Transforming Black Hair Care: Shalita Grant’s Journey to Bridging the Texture Gap

Jackie - 00:00:10:

You're listening to the Diversity Beyond the Checkbox podcast. I'm your host, Jackie Ferguson, certified diversity executive, writer, human rights advocate, and co-founder of the Diversity Movement. On this podcast, I'm talking to trailblazers, game changers and glass ceiling breakers who share their inspiring stories, lessons learned, and insights on business, inclusion, and personal development. All right, welcome to the Diversity Beyond the Checkbox podcast. Thanks for listening. Today, I'm so excited to be speaking with Shalita Grant, Juilliard alum, Tony nominated actress and founder of Four Naturals Hair Treatment System. Shalita, thank you so much for being here.

Shalita - 00:00:58:

Oh, Jackie, thank you so much for having me.

Jackie - 00:01:01:

I'm so excited about this conversation. There's so much that I wanna get into, but first I wanna start with, how did you get into acting?

Shalita - 00:01:09:

Yeah, so that was like... Luck and happenstance, I guess. So my, when I lived in Virginia, there was a governor's school that had opened. And I had, you know, I'd gone to the same middle school, but I went to six different elementary schools. I had a lot of flux growing up, but my middle school was right next to the Petersburg high school in Virginia. And so I kind of knew the high school kids. And so I got this opportunity to go to a different high school, but it was arts. And so of all of the arts, disciplines, acting wasn't something that you needed like prior, like knowledge in kids can do it. So I rehearsed a scene, actually, they wanted a monologue. I did a scene from a raisin in the sun and I played both mama and Bonita and I slapped myself and I got into school two years later, because of all the things that I had going on, I started skipping and the school wasn't as great as I hoped it would be. So then I found myself in. Baltimore, living with my dad's family. My dad dropped out of school in sixth grade. So when I moved in with him in the middle of 10th grade, he just thought I didn't want to go to school. So, uh, I was the nanny of the other four kids and I was taking them to school and, uh, cooking and everything. And so in all of this, I was like, he's not taking me to school. Like, I don't think I'm going to get into a school. I had to like fight to like get him to take me to Baltimore school for the arts. And I went there and it was like, hey, I went to an art school before, I can audition for you right now. They gave me an audition a week later and I got in. And it was in my last school year that it was like, hey, I guess I... I guess I should think about what college I want to go to. I ended up meeting Juilliard because the school was a great school. Like any opportunity that I got, I just said yes. And I just like prepared. And so I won some national competitions in my last year and I met Juilliard at one of them. And then I auditioned and I got in and they gave me a full ride. And it was one of three schools that I auditioned for and they gave me the most money. So I was like, I guess I'll go to the Juilliard school. So my first week, 17 years old, first week at the school, I learned that I got into the best school in the nation for acting. Like for me, it was just like, they gave me the most money. It was like the best one. And so, yeah, I graduated and the rest is history.

Jackie - 00:03:52:

Wow, that is fantastic. Can you share, Shalita, some of the highlights of acting and what has been your favorite role to play?

Shalita - 00:04:01:

Some of the highlights. So, you know, my parents were kids when they had me. My mom was 18, my dad was 17. So kids make terrible parents. So, you know, I watched them struggle for many reasons. And, you know, I, for me, it was like, I want to have a better life. Like, and the best way to have a better life was through education. That's what they, you know, told us. So for me, acting was the one thing that I was like really good at as like super young. So at 17, you know, I was the first person in my family to get on a plane. I was the first person in my family to have a passport. I became a presidential scholar in the arts. I went to DC, I went to China at 17, I went to England at 17. So for me acting, you know, for the average person, they would be like, you should never go into acting if you want stability in your life. And they're absolutely right. I just happened to find stability in one of the most instable industries and it took me the furthest in life. So that's what I loved the most and it took me the deepest. Like I, at a super young age, I learned so much about like the motivations of people and relationships and things. Like, you know, you're playing these characters that are like years and you know, worlds away from, you know, Baltimore and Petersburg, Virginia, you know? Yeah. So, you know, that's one of the things that I love about acting is just how much I learn, how much I have learned. And my favorite role... I would say my favorite role was actually Cassidy Diamond in Search Party. I had the most fun playing that character.

