I come to you as the Founder of SWAYED, revealing the baby that I have been carrying for more than two years now, heavy on my mind and my body but I knew that I had to bring it to completion. There was a part of me that had known for a long time that I needed to create something with my own two hands, something that could be a reflection of who I was and how I saw life. 

The problem was, for the longest time, I couldn’t really figure out who I was. Or at least, I did not know how to truly express Myself. 

You see, I was born in the Ivory Coast, grew up in France and moved to Montreal in my late teens. I evolved amongst different groups of people, always in search of identity and community. Not that my roots were not strong enough but the pressure of who I was supposed to be as well as the doubts regarding how to express myself were sometimes stronger and overwhelming. The desire to conform and be accepted was contradicting my physical appearance. I figured being a strong, bold wallpaper was the way to go as I embarked into corporate life. I was young. I had never been loud one day in my life before that (eyeroll). 

The thing about aging, for me at least, is that you eventually stop caring, caring about what people think, caring about what you’re supposed to do, caring about how people see you. 

And when you stop caring, the social norms imposed on you start fading and you have no other choice than embracing yourself, flaws and all. And by doing so, you start attracting a community that you have been striving for, for all these years. 

When I speak about community, I do not necessarily mean people who look 100% like me. I consider myself open to learning from people different from myself. However, there is a certain sense of comfort and intimacy that appears with people with whom you can relate to about crucial aspects of your identity.

This is how, in the Fall of 2021, I was walking around the city with two friends of mine. One was a nurse from Guadeloupe and the other was an accountant, a Togolese mixed-race woman. There was a recognition amongst ourselves that we were women of color. There was also a recognition amongst ourselves that in a different place in the world, this would not mean anything. Race was not a determining factor in our friendship. We had very different skin tones, cultures and accents. What brought us together was humor, dance, appreciation for one another and the comfort of having found a tribe during COVID. We also had very different hair types. But our hair types were even more different than the people around us. We had that in common: TEXTURE. 

Then it started. The nurse had gorgeous curly black hair and she had shared with us her intricate routine and the products she was using. We were drinking her words even though, personally, I might not be able to apply her techniques. The accountant then asked for recommendations for her hair and the nurse basically gave a free consultation on how to take care of her curls and invited her over for an afternoon of hair care. 

This made me smile. I have of course frequented beauty salons in my life but it is my mother braiding my hair in our kitchen at home or my aunties applying a mask of eggs in my hair that I remember the most. Everything I knew about Black hair growing up was at home. Even in Château d’Eau salons in Paris, none of my hairdressers had diplomas. They just knew. I dove into the world of Black hair in my city of Montreal and in Canada. Specialized salons are few. Word-of-mouth and Facebook Marketplace are key. 

We also trust who’s recommended to us because we know that they just know. There is no directory for the people who know, not even for all the professionals who love Black hair and could help with the more intricate treatments. New styles are popping up everywhere with social media and people learn on the go. How do we get to know where these people are? 

What if we could build a directory of some sort? Of regular people (and professionals) who know. People who could braid your hair on a Saturday afternoon on their day off. People who have mastered the Goddess braids and could give you advice on how to prevent entanglement. Regular people who love doing hair but don’t necessarily have the credentials? International students who need to pay for their rent or their college books? Regular people who find the barrier to entry to the gig economy a little high but who have magical hands transferred from generation to generation?

A Black woman living in far regions of Canada and has no idea that she does not need to fly to Toronto for good braids but instead, can drive 30 minutes to the other Black woman in her area who can do hair, and whom she had never met. 

And here it is, I have my community, and you have it too. 

I have been braiding my hair alone at home for the past 10 years. My arms and fingers are sore and my hair is craving someone else’s care. A stranger who would push me to try a new style, encourage me to get out of my comfort zone, someone who would love and understand my hair almost as much as I do. 

This is why I created the SWAYED app. A marketplace where all of us can display our talents. A place where we can share with each other the traditions that we’ve learned from our mothers, grand-mothers, and ancestors. 

As you are already part of my community, I want to share with you what SWAYED, the company, is all about. I share it because I mean it.