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Transcript

The Educator's Crown · The Tight Curls Project

0:07
Hello and welcome to the Tight Curls Project podcast.
0:10
I'm your host, Shadia Oshodi, and I have an amazing guest with me today.
0:15
She is an award-winning STEM educator, entrepreneur.
0:18
She's also someone who is a fabulous and fashionable and my amazing friend, Claire Benton.
0:24
she is someone who is always changing hair.
0:27
So we love to have you here today, Claire.
0:29
So welcome.
0:30
Thank you, thank you, thanks so much for inviting me.
0:33
And I didn't realize how important my hair was to me until you brought it to my attention about me switching hairstyles and that's just talking about hair in general.
0:42
So I'm really grateful to be here.
0:44
Wonderful, yes.
0:45
So we can just dive right into your hair story and find out about you and how you're living your best life.
0:50
Where your hair is not the center of your life, but something you enjoy and make work for your lifestyle.
0:55
So that's something I really appreciate and I wanna share with everyone.
0:59
Okay, okay.
1:00
Yeah.
1:01
So, first question.
1:02
Let's start with taking a walk back to early Claire.
1:07
So I just wanna know, you know, what did you think about hair when you were in school?
1:11
Maybe that's elementary school or...
1:13
Middle school, what were some of your early impressions about your hair?
1:17
Okay, let's see.
1:18
Early Claire, you know what?
1:20
I had my family, my mother is someone who they care about image, right?
1:25
How you look, know, put earrings on before you leave the house.
1:29
how you look is important.
1:31
And I actually had an aunt that did hair.
1:34
So for as long as I can remember, my mom was doing my hair on Sunday nights.
1:37
And then that progressed to my stepmom putting braids in my hair, like braids and beads in my hair.
1:44
I should have gave you one of those pictures.
1:46
I'll find that for you.
1:48
If I had called her and asked her to braid my hair now, she would.
1:53
And then that progressed into going to my aunt's hair salon.
1:56
And me and all my sisters would go every Saturday, every other Saturday, and we were all sitting there for hours and get our hair done.
2:04
for as long as I could remember, getting your hair done was a thing.
2:09
then I ventured into the world of perms.
2:11
Okay.
2:12
I had a mother that waited and so.
2:15
What What grade do you think?
2:15
Had to be fourth grade.
2:16
And I wanted to get one.
2:17
I wanted to get one.
2:18
And, you know, it wasn't because the other Black girls had perms.
2:24
I went to a very rural elementary school.
2:27
So it was way more Hispanic or white girls than Black girls in the school.
2:33
And so all the Black girls hung out together, you know.
2:35
But also we were really mixed.
2:36
We hung out with each other.
2:37
It wasn't as separated as some other schools could be.
2:41
But I wanted a perm because I...
2:44
had a white best friend and she could swing her hair and I wanted to swing my hair.
2:50
And when I got my perm, my hair was longer than all of their hair.
2:54
Little Claire got in trouble.
2:56
Yes, little Claire got in trouble at lunchtime for flinging her hair around like too much.
3:03
I had a teacher come up to me and say, okay, like, you know, your hair looks really nice, but we probably need to leave it alone.
3:08
And I was thinking, hmm, hater.
3:11
Great.
3:11
Let me be great, dog on it.
3:13
But yeah, my formative years are just filled with getting your hair done.
3:19
that's kind of all I knew.
3:20
And then as I went to middle school and high school, I could go on forever on this topic, just to be clear.
3:25
Anything that stuck out or people that influenced how you thought about hair?
3:29
Yeah, for sure.
3:30
So after elementary school, I would say middle school, I had a stepmom that would say, just go in the mirror and play with the curling iron.
3:38
And I would.
3:39
I would just go in the mirror and curl it all different ways.
3:42
And she would tell me about when she first, you know, was getting into doing her hair, she would curl her hair all different ways and say hey to herself in the mirror.
3:49
And so I was like, oh.
3:50
So I think that was the beginning of playing.
3:53
freedom, uniqueness, the expression, the connectivity it is to yourself, I think came from her saying, you know, yes, I curl my hair and speak to myself in the mirror when I do so.
4:05
that was the beginning of playing.
