Customer Reviews

Textured Tresses: The Ultimate Guide to Maintaining and Styling Natural Hair

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Textured Tresses doesn't provide any worthwhile tips on styling or caring for natural African-American hair. It's an ill-informed, deceptive book full of celebrity namedropping. Da Costa first tells the reader there's no such thing as "bad hair", yet a few chapters over she tells the reader to reach for a jar of chemical relaxer if their hair is too tightly coiled. Da Costa deceptively refers to this as "texturizing", and accompanies her recommendation to "texturize" with verbiage that "texturing" enables one to achieve the full range of styling possibilities that our beautiful natural hair deserves. I presume this means Da Costa finds the styling possibilities of my tightly coiled hair deficient, insufficient, limiting...? Early in the book, Da Costa describes African-American hair textures as ranging from bone-straight to tightly coiled. Yet she devotes much discussion to celebrities and other clients with textures in the first-half of that range. She leaves hanging those of us with very curly to tightly coiled hair--other than her shoddy advice to "texturize."

As to damage that chemical relaxers cause, Da Costa displays a cavalier attitude. She tells the reader that when people ask her if chemicals damage hair, she responds with "What is damage?" (Sounds to me like Zen and the art of avoidance.) She goes on to write that damage is caused by stripping protein from the hair (true), and that hair can be saved from damage by piling various treatments onto the hair (false).

Da Costa devotes much of her book to details about how this or that star called and asked her to style their sister's/daughter's/wife's/niece's son's hair, or how the star wanted this particular style for the filming of this movie or for their tour with that famous band or for shooting the cover of this CD or that music video. Actual discussion on how the rest of us can obtain and maintain natural hairstyles is trite. For instance, when Da Costa briefly addresses the subject of haircare products, she instructs the reader to experiment with different products to see which ones work best with the reader's hair! Period. No lists of products matched with particular hair types. As far as Da Costa is concerned, you're on your own--and no more informed than you were before you bought her book.

The book jacket claims Da Costa will explain how to make beautiful loc styles. Her explanation for one of the styles begins with "Wash locs... " I thought perhaps I'd missed the section that tells how to "get locs." But no, nowhere in the book does Da Costa explain how to start locs. She explains only how to create mock locs--that is, styles that look somewhat like locs, but that disappear by the end of the day. For example, she instructs the reader to set hair vertically on rods to get "Shirley Temple-type coils." She doesn't mention that the style will last a day at best. And her equating a loc "look" with "Shirley Temple hair" is a disturbingly mixed message.

To find genuine information about caring for natural hair, try one of the many honest authors out there: Lonnice Brittenum Bonner (who has a loc book due to be released in February), Tulani Kinard, and Pamela Ferrell.

For someone who is already natural, and just looking to learn more about how to care for her hair, this book is rather disappointing. The author's basic message is to tell the reader what hair is, what it is made of, to be proud of our hair, and then to put it in the care of an trained professional. That didn't help me. Even the products that she recommends are expensive -- and I can't afford $15 shampoos and conditioners! She should tell readers which brands to buy in the drugstores and beauty supply stores, because we don't all have expensive personal stylists. My verdict: If you just want a little more knowledge, or if you don't know anything about natural hair at all, this book could be helpful. Otherwise, it didn't offer me anything at all useful, and it is no different from the other books out there.

I ve read other hair care books ,and this wasnt the best as far as informative help-Care tips .Da Costa focus on how to style hair and not on how to keep it healthy.For those who need helpful tips on how to take care of natural hair I would suggest Lets talk hair or No Lye.Both are more informative and less "advertised".

I am very disappointed with this book. While extolling primarily African American women to love, embrace and accept their unique, and highly textured hair, da Costa then devotes a chapter dealing with "texturizing" albeit perming your natural hair. For one who is contemplating wearing her hair in its God given natural state, this gives an incrdible mixed message. "Love your napps, however, if need be loosen them up with a texturizer.

