Weekly Spotlight: Damian Walters

I am super excited to debut my "weekly spotlight" with one of my favorite people! Damian Walters is a very successful loctitian in the Houston area. As a career, Damian, in my opinion, has taken Natural hair to another level and once viewing at least 1 of his video's you will clearly see how and why!

I was referred to Damian's youtube channel by @Naturhoflo one afternoon while we were discussing me going into business for myself. While explaining how successful she was becoming in her town, she mentioned that she has learned so much from this awesome loctitian that makes video's. Of course, me being the youtube junkie I am, I tuned in and NEVER tuned out. I probably watched every single video he had available in 2 days. Yes, your gurl went harrrrd in the paint! Lol.
He has and continues to share "insider" tips and tricks as well as taught numerous do it yourself ers in the natural hair and loc community to love, maintain and style our hair.
So, when the idea for my weekly spotlight came up, naturally I thought of him. Gracious as ever, he eagerly accepted and candidly answered all my burning questions. So, without further gum flapping, here we go!

1. How long have you been doing hair? professionally and unprofessionally.
  At this point a total of 8 years.. I started when I was 19 and I'll be 27 this year.

2. What made you decide to focus on natural hair?
I hated what I saw when I saw people with natural hair! Some part of it always looked disgusting and I knew it didn't have to.

3. What would you tell someone to look for when trying to find a loctitian that is a good one. Are there any signs that a person can look for to know?
Look at the station.. it should look a certain way even if the person is a neat freak. A work station is just that, a work station with things in certain comfort zones for that person. Also, the feed back you get on your questions, how focused the person maybe to the price versus your hair and their attitude. I never understood the aggression.

4. Willing to share a moment when you had a complete fail doing hair? Like a style fail or product mix up, coloring accident...

Oh man no lie, I messed up a lot! I think those were my finest moments because I learned. One time this lady came in when I first started, I think it was like year 2 and she had very long starter locs and I had never seen this before. All I knew was when the loc is long, palm roll it so that's what I did. After I shampooed it I destroyed the pattern! I wasn't good with starting them yet just cleaning them up but I was upset with HER for letting me do these things so I got an attitude and started handling things very foolishly and ended up loosing all the way around. I have never felt so horrible! I never saw her again but I wanted to so badly; that moment made me work on me tremendously.
Another time I did a bleach and got the cheapest one because I didn't understand buying decent products. The salon I was in at the time made me think it was protocol to go to the beauty supply store daily, I was young and didn't manage my money well so I bought the one that cost 1 damn dollar and burned her hair up to jesus.. again another what the hell did I do.. but I learned!!

5. What is your hair motto?
Make this what I know it can be.

6. What is a complete natural hair No No in your book?
Listening to hear say without facts and dirty hair grows faster.

7. What would you tell someone considering going natural...getting locs..either or?
Make sure you are patient, aware of your change and that this is going to teach you a lot about yourself.

 8. What made you decide to start a youtube page? Were you prepared to become so popular amongst loc heads?
Just marketing that I'm a stylist in Houston.  I didn't expect this at all but I'm glad that I can help and I'm no where near finished, education is ever going and growing.

9. How do you balance your personal life with being a loctitian? Most stylist struggle to find free time for themselves...
My mom..lol she calls herself corporate and if it's late she will call in this demanding voice saying this is corporate it's late get your ass out of there! lol. But my love life sucks because people get the wrong image of me but it's cool I find the peace. Also, on my off days I'M OFF!

10. What is 1 loc tip (of any kind) you have learned that you don't mind sharing?
Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize and protein to build strength.

For more information on Damian, to contact him and see his amazing work check out http://www.theevolutionofstyle.com/index.html. 
Also, please subscribe to his Youtube channel to see for yourself why he is so awesome! http://www.youtube.com/user/damianjw84
Follow him on twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/HoustonDreads


Special thank you to Damian for being so candid and willing to do this interview for us. You are so appreciluved and have definitely educated many a loc head!

Thank you guys so much for visiting, feel free to leave your feedback below and don't forget to follow
my blog for future weekly spotlights! Next week it may be YOU!

Love,
Jahlicia <3