4:06
That was middle school.
4:08
That's fun.
4:08
I love that.
4:09
So you are enjoying it.
4:10
I was enjoying it.
4:11
And I was luckily enough to have a parent that let me just try all the different styles.
4:19
My mom definitely described me as someone who was a hyper independent kid.
4:23
I remember it when I was four years old, I told her, okay, mom, I can walk myself inside.
4:29
And she was like, no, can't.
4:31
Right?
4:32
You can't walk yourself inside.
4:34
You're four.
4:35
Right.
4:36
So I think her
4:37
thinking that she was going to stop me from experimenting with my hair.
4:40
Like it didn't make sense.
4:42
And then I went to Dudley High School and Dudley High School, historically black high school and there a value of ours was absolutely self-expression and how you looked and
4:54
what makeup you had, what makeup you didn't have.
4:56
so.
4:57
Was that a fun thing?
4:58
Was it a stressful thing?
4:59
Both.
5:01
It was definitely stressful because it was a level of keep up, a level of eyes, but not on everyone.
5:07
It was what I chose.
5:09
I chose to go in the lane of, I want to look this way.
5:13
I want to do this thing.
5:14
And those were some of the people that I hung out with.
5:16
it was a choice.
5:17
You definitely have your emo girl that you think is cool.
5:20
What was your, what would, would you describe your crew?
5:23
Okay, my high
5:24
you girls or are the...
5:26
You know, it's very mixed.
5:28
My high school crew was my middle school crew.
5:31
So the middle school crew went to high school, but we all did different things.
5:34
I was in the band.
5:36
They played basketball.
5:38
We were just kind of did our own thing.
5:40
So I kind of hopped around friend groups.
5:43
I definitely had my band group.
5:44
I definitely had my nerd crew that I call when it's time to get work done.
5:48
You know, I definitely had the neighborhood kids.
5:52
that I hung out with, so was across the board.
5:55
But when we graduated, I did get most likely to become America's Next Top Model.
6:01
Oh, I never knew that.
6:04
Okay.
6:04
So this is about how you looked, how you carry yourself.
6:08
you, did you have a walk?
6:10
You had, fits before they were called fits
6:12
Oh, fits for sure.
6:15
Absolutely.
6:16
I was in the modeling troupe in high school.
6:18
High school.
6:19
Yes, you got that.
6:20
We did not.
6:21
And, but on top of like, that image was a separate thing.
6:25
My own personal self enjoyed the play of clothes.
6:30
I enjoyed the play of clothes and whether someone else liked it or not, I liked it and I was going to wear it.
6:38
And that went into my hair.
6:41
Am I going to wear braids today?
6:42
Am I going to
6:43
wrap my hair and unwrap it every night because then the flat wraps were a whole thing.
6:47
And so we would wrap our hair up and unwrap it at night.
6:51
What do you mean by flat wrap?
6:52
I know you're wrapping your hair, right?
6:54
Wrapping around, brushing it around.
6:56
work with around your head.
6:59
So then my aunt was still doing my hair.
7:01
So I would go to the salon.
7:02
She would, she would curl it or whatever, and I would wrap my head around at night.
7:08
And some people would put bobby pins in it, but I had my little black mesh with the Velcro that I would, you know, in front.
7:15
go to sleep at night, wake up in the morning, comb it down.
7:18
Or some people would like comb it down on the bus or they got to the bathroom.
7:23
We had to be fresh, a fresh fall out.
7:28
And then there was also a style girls of different hair lengths had to if your hair was short, you could still brush it down.
7:36
And it's cute.
7:37
If your hair was long, you could brush it down and it was cute.
7:40
So the flat wrap was heavily.
7:42
So when was this?
7:43
07.
7:44
08, 09 flat raps were in high school.
7:48
And you know, it wasn't until my junior year of high school that we started to think about natural hair.
7:55
Okay, How did that come about?
7:57
So The Natural came about.
7:59
I had an 11th grade English teacher, Miss Guynes.
8:03
Shout out to Miss Guynes.
8:04
So she had a fro and we were all like confused by her fro.
8:09
And so one day we asked questions and we were like, how do you get your hair like that?
8:15
And she said, what?
