30 May, 2008 - Published 10:53 GMT

Hair today - gone tomorrow?

This year Afro Hair & Beauty Live celebrates its 25th birthday in a splash of colour, style...and plenty of whacky looks.

The biggest show in the UK celebrating black beauty and hair started life as a trade show, and has now evolved into a lifestyle event for young black women - and men.

The atmosphere is electric as thousands of fashion conscious young people crowd round stands or watch hairdressing competitions.

But when it comes to the wild and wacky, is it only women who dare to take the plunge and are men content to stand on the sidelines and stick to the conventional short back and sides?

Sylvia Smith headed for Alexandra Palace to find out whether black men are turned on by women's hair experiments and what they think about their own styles.

Hear views from the floor of the Afro Hair & Beauty Show

What do you think about some black hair styles today - funky or going too far?

Have your say

To join the debate, fill out the form on the right.

Hair today - gone tomorrow. That’s so true. After one style is another.
N Thomas
Roseau, Dominica

Black people are now embracing their "Naturality", our natural hair. Many Afro-Caribbeans have stopped relaxing their hair and wearing their natural hair proudly. The perception of "bad or nappy hair" is changing. We have stopped being afraid of our hair. Exploring and manipulating the wonders of Black hair. We need to see natural hair worn on our woman and men who have embraced it. And the only way we can do that is to showcase our natural hair on its own merit without seeing it compared to other hair types. It’s all about acceptance of our hair-type and not carrying false expectations of what it can or can't do. It's not about taking the easy road and conforming. It’s not about destroying your hair through continual straightening. It’s about accepting our natural God given Naps as it was intended to be.
Keisha Greenidge
St. Georges, Grenada

Great show. Will like to keep in touch, hair dressing is my new business.
James Lystra
St.George, Grenada

Some black hair styles are a bit extreme but it's an expression of who we are-a bold set of people who dare to make our statement anyway and anywhere we feel like.
I think natural hair is best to the extent that it allows us to demonstrate that sporting our 'Africaness' in the fullest is no shame, because slavery and colonialization has encouraged us to relax our hair and to look more like the ideal-European straight hair beauty-but we need to get away from seeing European beauty as the standard and embrace ourselves as beauties.
Men are becoming a bit more daring especially here in conservative Jamaica and the wider Caribbean. They are curlying and corn rowing etc. But I think the Caribbean, especially Jamaica and Haitian consciousness, influences blacks around the world more than anywhere else. Especially because of Jamaican music which is embedded in African consciousness and preaches black beauty.
Tyrone Hall
Kingston, Jamaica