Urban Beauty Collective: Uniting Stylists & Customers

REPRINTED FROM MISSTHEDA.COM

Urban Beauty Collective (the nation’s largest independent retail promotional network for black hair professionals) recently launched a Ning based social network for black beauty salons, barbershops, stylists and those of us non-professionals who want to be on the cutting edge of urban hair design.

UrbanBeautyCollective.com has forums,blogs and photos from relationship, fashion and beauty experts. When you join the site, you are asked a series of identifying questions. One nice way that the site indicates the type of community member you are is by asking yourself to be identified as either a beauty professional (”I am a stylist/barber”) or as a non-professional (”I am Black hair”). It’s a cute way of making the non-professional members of the community feel like experts.

The network has 200+ photos of actual customers uploaded by barbers and stylists so that both professionals and non-professionals can find the exact look they want to emulate and also find, friend and interact with the stylists themselves. Other unique features such as HOT SHOTS (photos of great styles by stylists from around the country) and SHOP CHATTER (advice for stylist and barbers) further connect professionals and non-professionals alike.