8:16
Like she was so shocked.
8:18
She was frustrated at us.
8:19
She said, what?
8:20
This is how the hair goes out of my hair.
8:22
Wait, you're confused about why her hair wasn't straight?
8:26
We were like, how did you get, put rollers in your hair?
8:29
And we were so confident.
8:31
We were like, you put rollers in your hair to make it do like that?
8:34
You we were trying to get, I just don't think it was prevalent.
8:39
uh who's okay.
8:41
living single, maybe the mom.
8:43
Maxine buy she had, she had, she had braids all the time
8:46
And we have braids.
8:47
We like braids.
8:48
Yes.
8:48
Yeah, that's true.
8:50
You're like, okay, let me name the 90 shows.
8:52
Yeah, I just can't think of one who had a or if it was maybe it was a cartoon and cartoon fro and real fro it just
9:02
That's fascinating.
9:04
I didn't really think about that.
9:05
That's true.
9:06
No.
9:06
And as a matter of fact, when your perm grew out too far, you needed to get a perm that nappy that your nappy roots Right.
9:14
their perception around the hair that grew out your head, needed to perm that you pass due for a So we were trying, we were so confident that she used the small rollers to get her
9:26
hair like that.
9:27
So you're having this conversation, she's trying to tell you, it grows out of her head like that.
9:32
And then, you know, how did that impact you guys?
9:34
We were shocked and then we started to try to mimic it in a way that we could.
9:42
Aww.
9:43
Yeah, she would wear stockings, like she would cut the end of a stocking and tie it around her hair and push it back and the fro would be behind the stocking.
9:51
And so we started cutting the end of our stockings, tying it around our hair and pushing it back on our little perm edges.
9:57
You're trying to emulate her.
9:59
Yes.
10:00
The other black teachers in the building, most of the other, you know, women in the building were black.
10:06
We had one with weave.
10:07
We knew infamously wore wigs.
10:10
We had one that had a mean, she had a mean flat iron game.
10:15
Like we could tell she flicked that wrist hard and it flipped back, you know, mean flat iron game.
10:22
or, or just styles that we didn't look heavy at.
10:25
Like, so that was the first time I encountered natural hair.
10:28
And it was great.
10:30
It was super interesting.
10:31
That is amazing.
10:33
Okay.
10:33
So then when did you go natural?
10:35
I went natural at 26, 27.
10:41
My younger sister, is a fashion, not fashionista, I would say, but she's glam, makeup, hair.
10:47
Like if I need consultation on these things, I go to her first.
10:51
She just stopped getting perms.
10:53
But she also was a heavy sew-in girl.
10:56
She would wear sew-in she would wear weave.
10:59
We didn't know she just stopped getting perms.
11:01
just noticed she was just wearing sew-ins And then we talked about it she's, yeah, I haven't got permanent like three years, Claire.
11:09
but her concept of natural was not from this earthy, get back to myself, I don't want those harsh chemicals.
11:17
It was just, I'm braiding it up to put it under weave.
11:21
That's it.
11:21
That was as far as her connection went to having natural hair.
11:26
And she didn't want to spend the time or the effort to do it or...
11:28
Correct.
11:29
Even now her hair is natural, but What do we call it?
11:32
She's a straight.
11:33
her hair out, but she wears it straight.
11:34
Okay.
11:35
She trained it.
11:36
She's heat trained it and it looks good.
11:37
And she doesn't have a perm.
11:40
That was, so I thought, dag.
11:43
So I started transitioning.
11:45
I was teaching middle school then.
11:47
I was, it was my fourth year teaching.
11:51
I started transitioning and I would just get rod curlers.
11:57
So, your rod set.
11:58
So, I wouldn't get a perm, but I would just get a rod set on top of the new growth to kind of make it look like a fro or a look.
12:05
And then that got to not be cute.
12:08
So, then for a year, I wore braids.
12:13
Consistently, I wore braids.
12:14
And my idea was, when you're teaching in front of kids, your image is important.
12:20
And so, I thought, I do not want to go in front of those kids and look like Florida Evans.
12:25
With my big chop, I just was not a big chop.
12:29
You are not a big job job girle Okay.
12:32
Fascinating.