I grew tired of the celebrity photos/tips. One celebrity featured has her hair texturized, hence, she is not natural. I also found it disingenous to have a Japanese model with braided styles. Sorry, but typical African American hair textures are not the same as Asian/Japanese. When do Asian women look to black hair care books for hair tips?

If you are in need of good books, please try Pam Ferrell's Let's Talk Hair or Tulani Kinard's No Lye. ALso the actress T'Kyah Crystal Keymah has a better book that completely extolls the beauty of black hair unprocessed.

Diane da Costa is a wonderful stylist. I am greatly disappointed in her duplicity.

This book really confuses me. Instead of calling it the "Ultimate Guide to Maintaining and Styling NATURAL hair", it should be appropriately titled "The collective guide of photos with models wearing weaves or chemically altered hair". I pretty much just use it for decoration on my coffee table, because there isn't too much information in it for someone like myself - an ALL NATURAL, chemical free woman with a huge afro.

I found Diane DaCosta's book long on photos and celebrity gossip, but short on practical advice for the sistah (or brother) who wants to do her own hair. While DaCosta offers step by step instructions for a handful of styles, I expected more. I was also annoyed by the weird layout of text, which made it hard to match photos with their descriptions. If she ever does a second edition, I hope it will include bigger captions. This book would really have benefited from more color photos and more detailed advice for people who are making the transition from relaxed to natural hair. The photos of men's styles are a nice touch. To truly get your money's worth, share a copy with a friend. Better yet, just check it out from the library.

This book was not helpful at all. It was simply a marketing tool for the writer. The focus was on what celebrities she has worked with and what products she thinks are good. But it doesn't tell you WHY the products are good or what ingredients to look for. So, when a product is discontinued I guess you have to buy her next book to figure out what to use. And if you can't afford the expensive products, you have no knowledge to select products within your budget. She doesn't really teach you how to work with your hair. No good.

If you want to know the stars that Ms. Da Costa has styled, or the styles that she is credited with discovering, then this is the book for you. If you need a substantive book on caring for natural or textured hair, this is not it. The first 85 or so pages contain very little hair care information, for example only a page or so is devoted to starting locs. I was extremely disappointed in the section of the book devoted to haircuts and styling of textured hair. There is not a lot of information for those of us who want to do our hair at home.

First of all, this is all my fault for buying a book before I read the reviews. This book was so unhelpful to me and I am returning it! I am kind of newly natural. I've been natural for a year this month. During my transitioning the previous year I kept my hair in braids or twists and now I am trying to find good sources that will teach me hair care and how to do styles myself so I will not be in the salon all the time! This was NOT the book to do that! All 194 pages were useless to me. I have to agree with others. The book was confusing. One minute she is saying love your natural hair...LOVE IT! Then she turns right around and says..."texturize it..." Another thing is I did not want to keep seeing celebrities with their hair done by her. I wanted to see regular people with their natural hair like me as far as that goes. And who is that Asian chick? The pictures suck in the so-called illustration sections where she's suppose to be guiding you through how to do certain styles. It was kinda hard to see because it was in black and white. Then when I went to the end of the book, all of a sudden....COLOR! The color pictures were just people with their hair done. Why not have colored pictures when you're walking someone through how to do a hairstyle? I also have to agree with Kara, the basic message was to know what hair is, what it's made of, to be proud of it, and to put it in the care of a trained professional. And again, if you are in school, working, and doing anything else that doesn't allow you time to get to the professional every single week, you need to learn how to manage your hair yourself, which is what my primary goal is. She pretty much tries to drive you in the direction opposite that. The products were expensive, not everyone can afford that. I was very disappointed at this book. One more person I have to agree with is S. Thompson, even if you buy this book for help; you are still on your own.

I also was really excited when I heard this book was coming out, but became quickly disappointed. I was hoping Ms. DaCosta would offer added information to the care and styling of natural African hair. There isn't anything that has been displayed better than Pamela Farrell's Let's Talk Hair or Tulani Kinard's NO LYE in this book. Unfortunately I saw nothing new.