- That spritz was so damn strong!
- It smelled good though!
- It did have a good smell to it,
but it became the Black girl's perfume.
- Baby, and they used to put,
when you put that heat to that spritz, cooked it!
- And it goes, (imitates sizzling).
- Ooh, it had they hair lookin' like string beans.
(upbeat hip hop music plays) - "You Wore What?"
Look, I got 27 reasons why we are not bringing this back.
This was hideous, the worst thing ever.
What is a 27-piece? Alonzo, I need to hear from you.
- Well, down here, we call it a quick weave.
You know what I'm saying?
When you quickly weave it in
and someone be weavin' it too quickly
and they need to quickly take it out, okay?
It just don't be looking right.
I don't see no part. It's like a curtain.
Like you try to open the curtain up,
trying to see what's going on.
- That's exactly what it looks like.
- Yeah, an opening act.
Like, "Oh, yay!" (audience applauds)
- It's a no for me. So, apparently it comes in a bag.
It's a bag of hair.
They're all really short pieces of hair, right?
Little short tracks, you gotta glue them down, right?
So it's kind of like Build-A-Bear.
It's build a wig, real quick.
You just glue it down. That's what it is?
- A 27-piece for me, when my home girls used to do them,
you either drilled your hair back
with Pro Styl or some big grease or a thick gel.
You dried it.
Some people that cared about their hair,
put it on a stocking cap.
I know some girls who glued it
straight onto the gelled hair.
Sometimes your hair is too short to braid underneath.
Sometime maybe if you didn't have edges,
maybe if you didn't have certain, you know what I'm saying?
There was a lot of reasons why the 27-piece became popular.
And you got to understand, too,
a lot of these hairstyles originated in a shop.
You know what I'm saying? It originated in the hood.
And it was something that became a mainstream thing.
But, so when you see it on big artists,
it still don't change the process on how it's done.
It still don't change the process
of what's going on behind the scenes.
And so, and this once again, 27-piece was
a lot more popular then because wigs weren't as big.
So, weaves were a lot of things
that a lot of people did back in the 2000s.
- So, was, okay. So now I kind of understand more.
So when you would do a weave, a sew-in or something,
that would take so long that doing something like this was
going to look better than how the wigs looked back then
'cause they were hit and so they would,
it was kinda like a wig effect, but it was just quicker?
- Yeah, and it was cost-effective.
It was any, your homegirl could do it.
And it was something you can switch
and take on and off quick. - Like a wig!
- Yeah. And that's why it was on a stocking cap.
So, when you put it on a stocking cap,
it kind of became a wig.
And, let me tell you, no quick weave,
no 27-piece would ever be possible without that black glue.
That black glue that stink,
that turned into rubber when you go like this.
- Uh-huh. - On they lashes,
it really was a fool!
That black glue used to be everywhere,
in every Black home, in every hair salon,
you could not do a 27-piece without that black glue
with that red top just dabbing it on it.
- Look, I'm not gonna lie to y'all.
I have a bottle in my makeup stuff right now.
That's how I put my lashes on.
People- - Yeah!
- There's such controversy about should we use
that on our lashes or not?
But, I feel like, if you remove them properly,
you are not going to go bald.
Some people just aren't patient and rip them right off.
But, I love my black glue.
- You know what another problem with the 27-piece was?
When the 27-piece will start to lift in the back.
For everybody who had the short ones
and they want to do to the little short cuts.
And it starts with that little ducktail part start
to lift on the back of your neck.
- Ooh, yes, honey!
Looking like a rooster! (rooster crows)
- Yeah! - Woo!
And it'd be on that neck like that.
It be lookin' like a chicken, like,
(imitates chicken crowing) (record scratches)
- Boy, it gave you- - Like they
on a farm or something!
(Alonzo imitates chicken crowing)
- Monica did 'em. Ashanti did 'em.
Eve did 'em. Mary did 'em.
It was so many of the girls back in the day
doin' these 27, Beyonce did.
Everybody had a 27-piece at one point in their career.
- I really feel like we need to have a conversation
with all of them 'cause I don't know.
