After realizing how empowering and insightful virtual spaces are for women, Doaa decided to create her own to share her own experience with curly hair and open the space for fellow curly heads to share their experience. Since then, her group The Hair Addict became the ultimate go-to for curly heads to get hair tips, heat free motivation, and regain self-confidence! We’ve talked with the Founder of this brilliant virtual hub and here’s what she told us!
How did you come up with the idea of the Hair Addict group? And why do you think it’s important to have a virtual safe space for women to share hair tips?
The creation of The Hair Addict group was in fact very spontaneous. I have always been very keen on caring for my hair and testing natural ingredients and mixing up recipes for hair growth and health. I noticed that people from my circle of family and relatives have been effectively using groups to connect and interact with people of similar interests, so I went ahead and created The Hair Addict.. Since then, women have considered The Hair Addict to be their safe space where they could encourage one another to go about their natural hair journeys.
Before launching the group, did you plan or expect to expand more on ground with events, talks, Website and so on?
I only intended for The Hair Addict to be a platform to share hair care tips, but it was only after that I’ve noticed that superb level of interactions between members and the growing interest in natural hair that I’ve decided to go bigger with The Hair Addict and deliver our message of self-love through the masses.
How did you start the idea of selling local curly hair products?
I wanted to expand The Hair Addict and turn it into a business to have more means to empower women and help them restore their hair. I then decided to compile a team of experts and formulators to commercialize and test the recipes that my family and I have been using for ages, and we were successful to launch our first product, The Indian Hair Growth Recipe. After that, we have managed to add several more to our line-up and they have been very successful as well.
How do you feel that your group is now a go-to for a lot of girls and women in Egypt?
No words can express how proud and happy I am for what The Hair Addict has become, the magnitude of support and love that these women give to one another is immeasurable and it is always a motivation for me and my team to do our best. It’s always great to see girls with natural hair walking down the streets knowing that some of our efforts went into making these girls and women have pride in their natural hair.
Despite the fact that a lot of Egyptian women are originally curly heads, curly or natural hair has often been criticized, why do you think that’s the case?
Curly hair usually needs more tender loving care than straight hair, and some upkeep to keep the curls healthy. Without proper hair care knowledge, women found that their natural hair was only a big, frizzy nuisance, and so they resorted to easy fixes such as heat styling and chemical relaxing and never really saw the full potential of their hair. The stigma was further augmented by TV and Media that have positioned the quality of attractiveness only to actresses with sleek flowy hair. But that’s starting to become a thing of the past now, and we are moving at a steady pace to eliminate that stigma.
Being a curly head yourself, have you ever faced these negative comments or criticism just because of your hair? If so, how did you react then?
I always had to wear my hair up in tight braids and ponytails throughout the years of my childhood and early adolescence because of how big my hair was. I thought it was repulsive. I then succumbed to the negativity and started having my hair straightened every week for many years. The resulting damage has made me reconsider everything I was doing so I decided to start off The Hair Addict with the goal of embracing my natural hair, and the rest is history!
What would you tell current mums of daughters with curly hair?
Don’t ever go against their natural hair by tugging on their hair and putting it in super tight hair styles which result in irreversible hair thinning at the front, instead, learn to go along with their hair and tame it with the right products and techniques. You should also make sure that you always remind them that they’re beautiful no matter what their hair texture is.
What’s next for The Hair Addict?
We are planning to expand The Hair Addict’s product line-up, attract more males to be part of our audience, and also operate in more Middle Eastern and Arab countries such as UAE. We also plan to arrange more natural hair cutting and styling trainings for hairdressers in order to increase the availability of natural hair-friendly salons to cater to naturalistas all around the globe, this decision comes after we have certified – with the help of world-class American hairdressers- more than 28 natural hair stylists who operate in Egypt, UAE and Russia.