12:33
You didn't want the questions for that.
12:35
Do think the kids would ask questions or they would taunt you?
12:37
Like what was your concern?
12:39
Oh, yeah, especially teaching high school.
12:42
Absolutely.
12:43
Like I had a relationship with my kids, but you see, I'm seeing Miss Benton's fro, like they would say something to me.
12:49
Absolutely.
12:50
And so after the year of braids, when I took the braids out, finally, I was in middle school.
12:56
I taught middle school students at that time.
12:58
And so I took it out.
13:00
cut it off the relaxer.
13:02
So that was my big chop.
13:03
just wasn't as low as a Florida Evans.
13:05
But I went to a, I think the salon name is Taji they specialize in big chops at the time, natural big chops.
13:14
So I paid the money, paid it $200.
13:16
Like, let me go, you know, learn something.
13:18
Cause I didn't know how to take care of my natural hair.
13:21
And I went in the next day.
13:23
and one of my students said, Ms.
13:25
you look like a sheep.
13:26
Wow
13:28
So I stopped class and I said, Hey, yes, I do have a different hairstyle.
13:33
You know, you guys are used to me having braids.
13:36
Did anybody have questions about my hair?
13:39
It was a sixth grade.
13:51
Who
13:42
He said, yeah, looks like a sheep.
13:45
know?
13:45
And I decided not to be offended because that was the only reference point.
13:50
Yes.
13:51
But I asked the rest of the kids, hey, do you all have any questions about my hair or anything like that?
13:58
Exactly.
13:58
Exactly.
13:59
Like no need to be offended.
14:00
If I'm the only person that you sing with an Afro, that's fine.
14:03
Exactly.
14:05
And all the rest of the kids did not care.
14:07
Nobody cared.
14:08
It was just that one kid.
14:11
I thought I looked like a sheep.
14:13
They're like, carry on, carry on, let's go.
14:15
Especially you teaching advanced kids.
14:17
What are we talking about math?
14:19
What does your hair got to do with anything?
14:21
So we did you feel okay after that to wear your hair natural was there adjustment period?
14:25
I needed that one kid to say it.
14:28
I that one kid to say it out loud and then I was okay.
14:33
And that's so funny.
14:34
I thought that I wanted nobody to say it, but I needed somebody to acknowledge
14:38
Acknowledge the difference, right?
14:40
Also?
14:41
Yeah.
14:41
absolutely.
14:42
So he acknowledged it.
14:44
I think I had some other teachers in the building.
14:46
They're like, you know, I like your hair.
14:48
But yeah, that was when I big chopped it and it wasn't for the Evans.
14:52
Shout out to Florida Evans.
14:53
She's a baddie.
14:55
I just didn't want her hair style.
14:57
And yeah, and so it was fine.
15:00
It was great.
15:02
love that.
15:02
That's amazing.
15:03
So, I'm guessing that even when you're natural, this continued that you would try different styles, right?
15:09
So, that increase?
15:11
Did you feel like you had flexibility with your natural hair
15:14
So in college, before I was thinking about chopping off anything, I came back every week with a new braid style.
15:21
Oh.
15:23
Yeah, because I lived in the city.
15:25
I was from the city that I went to college in.
15:27
So my hairstylist was there.
15:31
So every week, every other week, I would come with my hairstyles.
15:34
When I went natural, it did take me a minute to figure out how to take care of it.
15:41
It took me a minute to figure out how to take care of it, what I could and couldn't do.
15:44
what my image was as an adult with natural hair.
15:50
And then, you know, The thought, your hair is not done because it's a little more natural.
15:56
Who would you, would you get that from other people or you, that was an idea that you had to change in your mind.
16:01
Other people, other people, you got to know my, my mom was not a natural girl.
16:07
She, has a looser curl.
16:09
Yeah.
16:10
Yeah.
16:10
It's a looser curl.
16:11
Yeah.
16:12
And, so she really never had to perm her hair, but she did.
16:15
She did get perms.
16:17
Still, it was the thought of your hair is not done.
16:21
just from in the community, you know, there was a new thing, even though it wasn't a new thing, it was a new thing in my, in my circle, in my world.
16:30
so then I finally figured out how to take care of it.
