For Curls, By Curls: Uplifting and Informing Black Women in the Natural Hair Community

• Joycelyn Brown, Visual Communications, University of Delaware

• Katie Leech, Art and Design, University of Delaware

Visual Communications student, Joycelyn Brown, uses her passion for hair care to ignite research into branding and design. With trial and error and years of trying different products and methods to maintain her natural hair, she has become confident in her knowledge of curly hair. 

This knowledge sparked an interest in how she could visually communicate the importance of safe and healthy hair practices to other Black women through design. She surveyed a group of 25 women to understand their hair types, what kinds of products they use, how they learned to do their hair, and what attracts them to products while shopping in the hair care section. This gave her more insight into how much individuals are reading ingredient lists to the products they are using, and how hair care products with beneficial ingredients can be designed to attract more consumers. From this survey, she gathered that many women are first attracted to eye-catching designs and packaging, then the description of performance, and lastly the ingredient list. 

Through working on this project, Joycelyn began to understand that her project was more than just designing hair care products, it became a platform for her to share helpful information she found through her experiences through Instagram carousel graphics. Joycelyn created the name “For Curls, By Curls,” as a message to other Black women with curly hair to understand that it is created by someone who shares the same experiences with them. Joycelyn intends to expand her knowledge of curly hair to other Black women who may have lacked the same knowledge she did when starting her journey, while also learning more about other hair experiences and how design can impact the way hair care is perceived.