When Mona El-Gharby was growing up she struggled to find the right product for her naturally curly hair or even just to find a place to get tips on how to style it. So, in entrepreneurial fashion, she went out and created what she was looking for.
The product of the work is CURLē – a brand of hair care products design specifically for people with curly hair. Combining her academic background in management, biology and human rights as a student at SMU, El-Gharby infuses science into her entire CURLē line. And while it’s set to launch and start taking its first sales this week, it has been a long journey.
“CURLē really originated from my struggle and journey to embrace my own natural hair,” El-Gharby told NTX Inno. “We’re more than just selling products, we’re really selling information, we’re selling resources, we’re developing a platform and a community around natural hair that’s encouraging. It’s a lot more than just a hair cream, for example.”
El-Gharby said the work behind CURLē really began for her in middle school and her journey to embrace her own hair. While growing up, even as a teen, she noticed the standard of beauty many brands used did not look like her. And even if she found styles she would like to try to break out of the years of wearing braids, she struggled to find resources online on how to replicate and maintain that look.
She eventually figured it out on her own, after much trial and error. That’s when she began having others ask her to help them out.
“People have unique experiences with their hair… there’s a variety of different issues but I’m really hoping that with our product, we directly address these issues and offer a products that are one-and-done for all the issue that you may have,” El-Gharby said.
Now, working on a triple major, she is doing that with CURLē. The management side of her studies fit with running a business. While her studies in human rights she said will help her grow CURLē into a community of positive change in the world. And chemistry has given her the knowledge to formulate her own products that tackle the three biggest issues El-Gharby said people with hair like hers face: fizziness, definition and dryness.
However, because of the pandemic, CURLē has faced a number of hurdles and pivots to get to its launch date, especially as its $7,000 in funding – most of which has come from pitch competitions – forced her to prioritize where to best spend.
“Right before signing a contract, the pandemic hit China and the manufacturer shut down,” El-Gharby said. “So everything that I had worked for, for months and months, vanished essentially because I no longer had a manufacturer.”
In addition to losing her original manufacturer, which pushed back CURLē‘s planed end-of-November launch date, the pandemic has also caused her to tweak its business model, making all of the products in-house. However, the loss of the manufacturer and other cost issues, cause El-Gharby to hit the books to develop a formula for her various products that could work for all customers. And after checking her formulations with other established chemists, El-Gharby is ready to launch and grow.
“I think it was the best thing that ever happened… because it really made me do the due diligence and make sure every single ingredient was the perfect ingredient for the formulation,” El-Gharby said.
CURLē and its team of five part-time data scientists and marketing people are hashing out final details for an expected launch on December 11, hoping the holidays will give the company an early boost and some brand recognition. As it grows, the company hopes to host workshops for people to learn about their hair and how to care for it, as well as host one-on-one consultations with customers – something which El-Gharby is looking for more outside funding to do.
CURLē is also planning on hosting campaigns to encourage people to embrace their natural look, something she wished would have existed when she was younger. It also fits into El-Gharby’s vision of CURLē being a platform for positive social change in the world.
“I think when I was younger, I really needed something like what I’m trying to make to be confident in my hair and know that my curly hair was beautiful, so I hope to inspire people all around the world to do that,” El-Gharby said. “We’re hoping to set the trend addressing social issues that need to be addressed. Previously, we’ve kind of seen a separation of corporations and social issues but what we need to have in the future is a direct address. Corporations have a huge impact on social issues, especially the recent ones.”