Jackie - 00:06:01:

That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. You know, one of the things that we as black women have heard about the industry, right, is that stylists on TV shows are often not trained to care for black hair or style black hair. And it often leads to one, terrible styles, right? And then two, extreme damage to our hair. Can you share your experience with that?

Shalita - 00:06:26:

Yeah, so I would say that the experience that black actresses are having on set. Are reflective of the experiences that black women are having in their salon spaces, right? So depending on what salon chair you get into, you could have a varied experience even like with your hair, right? Some people will detangle it dry. Some people will detangle it wet. So it's this feeling of like, and then when you go in there, the way that they touch your hair can be like a mixture of disgust and discomfort. So we're getting that onset as well. The difference is that we're going in front of millions of people. And so in Hollywood, there are systemic issues just like in the real world. When it comes to hair on set and textured hair on set. And so for me, you know, I'm a black woman with typical black hair, type four hair, but I have this a typical career that requires the use of my hair. And so when I got my first big job in CIS New Orleans, it was a series regular job. And a series regular is different from a guest star, a co-star, because you're there, like that's your house, right? And so my assumption was... Well, now that I'm in the house, of course they're gonna have like the right stuff for my hair. Of course they're gonna wanna work with me. So the first year that I came on the show, it was the end of season one, I was a guest star, I got promoted and in season two I said, hey, I wanna wear more hair texture because we're in New Orleans and I can't keep flat ironing my hair. And so the question became how much texture. And so they put me in these extensions, the wet and wavy look, right? Type three, type two. And as a result of those extensions and the lack of care that was going into, you know, maintaining my hair underneath this hair, I ended an episode with traction alopecia. So then it was like, okay, now we need to figure out what we can use in her hair to give us this look. And so I came back in season two and I'm back in the wig, but I'm leaving the perimeter of my hair out and letting them flat iron it. And so in the middle of season three, I'm losing the hair on my hairline. So then by the time we get to the hiatus between three and four, I had an inch and a half of hair left around my perimeter. And it was a moment for me of like, okay, I have less hair for them to work with than I had previously. And this is just an ongoing issue. So I think I have to leave this job. So that's how like, you know, Juilliard grad, Tony nominee, I've done this, done that. And on the show, everything got narrowed to this one thing. No one cared that I was doing my own stunts, you know? Like there were so many other things that I was bringing to the show that I thought would matter. And at the end of the day, even down to what the fans were writing in, it was about my hair. Yes. So for me, you know, my experience was egregious, but it wasn't singular. Like there are still black actresses that are like, I have to do my own hair at work. You know, I get up three hours before everybody and I do my own hair because the hair department won't touch my hair.

Jackie - 00:10:20:

And they don't do it well, right? So we're not providing on set, stylists that have experience caring for black hair. And that should be part of what we do when we're wanting these multicultural shows, right? And we're trying to incorporate. More culturally diverse people we need to provide. What they need, right? And whether that's in You know, on TV and corporations, etcetera, we've got to have that foundation to make sure that we're caring for culturally diverse people. We can't just say we want more culturally diverse people and not have that foundation for them.

Shalita - 00:11:01:

But for a lot of people, they think that that looks like hiring black hairstylists, right? The funny thing about my situation is that I had a black man doing my hair. The entire time that I was on the show. So it's not just about like, hey, somebody that looks like you, he was a barber. He was not so, it's like, you can't just slap a black face on a thing. It is really about the qualifications. And that's one of the systemic problems with Hollywood is that for my extensions, for instance, he didn't do my extensions. They paid someone, a black woman, wasn't hired to maintain it on the set. They paid her the one off to do it, but then they wouldn't hire her to maintain my hair. So when the thread would break or my braid would pop up or something would happen that would require maintenance that also came with knowledge, I was lost. Like it was really, it would be a hair drama on set. And so for the actress, you are your hair. And so if my hair is causing drama, then you're a drama. So that's the other aspect of this that is really unfortunate is that for black actresses, you get the reputation of being difficult because your hair is difficult because they haven't hired anybody to solve the problems. That like, I want this look comes with.