16:35
It got long enough for me to coil out.
16:37
I would say I was less experimental those first five years, first four or five years.
16:44
How would you wear it?
16:45
Like a wash and go
16:46
would wake up in the morning, would choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo
16:55
you, thank you.
16:55
For the listeners, yes.
16:59
Is it similar to how you're wearing your hair now?
17:01
Because this is, or is this, you would do less style?
17:04
Yes, yes, this is way more styled.
17:07
So now you have like, I would say, described as a styled wash and go.
17:10
Yes.
17:11
Where you've like applied the product in sections, you've done some coiling maybe around your fingers and laid it the way you want it
17:18
The three, the three, um, row comb.
17:24
To pull it out, sit in a dryer, have the right products.
17:28
Yes.
17:30
That's now, but that was not happening in those first four or five years.
17:35
Um, I just didn't, I didn't know.
17:38
I didn't look it up.
17:40
Yeah, there wasn't a great amount of information.
17:44
Correct.
17:44
And then there's the thought of if you go natural, you don't have to do your hair.
17:49
That's interesting, right?
17:50
It's just, but did you find that to be true?
17:53
No.
17:53
the opposite.
17:55
It's more energy, it's more thought.
17:58
It's more more time.
18:01
Okay.
18:01
And why do you think that is?
18:03
Just curious.
18:05
I mean, societally or from society, I think that We are just beginning to learn more how we want to look with our natural hair or reframing our minds.
18:18
What is cute?
18:19
What is pretty?
18:20
What is, I look good with.
18:23
I would agree with that.
18:24
I see that too.
18:26
Because it can be a big change.
18:28
Because I remember for myself, like, I don't know what my texture is like.
18:32
I haven't had my natural texture since I was 12.
18:34
So don't know what the curls look like.
18:36
We weren't looking at them.
18:38
So I was in braids or I had my hair pressed.
18:40
I was not...
18:41
We weren't just wearing it loose and free.
18:43
Or you're a little kid and you're wearing it in like, you know, bows and little ponytails and things.
18:47
Absolutely.
18:48
So, yeah, how do you associate what you have with, is a look that worked for me when you've never seen yourself in those and you don't know how to do it because it's a whole
18:59
new texture.
18:59
oh
19:00
don't know what products to buy.
19:02
So it definitely was a learning curve.
19:04
Yeah.
19:06
So I think you shared some pictures.
19:09
I have those.
19:11
Do you wanna talk about a few of those pictures?
19:14
Because I think it's really fascinating all the different styles you have.
19:18
And maybe there's some from the early days versus more recent.
19:23
I have the pictures up.
19:25
Let's see.
19:27
So the oldest, okay.
19:28
The oldest is the G, the G, one to the left.
19:33
That is the oldest.
19:35
That was still perm.
19:37
Okay.
19:38
So you had full perm.
19:40
I'm gonna just describe these a little bit.
19:42
This looks like your wrap.
19:46
Your wrap.
19:46
It's like layered, full, voluminous.
19:48
You got some bounce.
19:50
And when I figured out not to perm the life out of your hair, you know?
19:55
And then from there,
19:57
This is a huge time gap in here too.
20:01
Okay.
20:02
So this one, is this your natural?
20:05
Yeah, this is natural.
20:07
I probably took some braids out or something.
20:08
It's gone out.
20:09
No perm.
20:11
What's not in here.
20:12
It's parted on this deep part of the side and it definitely looks stretched a little bit.
20:17
So I just finished up something and then I really let the fro grow out and we have pink shirt with my friend, my good friend, Stefan in the back.
20:34
was like the end of my shake it, pick it.
20:38
Like that was before I started applying products.
20:40
That was before I knew about the three comb.
20:43
You got some nice curls popping through.
20:45
A fro, tapered fro is very cute.
20:49
I wasn't going to the salon to get it cut.
20:52
I just let it go.
20:56
That was important, you know?
20:58
You know how artists grow their hair out like Jay-Z with his locks?
21:03
That was that.
21:04
moment.
21:06
Absolutely.
21:07
And then I was played around with the fro, the purple hair.
21:13
I really liked
21:14
this is a picked out fro.
