What Is the 30DayHairDetox?
Founders of Black Girl Curls + Cut It Kinky. Aeleise (left) and Aishia (right)
So, What Is the 30DayHairDetox?
The #30DayHairDetox is simply a mind shift and lifestyle change where we challenge you to go 30 days without raw shea butter, raw coconut oil, Eco Styler, and products that include them in the top 5 ingredients.
First, we don’t hate oils and butters. To the contrary, there are some dope products that are impeccably formulated with these ingredients in them, even in the top 5 ingredients. You’ll even see some in our curated product list.
We are asking you to eliminate them from your hair diet for 30 days because our minds and our hairs likely need a reset from some common natural hair bad practices that we’ve picked up on our journey.
How Did It Start?
We always say we didn’t go to Youtube. Youtube came and sat in our salon chairs. In 2015 I (Aeleise) was a stylist working in Chicago, Atlanta, and Oakland. My job was to literally move about the country cutting and styling all of the natural hair. It was an adrenaline rush to connect with naturals who either didn’t have time or just couldn’t find a professional to give them what they wanted. I was doing 8-10 clients daily and usually 2-3 would be new clients who would sit down in my chair and spend five minutes complaining about their hair and end with “I’m doing everything right but my hair is still dry/ tangled/breaking/struggling.”
The first question I’d ask was what were these “right” things that they were doing with their hair. Somehow the conversation would inevitably turn to a method or person on YouTube that they were following. Many of the “methods” these clients were using to care for their hair at home I had never heard of before. From the Greenhouse Method, to Cherry Lola treatments, to all-day henna sessions, clients have brought the aftermath of pretty much everything you can think of into the salon. Baking soda & apple cider vinegar cleanses, mayo and egg conditioners, onion juice, you name it I’ve seen it and sometimes smelled it.
I was floored at the condition of the hair coming into the salon. It was no longer in the condition to receive the service as booked. A silk press would have completely obliterated the integrity of the hair, color was absolutely out the question and the best I could hope for was a decent twist out or wash and go style.
In 2015, Aishia wrote an article for Blackdoctor.org titled “10 Things Hair Stylists Want You to Stop Doing Right Now.” Aishia asked Aeleise if she would be willing to contribute to the article and she happily obliged. In the article, Aeleise quotes “Stop using the shea butter and coconut oil in your natural hair and a quality natural hair product is going to cost more than $10.” She didn’t find the comment controversial or triggering, but little did they know they were in for a viral, game-changing moment.
After the article was published, the Internet completely exploded. Thousands of naturals found the comment to be triggering and called Aeleise everything but a child of God. They even accused us of being racist white men behind a computer screen. Aishia acknowledged that although she told naturals what they should stop doing to their hair, she neglected to provide further context as to why they should stop doing it.
We later wrote a response article for Blackdoctor.org titled “7 Reasons Why You Should Stop Using Coconut Oil & Shea Butter In Your Natural Hair.” This article also quickly went viral, receiving 300,000 views that evening to 700,000 views to 1M+ total views within 72 hours. It was clear to us that women desperately needed help and education with their natural hair, but we didn’t know how to do it.
One day Aishia, who had just begun cosmetology school, was shadowing Aeleise and overheard one of those conversations with a new client. She had a lightbulb moment that they should take what Aeleise was doing behind the chair and do a natural hair challenge.
The challenge though was not about doing this and that step or following rules. It was about eliminating, for only 30 days, what we saw as the biggest culprits that were causing issues in the clients hair. There was no determination of anything being bad or good, we just wanted folks to pull back on the too little or too much of what they were doing; simplify by just cleansing, conditioning, and styling every 7-10 days for 30 days while getting education from us about the fundamentals of hair.
We know that you’ve probably tried all the things for your natural hair, but have you tried the #30DayHairDetox? The #30DayHairDetox is simply a mindset shift on how we perceive and treat our natural hair. You can participate in the #30DayHairDetox by subscribing to our consumer education platform, The SeeSomeCurls Visual Library. Learn more here.