Jackie - 00:12:40:

Wow, yeah, absolutely. And you know. Let's talk for a minute, Shalita, about the hair. You talked about the focus on the hair, not the focus on your acting skills, not the focus on your stunts, not the focus on you as a professional, but we were talking about the hair, that the comments online were about your hair. Let's talk about how that made you feel, because sometimes we forget that public figures have feelings. Right? Tell me how that made you feel that that was the focus when you're doing such incredible work, such hard work.

Shalita - 00:13:21:

Yeah, I mean, it wasn't just like one feeling. It was like, because this went on for years. So there was a real... like self mastery journey that I took myself on. As a result of what I was going through. So I actually found stoicism through this period. I have a more fatty, like tattooed on my wrists. And that's a Stoic principle, the Latin is. Like love of one's fate. And this is a belief that... No matter what is happening in my life. It's for my good. And if it comes with pain, it is a lesson. There is something to be learned. But at the end of the day, this is my life. And these are my problems to solve. And I get to solve them however I want to. Because the other fact is, until one is coming. No one is coming to save you. So... This is yours and it's beautiful. I'm getting married. I love my life. My house burned down. I love my life, right? In one, I'm learning about love and I'm learning about creating. And another, I'm learning how resilient I am. I am learning fire safety, which is very important. But I'm also learning that I can rebuild. I'm learning who came to my aid. I'm learning about my relationships, right? These are hard, but they are yours. They're your lessons, right? So for me, it was like, man, like I made it out of poverty as a child, like I like made it to be like the one that got picked, right? So it's like, this is great. And that great thing came with like humiliation like I had never experienced, disrespect. On set, right? The gas lighting, you know, like, we did help you and it's like, well, why is my hair falling out? You know, like.

Jackie - 00:15:37:

Right, right, right.

Shalita - 00:15:39:

So, for me, it was like, what am I learning? What am I learning? In some of the most like, some of the hardest periods where, like I felt like, you know, dang, like these people don't want me on this show, you know, and that like sucks because I feel like I'm giving everything and I'm not getting anything, but what am I learning, right? And so. The thing that I took away while I was there was that you know, it was the fear that, okay, I'll never work again. If I leave the show, I'll never work again, right? And then I left that show and then I did two shows like three months after leaving, right? So it was like, I learned like, it's not that cut and dry. Like it's not that cutthroat of a business, right? And in the midst of it, I was learning all of the ways in which this hair type is undermined. And as a person, how that affects you, right? Like if you have a problem and no one can or seems willing to fix it, then you become the problem, right? So it was learning a lot of like the office politics that I had never liked. And those are hard lessons, you gotta learn it. But for some of us, we learn it in these like really toxic work environments, right? In all of this, I was in therapy and I had like a lot of... These low moments. And it was like the feeling of the injustice of like the best thing that happens to you becomes the worst thing, right? And it was like, that's life, right? That's life school, you know? You think it's going one way. And it goes another way. So it was a moment for me of like, Who am I? In the face of this kind of adversity? Am I someone who gives up? Am I someone who, you know, gets mad? Am I, like, what is it? And it's like, yeah, I am all those things. I did get mad. I was depressed. I had dark thoughts, right? But... At the end of the day, it was like... What's important? Like how important is this? And so when I came out of that job, I came out feeling like Teflon, you know? Like being able to read the comments that I was reading, I found the four agreements through my therapist and it was like, practice, okay. Now it's time to practice that agreement that what people are saying is not about you, right? Because it was like, they need a black hairstylist what the shoe polish on it? And it's like, you have no idea, you have no idea. And how important is it for me to try to get this across to you? Like, it's like, all right, you read it, deal with it. Okay, move on, move forward. And so now, since I have experienced, you know, I have way more, I don't know, I just feel more like Teflon, right? When I get rejected, when, you know, whatever, it's like, okay, that's the road for us. And that's where the road ends, right? But drilling down into the hair, the other fear that I had after working was like, all right. You worked. But both of those characters were in wigs. So this is never going to leave you. Like you are in danger of having that exact same experience again, if you don't figure out how to save yourself, how to save yourself. How to arm your hair and make it as resilient as your soul is, right? How to arm your hair so that it can, you know, be in this style and do this and do that and be fine, right? So when I, in 2019, I just decided to solve my own problem because I went to the top of the mountain and nobody was up there, so I have to solve this for myself.

