own hair and take care of the health of it."
To connect with Melanie Day and learn more about In Living Curls, visit www.GotCurls.com.