And why was it, too, that the main style
that they would wear is that little peekaboo style,,
where it was like this?
- Yo! - That doesn't,
that cannot possibly look natural, at all.
- It's lookin' that!
- But, the only reason why was because you used
to have to lay the tracks in a way
to where it looked like a part.
So, if you didn't lay them tracks
to where they split like a part,
it was really going to give you some wig vibes,
unless you did what Mary used to do.
Mary used put at 27-piece on the back
and then flipped the front to go backwards.
- Like that, like Farrah Fawcett!
- Farrah Fawcett, but she used to do it all around her face.
- Oh, yeah and it curved like- - So, she had it figured out?
She had it figured out.
She was ahead of her time with that,
because those parts weren't fooling anybody.
That was not a part.
You cannot lie to me and tell me
that that looks like a part.
It looked like the tracks to me.
Just with the little space. - But, it served its purpose.
For the '99 and 2000s, belonged to the 27-pieces.
27 of them. It wasn't 28.
It wasn't 29. It wasn't 19.
It wasn't 20. It was 27 pieces.
And Lord don't let that 27-piece start itching.
Only way you can get up there is with a rat-toothed comb.
- Look right here like this.
- Oh, and another thing the 27-piece
you couldn't do without was spritz,
spritz in that brown bottle.
That spritz- - Ooh, that spritz!
Ooh, it had, they held still! - It, relationships together.
Baby, that spritz was so damn strong!
- It smelled good though.
- It did have a good smell to it,
but it was, it became the Black girl's perfume.
I swear, it's like every girl smelled the same.
It didn't matter what else you put on.
You took a shower, you didn't take a shower.
That spritz was so overwhelming.
- Baby, and they used it for,
when you put that heat to that spritz?
Cooked it. - And it go
(imitates sizzling). - Ooh!
It had they hair lookin' like string beans.
- Grits, Pro Styl, and black weave glue,
the three ingredients to bomb 27-piece.
(Natalie laughs)
(EJ laughs)
So, I, for one, love this moment of the nineties and 2000s
because, especially Black women, looked so regal
in these moments and this effortless haircut, the pixie cut.
Nia Long, you know what I'm saying?
Gabrielle Union, the pixie cuts,
the flips, the natural length hair,
the blow-out. - Yes!
- Loved, love, love, love what that era was
and I wish that would return to tell you the truth.
- For sure! I feel like it was so just effortless.
It definitely was elegant because some
of these styles were a little bit ratchet
and we can agree to that.
So, this, the flip curl and the pixie cuts,
it was just so bomb.
I loved, you know who did the best?
I love Rihanna in it. I think it just fit her face.
Honestly, you kind of have to have the face for this type
of style because it was really a short style
and really just put all the attention on your face.
Rihanna had the perfect face for the style.
- Rihanna ate the pixie cut.
That whole era of good girl gone bad,
that whole like Russian roulette era.
I loved Halle Berry. I love her long.
I love her short. but Halle Barry will forever be classic
and will always be the staple of the pixie cut,
of just this (indistinct) haircut.
I love that. But, you know did it for me?
I liked when Janet did shorter.
When Janet went short and she did her little short pixie cut
because of once again, it's the thing that you have
to have the face to carry it.
- I love the flips, the whole flip era.
And I feel like it's coming back.
As you can see, we're doing it different now.
We're doing it was swoop bang and a little flip.
We're doing it doing it so many different ways.
So, I feel like that style will never go out.
And that was one of my all=time favorite trends,
as well, was the flips and I love, I can do a flip.
Right now, I've got a little flip going
on right here in my bangs, so, you know?
- Ooh! - Yes!
There's definitely- - This is my flip mode!
Flip mode, honey! - Right.
- Meagan Good was another one.
I loved- - Ooh!
Meagan Good rocked that look!
Honestly, Meagan, when Meagan did it
and Gabrielle Union did it, I'm telling you,
it just gives the most fun, flirty vibes.
And you notice, too, I think the pixie cut
and the flip curl style, it really forced people
or promoted people wearing their natural hair
because a lot of them were doing it
with their natural hair instead
of putting on the wigs and the weaves and all that.