Jackie - 00:20:10:

I love that. And that's such a perfect segue into my next question, which is, then you started Four Naturals, right? And you told us how that began for you. How did you go about that process? So, Shalita, certainly you could say, I need to fix my hair, right? But not only did you do that, but you said, I'm going to create products for everyone. Tell us about that journey.

Shalita - 00:20:36:

Yeah. So 2019, you know, as a result of leaving the show, I did trauma therapy for three months. So that is the colloquial term for somatic therapy. So somatic therapy is different from talk therapy because it deals with the body. It deals with how the emotions manifest in the body. So think PTSD, right? And that's where this work came from. Dr. Vanderbeek, I think his, it's Vanderbeek something. He was working with PTSD patients and he noticed how it would manifest physically for these patients, right? And so how this talk therapy wasn't really dealing with the physical manifestations that were happening in the body that would agitate the person, right? Because when it's in your body, it's like, oh, I'm just trying to get this off. So we drink, we smoke, we fuck, we do things, we yell, because you're trying to evade this icky experience you're having. And so somatic therapy is all about body awareness. And so when I left the show, I had done three months of working with how unworthiness. Shows up in my body, how shame shows up in my body. And so when I was like, hey, I have to fix my hair, I started with how I felt. I started with all of the areas in my life where my hair was causing friction, right? So like an area that it caused friction was sex. You know, I'm wearing a wig. So like you touching my hair has a different... feeling, right? Friction. Working out. You know, you think you're doing a great thing, but sweat and then scalp hygiene when you're working out in a wig, right? And so the smell, you know? And the moment of like, ugh, you know, the sweat, it reverted this, and so, you know, friction, right? Going to the beach. I'm not getting in the water, right? Brain, friction. So it was like finding all of these areas that my hair just like unexpectedly became a thing, right? Beyond just my job. And so then it was like, right, let me think about all of the ways that I have this race, I've adopted this race to lens about my hair. And so the belief that my hair is so foreign, and it's so different that I require chemicals to like tame it, right? And then like, just like the lack of curl definition and the dryness and then looking at the market. So I come from hairstylists. My grandma's owned a hair salon since before I was born. So I knew what I considered great black business owners who cared about education and everything. I knew what they knew about hair. And it was relatively nothing. It's all about hiding the hair that grows out of your head. Dyeing it, frying it, laying it to the side, hiding it in a braid so you don't have to manage it. Because we're all responding to some of the same hair health issues, right? But the options are limited for dealing with them. It's all about... not dealing with it, right? So I thought, all right, cool. Let me just... figure out all of the non-white but successful hair cultures. What do they do for their hair health problems? And then switching my focus from cosmetology, because I knew what the cosmetology board preached about hair, and they said, hair is hair. There are no hair types, hair is hair. Here's a straight hair mannequin. Even the relaxer, which is arguably developed for type four hair, is performed on a straight hair mannequin, right? So that's like the definition of erasure, which is why you're having all of these experiences chair to chair. So. I looked at cosmetic chemistry. That is the study of hair for making hair products. So I learned about how my hair is negatively charged. That's why they say hair is dead, right? And how you need products that can have a high cationic or positive charge to do the thing that you think you're doing when you do your wash day, sitting with the avocado tresame mask for like three hours and you're like, three hours, that's a magic number, man. When I rinse this out, it's gonna be so slick. And then it's not, but then you can't deal with that because it's 11 o'clock and you gotta finish styling your hair for work tomorrow, right? So it's like these rituals that we have just become accustomed to. This is just the price of having this hair. And I was like, nah, I am a human, God made me. So there is something on this earth that God made that's gonna help me. And then I found the people of India and their Ayurvedic medicine. And Ayurveda is the practice, the belief that there are plants and practices that can heal the human maladies at their root cause, not the symptom, right? So why do the people of India have such a great hair reputation? It's because for centuries, yeah, they've used henna for tattoos, but they also use it in their hair. So when you see Indian men with orange beards, that's just pure henna that they treated their beards with, right? And so I learned about how they were using henna and using these henna mud masks and adding other Ayurvedic plants. And so I looked at other black women that tried henna and failed cause that's what I was looking for, right? When I learned what henna does, that it binds to the strand, people mistake henna for protein because it can attach to your strand, it's very strong, but it solves hair porosity issues, right? Low porosity and high porosity. It paves over, for me, I had high porosity hair. So if I looked at a heat tool, my hair was damaged straight, right? And so with my cuticles being covered, I have protection on my hair. For low porosity people, their hair is more fat, and so oil, so the water rolls before it absorbs. Okay, henna is water soluble so it can balance their porosity and help them retain moisture. So then I went to black women that tried it and said it was terrible. And I kind of like grouped what they all had in common, right? So it was using henna that are made for dyeing. So they have additives like metallic and chemical salts to speed up the dyeing quality of henna. And another thing they did was they didn't add humectants to their henna mud mask. Maybe they didn't use a bastardized henna, maybe they used a henna lawsonia powder, but they just did henna and water. Okay, then you had the ones that didn't deep condition after. So I took that information and I just... made up a henna mud mask based on everything that I had learned from all of these hair cultures and all of these plants. I had created my first henna mud mask. And I had what I describe as like my black girl like trust issues. Like I did the first treatment and I was like, okay. I definitely have some girl pattern. It's richer, it looks, it's softer, okay. But, I don't believe it. Maybe in a week, my hair is gonna go right back to what it was. It didn't. I did my second treatment, I did my third treatment, by my third treatment. My hair, I had like a week after I treated it, I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like, whoa, my hair is completely different. Like I have... definition. And I know that I did not sleep with a bonnet on. I did not, you know, like I made all of the bad, you know, I did all the bad stuff and I did not have like this stiff, hard, dry fro. I had long, elongated, shiny curls. So it was in actually a pole class that I decided that I needed to start the business. Because, pole.