21:16
Yeah, I pinned it on the sides a little fro-ho.
21:19
giving, yes, it's giving a faux hawk.
21:22
This is very model-esque.
21:23
I see why you won America's Next Top Model for the High School It's very, it's...
21:30
You're, you know, smizing, smizing a little bit.
21:33
Yes, in my apartment in Mooresville.
21:36
The pink braids was probably next.
21:39
That was very nice.
21:41
You've done a lot.
21:43
So let's fast forward to, is there one today or more recent that you really liked?
21:47
I big chopped it.
21:50
See, on the right, far right, I look a little naked, boom.
21:55
That was a second big chop.
21:57
Oh, this is low, low.
21:59
What'd call that?
22:00
a, is it like a Caesar?
22:01
is a, Oh, I don't know.
22:03
never heard of it.
22:06
Fade.
22:06
Yeah.
22:10
I paid $200 for the haircut.
22:12
She did her thing.
22:14
I still go to her.
22:17
Yeah.
22:17
I really liked that.
22:19
And then inside.
22:20
Especially like as short as hair as you can have without being bald.
22:23
That's how I describe it.
22:24
Yes.
22:25
It's lovely.
22:26
And then from there, I would play around with it.
22:28
Like you see the flower.
22:31
Yeah, cuz inside.
22:33
was like, yep, it's my 30th birthday.
22:37
cute.
22:39
You really have done a lot.
22:41
So I feel like this, your hair imagination is great.
22:44
Like you don't just do one thing.
22:46
And I think that's exciting because sometimes it can feel when you have natural hair that, you know, there's not that much you can do.
22:53
But even with short hair, you did a lot with the different stylings and with braids, you've done a lot.
22:58
And with the fro, you've styled it, you've had color.
23:00
And now,
23:02
I don't know if you would call it like a wash and go style.
23:05
You know?
23:06
just showing the curls like for me now I need I need my curls I need my antennas you know like that's the thing now.
23:15
This is my connect you know I was in a well I won't say that I was with someone who preferred short hair and I was trying to explain to them I did that already I need to
23:31
be connected to the world again with my hair antennas.
23:34
I need for me now, my hair is my prosperity.
23:38
Like it's my re-emergence into the world.
23:44
So you're like, after breakup, I need my hair to...
23:47
I needed it during the relationship too.
23:50
I needed it then too, but I didn't understand that in that space in life, my hair was my prosperity and growing it out was important to me.
24:01
Because as you can see, I'm scissor happy.
24:04
I'm not afraid.
24:08
With perm hair, I've had a shortcut.
24:10
Unperm hair, I've had a shortcut.
24:11
I'm always cutting it.
24:12
And so I would like to love it.
24:16
and learn it and grow it out.
24:18
would you say that's some of your goals right now?
24:21
For sure.
24:21
Okay.
24:23
I love that.
24:23
Well, thank you for walking us through the past, all the hairstyles.
24:28
What do you think is your favorite, is this your favorite hairstyle at the moment, how you're wearing it today?
24:33
Yeah, actually.
24:34
I love it.
24:35
It really is, it looks great.
24:38
Thank you for the podcast.
24:40
yeah.
24:40
I was gonna wash my hair and ran out of time.
24:42
So this is why we have this.
24:44
You know, the little twist.
24:46
You know, do what we gotta do.
24:47
And I think also this part about your lifestyle and having your hair work for your lifestyle.
24:53
I remember last year you were talking about taking swimming lessons and I was like,
24:58
This is amazing.
24:59
And I've talked to many women, dozens of women about hair.
25:02
And one of the things that I noticed, it was really the older women.
25:07
Women, because often they're the ones who are most likely gonna have short hair.
25:11
And I met a couple women, both in their 70s, who swim maybe three to four times a week.
25:16
tell me about, that example with the swimming and how you fit your hair to the needs of your lifestyle versus figuring out your life to fit around your hair.
25:27
Because I think some people feel constrained that they can't do these things because
25:30
their hair won't...
25:31
Allow it.
25:32
Yeah, absolutely.
25:33
So the swimming thing, because I had a fro, I felt really comfortable getting a swimming cap and I knew that I could rinse it.
25:42
It was once a week.
