Jackie Challenger, 34
Owner of ‘The Coily Collective’
M: How long have you had the Coily Collective for?
J: About three years now.
M: Previous to owning this, were you at another place?
J: I used to work at a salon that also specializes in curly hair called “Hair Rules”. That's kind of like where I learned about curly hair, beyond having it myself. Before that, I was the token black girl at a lot of salons.
M: Well, besides having your own hair when did you start salon practicing?
J: 15 years ago. I went to school. When I graduated, I worked at a Dominican salon. So it's basically blow outs and trends. Very local kind of work. And then I became interested in color. So I'm mostly a colorist.
M: Tell me a bit about more of that because I think a lot of the time people expect your hair will be fried if you bleach it, especially when it comes to curly hair.
J: Curly hair is a lot more fragile than straight hair. So you don't have to go full throttle. People tend to look at our hair and see like it's dark, and coarse, or it's super, super excessively curly and they feel like they need to go like super, super hard with chemicals when it's actually the opposite. You need to take a more gentle approach.
M: How often are you getting clients on the regular saying “I want to try a different color” or “I want to learn more about my hair”?
J: We get clients all the time that know nothing about curly hair. Mainly because a lot of our clients work in like corporate America, and they tend to be the token at whatever company. But now things have been a lot more relaxed as far as the way that you can wear your hair and what's acceptable. I feel people are more interested in knowing “how do I take care of my hair naturally” instead of going against it naturally.
M: Growing up in the Bronx, I’m assuming a predominantly black area where you're from. So there weren't any issues growing up with your hair being natural?
J: I feel like we have a lot of texturism in the black community; In the Latin community too. I didn't necessarily have a huge issue because my hair is not super oily or porous. But I saw it with a lot of friends, where if you did want to wear your hair natural, you're stepping with it that way because it's not ‘Pelo Bueno’. It's not the good hair. It's not a looser texture. I feel we're very much in that with people that have 4-C, 4-B, 4-A, and less. So it's somebody like a 3-A, 3-B, 3-C.
M: What are you doing as a salon and as an owner to set yourself apart from any other salon or any other curly hair specialist
J: I feel like a lot of curly hair specialists are really about selling a product. I used to work at another salon called DevaChan back in the day, but it was also the people that made DevaCurl. So that was like their whole thing. Basically selling a product. When you sell a product you have to sell a whole lifestyle. They were very much 'if you don't wear your hair curly, you're doing yourself a disservice.’ I remember one time I came up with a blowout and they were very, very judgmental about it. I feel at the Coily Collective we like to honor that our hair is versatile and it's okay to do different things. You don't always have to have your curly, you don't always have to have it straight. You can have fun with it.
M: What products are you suggesting to your clients?
J: We have like an array of things I always tell clients like you want to use something super moisturizing. We have some masks that I love. Briogeo has some really good hair masks. You need something that's moisturizing, but you also have something that's going to keep your hair intact. Redken has one called Acidic Bonding Concentrate that I like a lot. It's an updated version of old-school protein treatments. But they found a way that you can actually have it penetrate the hair instead of just being a bandaid on the hair. Moisture is really what I preach to most of my clients.
M: What do you wish people knew better about black hair?
J: I wish people didn't think of our hair is hard to do. I feel even we tend to think badly about our hair. There's a whole thing now of people wanting to go back to relaxers because they're so tired of their natural hair. I feel we overcomplicate things because of the market. There are so many products now that people want to try everything. I feel that complicates everything. You can come up with a very simple routine that helps you just get through your day and have natural hair that you can enjoy and take care of.