ABOUT US
Designed to Care For Type 4 Hair
Hair is my family’s business; my mother, aunt, and grandmother are all or were at one point hairstylists. Having grown up working in a hair salon that was licensed and black-owned, I knew what cosmetologists knew and were taught about afro-textured hair: virtually nothing.
Fast-forward past four years at The Juilliard School, a Broadway debut and Tony-Nomination, I found my hair and self-esteem utterly wrecked after three years on a television show that garnered millions in weekly ratings. I had traction alopecia in the center of my scalp from the extensions with a looser curl pattern; the perimeter of my hair was fried to about an inch long, constantly under threat of baldness over those three years. My tight Type 4 hair was not welcome on set; instead, the producers mandated my character have a “professional” look, even when my natural hair suffered or fell out to comply with the mandate to wear a ponytail. After quitting what was once a dream job, I told myself that I would turn that pain into a platform. I decided the problem I would focus on would be hair care over hair styling.
In my quest to solve my own Type 4 hair care issues like fragility, shedding, lack of curl definition, and lack of growth retention, I gave myself one goal: All of my ingredients must come from nature. After scouring the web for research, I learned about ancient all-natural ingredients and hair care practices from India and North Africa. I landed on using henna powder – which became the cornerstone ingredient for my product. I was shocked after my first treatment; after the third, I was madly in love with my new gorgeously defined type 4 curls. I knew I wasn’t the only black woman who had experienced hair discrimination. So I created Four Naturals Hair to ensure my community could heal these hair woes and become a staple in black women’s hair care.
After scouring the web for research, I learned about ancient all-natural ingredients and hair care practices from India and North Africa. I landed on using henna powder – which became the cornerstone ingredient for my product. I was shocked after my first treatment; after the third, I was madly in love with my new gorgeously defined type 4 curls. I knew I wasn’t the only black woman who had experienced hair discrimination. So I created Four Naturals Hair to ensure my community could heal these hair woes and become a staple in black women’s hair care.
You see, most of the products and approaches to Type 4 hair are about altering it. Imposing a “look” on our hair – making it straight or chemically created curls, achieving different lengths with wigs, weaves, extensions, manipulating it with chemicals. And most of the application methods are damaging and costly to our real hair. In addition, some of the products marketed to the Type 4 hair community contain ingredients potentially harmful to our health, making hair care potentially dangerous to our overall health.
Type 4 hair is considered the least desirable hair type. And even though the natural-hair movement is the largest and most positive it has ever been – women and men with Type 4 hair agree that it’s hard to keep our hair healthy. We would agree that if our hair sheds, is easily prone to damage, hard to detangle, suffering years-long growth plateaus, hair that won’t cooperate with water (the list goes on) isn’t the most desirable to care for. Deep conditioners don’t address porosity issues, Chemical relaxers never fixed thin fraying ends, and none of our hairstyles or products addresses our shedding or lack of growth retention.
The African American community has never had a treatment system dedicated to the underlying issues with type 4 hair — the care aspects.