And it just, I don't know,
it just gave me real effortless vibes, school girl vibes.
- It just never got old.
It never became a style that just got tiresome
and it really showed a lot of women's beauty.
And, even today, it transitions.
Today, a lot of these artists,
they want to make like Teyana Taylor.
Teyana Taylor can literally wear any hairstyle.
But when Teyana does her hair in the short pixie cut.
- Yes! - Or the little ducktail
she be doin' or, I just love how she,
her outfits with her hair and she can go
from the short fade and curls
to the pixie cut and the ducktail or-
- Yes! - Girls of this generation
are showing the younger girls
and the younger people coming up,
you can rock your natural hair.
You can do short cuts.
Everything doesn't have to be super long.
And s- - I love it!
- So, sometimes bring it back to the basics.
- I have to say, though, even though I'm a fan
of the pixie cut and the whole hair curl flip thing,
sometimes the pixie cut style could really
be having people look like someone's auntie.
You really gotta look like, have the looks to pull it off
because, I don't know,
especially when they get the wig that's the pixie cut.
It's just, you're giving real auntie vibes
right now. (indistinct)
- And when they started doing the two tones
in the pixies and the 27s, it all blended into one big mess.
And you know what?
A lot of people don't understand how much maintenance it is
for a pixie cut.
It's more main- - It's a-
- Any other hairstyle because once the hair grow out
or your perm grow out, your press grow out,
a short cut is so much maintenance.
Ain't no pixie cut done right
if you ain't got no Marcels if you ain't got the-
- Ooh, you gotta have the heat, add the right heat!
- In that oven!
- And sometimes the stylist up and fried you.
Look at myself.
You got to go to a professional experienced stylist
that know how to use a Marcel,
'cause sometimes, they'll turn your hair to the white!
- 'Cause then you take- - No, honey.
- Fan them like this to cool 'em off?
- Oh my gosh. I remember I did that one time.
I burnt the girl's hair.
I been goin' with a pixie cut and I said (imitates sizzling)
and I'm like, "Ooh, how you doin', girl?
You're not," and I thought she heard the (imitates sizzling)
so I had to distract her like, "Ooh,
what you doin' tonight?"
- Oh! (Natalie laughs)
- (indistinct) Girl, I to do like this about 30 seconds.
Ooh, she turnt around like, "Oh my God. Did my hair burn?"
I was like, "uh-uh, girl. It burns just a little, you know?
A little spritz, that's it."
- You gotta burn be a little bit.
You gotta use four different curling irons.
You gotta use the real small ones to get that back.
And then you got the medium ones to curl above that.
I used to love sitting
and watching hairstylists curl the very,
very fine pieces of hair all the way to the top.
- And the client be like this, "Ooh, ooh!"
They be like, "Ooh that hurt. It's hot!"
(Natalie laughs) And they do
their hair like this.
"Ooh, ooh, ooh! It's hot!"
(Natalie and EJ laughs)
Girl, sit down. Do you hair.
I told you to bring your head down.
That's why it's hot. I said, "Bend you head down."
- You gotta hold your hair.
They say hold your hair down like this, hold that hair.
- Ooh, ooh! - Right.
And sometimes your fingers are gonna get burned.
Your ear might be fine,
but your fingers are going to come out black 'cause, look.
- If you do the pixie cut, you have to fully be committed
because sometimes, I remember my mama, she got a pixie cut.
And then, her hair started growing out.
It started makin' her look like David Ruffin
'cause it was just all long and uneven.
It was like long at a trap and it looked short in the back.
It like she got struck by lightning.
I was like, "Ma you got this pixie cut for two weeks
and now you wanna grow your hair back out?
Okay, I guess."
- It was really wearing people's scalps out.
But, I won't trust nobody to do any short cut
if the salon don't smell like hair,
if the Marcel's is not plugged in,
and you ain't got a little rat-toothed comb
to hit each of them backs.
If you ain't got them three things,
I don't care what tools is good today,
there's nothing like a Marcel on the stove, period.
(upbeat hip hop music plays) - "You Wore What?"