25:43
I knew that I could rinse it and go on.
25:46
At that point, I'm still, you know, wash and go.
25:48
So I could rinse it, shake it out, you know, and go on.
25:52
Other areas of my life, helmets to ride my bike.
25:56
Like if I want to ride my bike to work and I put my helmet on and then I get to work and then I'm gonna have a helmet hair No, no, no, no.
26:04
I can't ride my bike to work like that.
26:07
Okay.
26:08
So what do you do?
26:08
Are you riding your bike?
26:09
No, Aww.
26:10
I know, Everything else, I just do it anyways.
26:15
Because I am an entrepreneur, I am aware of both the time it takes to get my hair done and how my hair looks.
26:25
Not that...
26:27
a little bit more about how your hair looks.
26:30
What do you think is unique there?
26:32
So not that people who are not entrepreneurs do not care about their hair.
26:36
However, I know that need to keep it done to be taken seriously as I'm conducting business.
26:43
So how it looks, does, needs to look.
26:45
And when I say professional, I don't mean a style.
26:48
I wear my braids, I wear my fro, I wear my weave.
26:53
whatever I want to wear, that's what's going on.
26:56
but it does need to be done, I guess.
27:00
So it needs to be fresh and not old or like haphazard
27:04
do not have a hazard.
27:05
Correct.
27:06
And what are
27:06
you doing now?
27:07
Do you want to tell the people a little bit about what you're working on as an entrepreneur and just in general?
27:12
So
27:13
took those years of being a K through 12 educator and decided to create software to help teachers and buildings just run more smoothly.
27:22
I think a lot of the electronic systems that are in schools are systems and software created for business people, right?
27:30
Like Outlook, Google.
27:34
Now a lot of these places do try to tailor it, tailor.
27:38
what they have for education, but it was just not built with the intuition of an educator.
27:44
So my system basically combines calendaring, lesson planning, and observation so that people and teachers can be in one spot.
27:53
We have one system and we're not in emails and Google Drive and Outlook and scouring the internet.
28:01
Yeah, exactly.
28:02
Exactly.
28:03
I have five tabs open and 35 people in the classroom looking at me.
28:08
I can't imagine.
28:09
My friends who are teachers.
28:10
I'm like, you can't be off at any time.
28:11
You got literal people in front of you all the time who depend on you.
28:16
that you like, you you'll have it written on the board and somebody walk in and say, what are doing today?
28:22
You're like, but I have it on the same place in the board every day.
28:28
For you, I knew you were going to come in and ask me, you know.
28:32
Yeah.
28:33
I think it would be great if you want to share that with people.
28:36
Maybe there's some teachers here who are interested.
28:39
We can put that in the show notes.
28:40
And if people want to connect with you, how can they connect with you?
28:43
So if you want to know more about my company, you can go to teachbase, all one word, dot IO.
28:50
The Instagram is at teachbase.io.
28:54
So then you need the dot IO in there.
28:56
But if you just want to connect with me, you want to chat with me.
28:59
and see your hairstyles?
29:00
Yes, exactly.
29:01
To see my hairstyles that I'm doing next.
29:03
I need to be better about posting on social media.
29:05
But for you all, I post on social media.
29:09
And that's at Claire, no Huxtable.
29:13
Huxtable, H-U-X-T-A-B-L-E.
29:14
Claire, no Huxtable.
29:19
So fun.
29:20
I love that.
29:21
This has been a great conversation.
29:23
So fun.
29:25
I love it.
29:26
love learning more about you and your hair history and you're definitely inspiring.
29:29
So hopefully people will try some new styles.
29:32
Just play, play with the hair.
29:34
don't want to get to the end of your life and say, I always wanted to do that hairstyle.
29:39
Like, no, you gotta try it out.
29:42
Try it out.
29:43
Yes.
29:44
Wonderful.
29:45
Well, we're going to end here.
29:47
We thank you, Claire Benton.
29:48
Thanks for being here.
29:49
technical difficulties because this is the first interview.
29:52
We had such a fun conversation.
29:53
So please follow us where you're watching.
29:55
Send us a message and we'll see you again later.
29:58
Bye everyone.
29:59
Thank you.
30:01
you