Taliah Waajid is about the business of beauty. She is an entrepreneur and natural hair advocate with years of experience working with different hair textures. After learning how to style her natural hair as a child, she decided to launch a line of products to help people everywhere feel beautiful with their natural tresses.
Waajid spoke with rolling out about her expertise with natural hair, which products are customer favorites, and how she is sparking a movement with her event World Natural Hair.
What should someone beginning their natural journey do?
So, the best thing to do is to learn your hair texture and [if] you don’t have time to learn it I recommend you go to a professional natural hair stylist. [Someone] who is knowledgeable about not just different curl patterns but different hair densities and hair porosity. Those [are the] things that make up your hair texture, it’s not just your wave pattern. If you have like tightly coiled hair and you’re trying to define your curls, heavy cream works best for you, or if you have like wavy [hair], a light souffle will work best.
Which Taliah Waajid products fly off the shelves the fastest?
Curl creams are still our number one thing. We have curl definers, curl creams, and mostly for tightly coiled hair. So, those are our top-selling items. [Also] growth oils because people [are] always trying to figure out how to make their hair grow, or some type of damage [was done] to their hair and they’re trying to get that little spot to come back. So, growth oils always work well for us too, and leave-in conditioners. Those are go-to things that we find are our top sellers and can’t forget that edge control. You can have an Afro, but you’re [going to] get some edge control.
How is the World Natural Hair: Beauty and Health Movement impacting your industry?
Well, we don’t call it a hair show anymore. It’s like a lifestyle experience and it’s more of a movement. It’s the natural hair movement and it’s a cultural movement because it’s so connected to who we are as a people, before all the other extra stuff. [We just focus on] natural hair, natural health, health and wellness, and natural beauty. [Also] eating healthy, and making sure that you are learning about what we’re putting in our bodies. So, that’s all going back to nature. Being natural or as natural as you can be.
What do you want attendees to take away from the event?
Well, there’s going to be so much to take away. I guess the main thing is seeing all of these Black people working together over the weekend. We’re [focusing on] business, it’s a great environment, the vibe is really nice, and [we hope that] you have a really great time and [that] it was something that was worth your time of being there. [We hope you] walk away with something, you know, I can’t tell you what it was, but we tried to put things there. In everything we do, there’s something positive that you can walk away with. So hopefully, when you attend you [can receive] that and we’ll see you next year.
