Every curly girl has their ups and downs when it comes to their natural hair, but what if we told you there’s a brand that will make your natural hair journey just a little easier?
Kazmaleje is a hair company that designs innovative hair tools specifically catered to curls, coils, and kinks. “As black women, we spend a lot of money on our hair so we deserve better hair tools.” says Co-founder LaToya
Co-founder of ‘Kazmaleje’ LaToya Stirrup, and her two sisters started this brand back in 2016 but have been on the market for almost 2 years now. Their products have been featured in places like Vogue and Allure.
“We started our brand because we were looking to solve our own problems, we were tired of long wash days, excessive shedding all the time, detangling, and just a really poor experience.”
Kazmalaje recently teamed up with IFund Women of Color, which is an organization “to help diverse entrepreneurs bring their dreams into reality through raising capital via crowdfunding and providing grants, coaching, and the connections needed to launch and grow successful businesses.”
This collaboration led to LaToya being selected in American Express’s 100 for 100 campaign that is providing $25,000 grants & 100 days of resources to 100 Black women-owned businesses. LaToya says “Did not know who would be selected, but it was amazing to find out!” she continues “It was really emotional because we’re in Covid and a lot of businesses weren’t sure what was going to happen.” LaToya explains that the experience was definitely a “lifeline” for business owners.
It seems as though, despite the global pandemic, Kazmalaje continued to thrive. “We actually saw some really good organic sales increase, that just happened because women were home struggling with their hair.” she says “A lot of women have gone natural because of Covid.” Interestingly enough, during the beginning stages of the pandemic, the brand sold out 5 times!
LaToya also lets us in on where Kazmalaje would like to expand. “We want to expand beyond, because natural hair is a full on experience, so there’s a lot of innovation that we want to do within that space. And we’re super excited for what we have to come.”