Jackie - 00:29:33:

Okay, Shalita, in a pole class, tell me.

Shalita - 00:29:37:

So, pole. So, I don't know if you've gathered, but I'm very introspective, right? And so, by the time I got to 30, I, all of my 20s, I was, lifted weights, right? Like I was doing my own stunts. Like my social media was all about like being tiny but mighty, you know? And then I got bored cause there's only so many times you can do this. It's like the rest of my life, no. So I was like 30, I was like, all right I gotta find something else to like challenge my body. And so I found out about all these like pole studios. So I started going to one in LA and then I start working on like sensuality, right? Because when I got to New York, I was 17 years old. I lived there for seven years. So I feel like that city like shaped me as an adult. And my first year, street harassment, right? Like very real, you know? And you know, I had a nice figure but it didn't make me feel safe being on the street. So eventually I changed the way that I presented in public and you know, just like looser, like don't look at me, right? And so I realized like how much that experience affected my own relationship to my own sensuality. And so I would do mirror meditations in pole class. And meditating on my own like... feelings about myself. I always came back to my hair. The fucking wig that I was wearing, right? That's hard, right? And so then I started working on, all right, I'm not going to wear a wig to pole class. I'm going to wear my natural hair. I'm going to wear my furrow, right? And then working through like my feelings about that. And so by my third treatment... of a foreign naturalist treatment. I saw all that friction that I had in class go away, because bending over this way and like you seeing like how the wig separates from, you know, like it's like I was killing it and I know you can see it, but whatever, you know, like whatever. But man, when I did that class, it was so empowering to be like, no matter how much sweat, no matter how much whatever, I'm gonna look like this. And it's soft and I'm like the only one. Like it used to be that like, oh, curls, no. It's like, no, I'm special and I know you won't touch it. You know, like there was just a different vibe that I had. I remember like there was another black girl in the class and I was like, man, like, I need to make sure that we can all feel like this. Cause it's high time that we all feel like this. Like you shouldn't have to cut all your hair off to feel like the freedom that like, no matter what happens, like this is what I look like and I'm gorgeous, right? Like with my loose type four hair, I wanna feel like that too. And I did. And so, The entrepreneurial journey is a spiritual journey. I had to get through some really tough childhood beliefs that I had developed, one being that you can't be successful if you're doing more than one thing. My mother, she is a convicted felon. And so when she got out of prison, she didn't have a lot of options to work for other people. Not that she particularly wanted to. And so like she went into doing hair for my grandma and then like she did her own thing. But then she had like 50 other careers. She was a perfumier, she was a poet, she was a manager of model, manager, you know? And it was always like this get rich quick. And so as a result of her instability, as a child we suffered, you know? there was a lot of instability. And one of the things that I took away about that experience was you have to do one thing. Because I'm looking at my grandma with her hair salon that she's had forever and she's stable. So you can only do one thing. So when I had that like thought, it scared me, Jackie. Oh, it scared me. But I had to work through the first of childhood beliefs that I had about entrepreneurial journeys and their success. And so, dealing with things like imposter syndrome was one of the... and it still is, but I feel like I have a much better attitude toward those feelings, that feeling of who do you think you are. Who do you think you are? You can't do that. Nobody's successful doing that. You don't know what you're doing. And when that, you get that thought of, you don't know what you're doing, on something that you don't know what you're doing, like the end of that is that you have to stop, right? Cause if you don't know what you're doing, you should quit. And so for me, it's been a journey of making my imposter syndrome thoughts a pit stop instead of a dead end. And so, what that thought is telling me, like how I like to think about it, is that like, you're right, I don't know what I'm doing, but the best way to combat that is to learn. So learning how to be a good teacher for yourself and being open to learning, like being open to growth. So what, you don't know what you're doing. There are other people that do and they will love to tell you about it.

