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The Braid Book
by Helen Rosenbaum
Reviewed March 1998
Review Updated October 15, 2004
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Introduction
This book review was originally published in early 1998 and at
the time it was written, it was based 100%
on my own personal opinions and thoughts. This
review, like all book reviews, food reviews and other review
documents was based solely on the opinion of the reviewer and may
not agree with the opinions held by others.
This review is in no way intended to make any direct or indirect
statements about what is right or wrong with fashion, hair design or
hairstyling practices, race, creed or religious based beliefs,
history or practices. It is merely my personal opinion about a
book that I read and consequently reviewed.
A Paperback From The Past
I found this 17 year old paperback innocently nestled in the shelves along with
all the current 1998 hair and beauty books at Powell's main bookstore in downtown
Portland, Oregon. I looked around to see if there were any other copies, but this
was the only one. The book was in pretty good shape considering it was a paperback
version. It survived nicely over the years.
This 125+ page book was written at the height of a new cornrow craze that
was started by Bo
Derek in the very popular movie "10". Right after Bo graced the screen with her gorgeous blonde
locks done up in cornrows, the look became the rage of the year for women
that normally might not have considered cornrow styles.
Helen Rosenbaum was one of the hair and beauty experts who spent hours doing
cornrows on all the women anxious to get the Bo look. She wrote The Braid Book in
response to the sudden new demand for cornrows that she experienced as a
direct result of the Derek cornrow craze.
Many women, according to Rosenbaum, were
desperate to sit for as long as 10 hours and spend hundreds of dollars to duplicate Bo's
braided look.
Although women of color have been wearing cornrows for centuries,
many of the Bo Derek period cornrow wearers were Caucasians and did
not have the knowledge of the hairstyles that women of color have
had. Since many of these women were new to cornrows they were not
familiar with the amount of time and skill it took to create the
styles. As a result they were often unprepared for what was
involved. Rosenbaum's book was intended to help explain the
cornrow process from beginning to end.
All of the photos and illustrations are done in black and white except for the
cover which shows a photo of Bo Derek with her cornrows.
This book reminds me that I was one of the women who saw the Bo Derek
look and decided that for me, it was not an option to spend 10 hours, $300 and
deal with possible hair damage to
recreate it on my own hair.
This does not mean that I am against cornrows or that I think
they are wrong for anyone else. They were just not the right
style for me and my hair type, texture, condition and goals. I will not stop at anything to grow my hair longer, but I am
always cautious about potential hair problems from a new style.
Helen does point out
some of the dangers of tight cornrows and the addition of fake hair which was used on
thinned haired women to create a fuller braided look. In essence, Helen
warns that cornrows might not be right for everyone and every type
of hair.
Nicolette Larson
Overall I really enjoyed this book very much. There is a great photo of the recently
deceased singer, Nicolette Larson posed against a tree with her thigh length hair in two
large pigtail braids. Helen quotes Nicolette as saying "she washed and conditioned
her hair with Vidal Sassoon, never used a blow dryer, cut her hair 3 inches every year and
had not had a major haircut since 1969". Considering this book was published in 1980,
that was pretty impressive hair information at that time.
There are also photos of Miss Piggy, Valerie Simpson of Simpson & Ashford,
Peter Tosh and of course, Bo Derek, all in various cornrow styles. I enjoyed the really
interesting photos of braid variations. Even though they are done in black and white
and don't have instructions, I am certainly going to play with recreating some of
the styles for myself.
This book is out of print and hard to find. Amazon.com will do its best,
but may not be able to find it. If you can get your hands on it, I would strongly
recommend it. I paid $3.95 for the book at Powell's although the original price on
the cover was $4.95. It is probably cheaper to pay a surcharge to some book
publisher like Amazon to locate the book than fly out to Portland to search at Powell's.
Since I needed to be in Portland anyway, I was just lucky to find the book.
Good luck and happy book hunting.
Note: On October 10, 2004, I
searched for this book on Amazon.com and the Net. It appears
that the value of this out-of-print book has skyrocketed in value to
the $65-75 range for used copies. The used copies are still
available through Amazon.com.
Buy The Book
Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 1, 1980)
ISBN: 0671414976 |