XHEY BUTTER BEAUTY

Hi y’all. I’m Xhey (Xhey/they). My name is pronounced “shay” as in shea butter :D Tuck in because to know and love me is to read my fat paragraphs. Screen reader → on. 

I am an Afrilachian & AfroIndigenous brown-skinned person who grew up on Nacotchtank/Anacostan land (colonized as Washington, DC). My family lives and labors in the southeast region of Turtle Island. We have specific ties to plantations and company towns along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. 

I am autistic and autigender. Which means I experience gender fluidity in uniquely autistic ways that are at the core to how I experience the world through all five senses.  Being autigender and neuroexpansive(*1) means I am a trans nonbinary person with hidden disabilities that uniquely prepare me for life. This also means that I have personal experience with specific traumas, including sensory overload & tenderheadedness.

I became a Natural Hair Care Specialist because I thrive the most in a psychologically safe environment doing wholesome work for my community. I started Xhey Butter Beauty after studying salon business at Durham Technical Community College. My LLC is a client of the Duke Law Start-Up Ventures Clinic and I am working in consultation with the NC Small Business Center at Durham Tech. My long term plan is to open a salon that is also a childcare center, to create access to healthy hair care for children and families at reasonable, anti-capitalist exchanges. 

I provide services within your budget and complimentary to your cash flow. I will never begin work without discussing price first.  I do not aspire to become a six-figure instagram stylist. This is not my dream job, it is my offering to our collective work and responsibility.

I stopped relaxing my hair when I was 19. I learned how to take care of my hair from the forums on Yahoo! Back when Naptual85 had ear-length hair. I staked out whole foods for product launches and bought raw materials from overseas to mix in the kitchen of my on campus apartment R.I.P. Butters-N-Bars dot com :‘(

The only chemical treatments my hair has had in 15 years are vivid color with bleaching. I’ve been bouncing between shoulder length hair, undercuts and baldies for the last 10 years and have had locs since January 2023. With these personal experiences and my training at Durham Tech, I am confident that I can provide psychologically safe hair services to survivors of hair trauma and texturism. I am also confident that I can provide gender confirming hair care to all ages. 

I move on crip time(*2). That means that labors of love and labors of necessity happen as my body and mind allow them too. I limit my appointments to 4 hours of active styling time to accommodate myself in my business.  

 My goal is for you to become your own independent kitchen stylist. That said, I am absolutely willing to become your partner in kinky, coily, curly, wavy, and silky styling. 

“I do not dream of labor.” - James Baldwin

*1. This term is exclusively for Black people who are neurodivergent to acknowledge the unique way race transforms how our disabilities are perceived by society. https://medium.com/@ngwagwa/neuroexpansive-thoughts-9db1e566d361 

*2.  I encourage you to seek information about crip time, specifically about the radical choice to sleep in. As you’ll see on my booking page, I do not take AM appointments. https://www.academia.edu/38968271/Sleeping_in_is_How_We_Crip_Time