Jackie - 00:35:34:

Absolutely.

Shalita - 00:35:34:

You get audible, you go to YouTube. Like, it's like, that's fixable. So it's a pit stop. You're just gonna fuel up on what you don't know so that you can keep going.

Jackie - 00:35:44:

Absolutely. So fantastic. Shalita, let's talk about these products. Tell us a little bit about them. Who are they for? Who should be using them? What kind of results can you expect?

Shalita - 00:35:57:

Yeah, so the 4 Naturals treatment is really addressing the texture gap. What is the texture gap? When you have type 4 hair, the tightest hair texture on the hair chart, your experience, over 65% of us have four or more health problems, hair health problems. And that's compared to like 30% of people with type 2 or wavy hair pattern. And so 95% of us would switch from our regular routine because of the high dissatisfaction with those needs being met. We struggle with dryness like nobody's business, the slow growth breakage. We have a lot of issues with, it's actually pretty epidemic with hair loss and we can't establish normal routines because our hair changes, like the way that it behaves changes. So for me, it was about addressing that, but also addressing issues like detangling, that phenomenon of detangling your hair and seeing the entire corner filled with your hair. So the first step of the 4 Naturals treatment is a patent pending detangling method. It's using the principles that I learned from Eritrea in Ethiopia and what I also learned from cosmetic chemistry about hair. And it's a fast, thorough, pain-free detangling method. Now that's free to you basically, but then we have really the heart, the cornerstone of the treatment, which is the henna mud mask. So the henna mud mask in the mud mask as it's sold, there's about three treatments if you have medium to long hair, more treatments if you have shorter hair, but the henna mud mask solves all of those hair health problems. So in one treatment, most users see instant curl definition, permacurl definition. The way that your hair responds to water is to curl instead of separate and fro, right? Then your product performance, the way that products perform in your hair is way better. And most people see that, wow, I'm using less hair product. By your third treatment, you got a different head of hair. Like if you low porosity, and that's who usually has the first result, they get the softer hair, but they don't really get the curl definition until they put a styling product in it. And they're like, oh, okay, I think something happened. But by the third treatment, they got curls. It's just nothing but curls all day, every day. And so that's what the henna does. The Casio De-conditioner, Casio Bavada is known as neutral henna colloquially. And it's because it acts like henna and that it can absorb onto the strand, but it's not permanent and it doesn't leave any color. And then there's slippery elm, which increases the tensile strength of the strand. Tensile strength is the ability to bend before you break, think steel, right? And so these two, by the time you rinse out the Casio, you got a different head of hair. Like your hair is just behaving differently. And the benefit of henna is every treatment literally builds on the last. So from treatment one to treatment three, no matter if you treat it every two weeks, every week or every six months, your hair is invisibly thicker. The curls drop even more, but they're stronger. So it's really the miracle plant that we've been looking for. And let me just talk about why we don't use it. It's because the Cosmetology Board has one paragraph in all of their education that talks about henna. In that paragraph, it says, there are some henna's that contain chemical and metallic salts. These chemical and metallic salts have a negative reaction with chemical hair color. The chemical reaction is that the hair could smoke up and could potentially catch on fire. And because you cannot be too sure which henna your client used, always strand test, but avoid if possible. So what our stylists have remembered that as is henna is bad.

Jackie - 00:40:23:

Right, right, right.

Shalita - 00:40:24:

Henna is just bad. Don't put it in your hair. But it's specifically talking about henna's that were, henna powders that were created just for dyeing the hair. But henna lawsonia, the plant, has zero chemical reaction with hair color. So if you go to the website, you'll see that I have users who were able to grow their chemically colored hair with the Four Naturals treatment. Amore Monet, she's a licensed cosmetologist and she lived that cycle of the big chop where her hair would grow a little bit, she would color it, it would deteriorate, she would cut it and on and on. Well, all she did was add the Four Naturals treatment, that coating around her strand, and she was able to grow. And now she has this like punk rock, now she's changed it because she realized that dream of being like this punk rock, bold red goddess with this like long but shaved on the side. And now she's like, okay, I'm going into like these autumn colors and I'm just like experimenting differently because I made that dream come true. So I have to get a new hair dream and I can do it. And my hair is long enough and strong enough to handle it.

Jackie - 00:41:41:

That's awesome. And Shalita, you can use it with type four, type three hair.

Shalita - 00:41:47:

So that is the beauty of filling the texture gap. Because... 65% of us struggle with four or more hair health problems. We are not the only ones on the hair chart that have any of those problems. If you're a type three, you might not have curl definition. You might just have frizz, right? But you know your hair's a three, but you're dealing with frizz. The four natural treatment is for you. For people with type two hair, you may have a wave going, but it's dry. It might be thin. The four natural treatment is for you. For type one hair, you might have limp, weak hair that you want to thicken. The four natural treatment is for you, because remember, henna came from the people of India. People of India have straight hair for the most part. So it's really for hair, including beards.

Jackie - 00:42:39:

Wow, awesome. Shalita, that's so amazing. Tell us where we can get the 4 Naturals products.

Shalita - 00:42:48:

Yeah, so visit me over at www.four, the number four, naturals with an S as in all of us, hair.com, fournaturalshair.com. I always tell people before you go to the store, visit the education. Like I want you to be as knowledgeable as I am so that when you do your Four Naturals treatment, you know that this is the best thing out there for your hair problems.

Jackie - 00:43:19:

Amazing amazing Shalita, this has been so great. Thank you so much for the education, for the stories, for the inspiration. What's the message that you want to leave our listeners with today?

Shalita - 00:43:33:

Oh man, the message that I would leave with your listeners today, for the ones who are struggling with their hair, you're not wrong. You're not alone and help is on the way. And for people who are not and are like coming to this conversation, like I never knew this could be, yeah, hair is not just hair for some of us. So like, I hope that they come away with more empathy and a wider, you know, understanding that we're all having a different experience.

Jackie - 00:44:09:

Shalita, thank you so much. This has been so great. I appreciate your time and I appreciate your stories. Thank you so much.

Shalita - 00:44:16:

Thank you, Jackie.

Jackie - 00:44:26:

Thanks for joining me for this episode. Please take a moment to subscribe and review this podcast and share this episode with a friend. Become a part of our community on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. This show was edited and produced by Earfluence. I'm Jackie Ferguson. Join us for our next episode of Diversity Beyond the Checkbox. Take care of yourself and each other.