Mahisha Dellinger Talks 20 Years Of Natural Haircare Innovation & Why Now Is The Best Time To Be A Black-Owned Business

To say CURLS founder Mahisha Dellinger is a trailblazer would be an understatement. For the past two decades, the self-made millionaire has been at the forefront of product innovation and conversations around embracing and caring for natural hair. 

[SEE ALSO: CURLS Partners With WetBrush & Ouidad Owner To ‘Accelerate’ Brand Growth]

When Dellinger first launched the award-winning brand in her Sacramento-based garage, there were no “textured” hair aisles dedicated to kinks, coils, or curls in major stores. Dubbed “ethnic” (which retailers managed to make feel derogatory), products for those hair types were placed on the very bottom of the most dimly-lit shelves. We were othered. 

From the onset, she has worked to change that with her groundbreaking brand that was so new that the word CURLS, itself, was a viable trademark. Now, as she celebrates the brand’s 20th anniversary, Dellinger has built an estimated $20M haircare empire, with her all-natural organic offerings lining the shelves of more than 100,000 stores.

And now, natural hair is no longer considered a trend or a movement. It’s a way of life, with a $3B Black haircare industry built on Black women’s return to our (literal) roots. It is time, Dellinger declares, “to embrace our beauty where we are now.”

That means redefining what it means to live your best natural hair life. 

“Everything I grew up with was all about changing my hair,” Dellinger tells us. “We’re trying to give the next generation and all the generations after that a different view of how they look. No, we don’t have to have hair that looks straight all the time to be beautiful. Let’s rebuke those views. I want everyone to be comfortable in their skin.”

For her, that comfort starts with CURLS’ extensive offerings, including its top-selling Blueberry Bliss, Sea Moss, and Hair Under There (designed for weaves, wigs, and other protective styles) collections. She’s also exploring a line for blow-out divas who want to temporarily straighten their hair, but keep their curls popping.

“We’ve gotten requests for CURLS to deliver products for when they go straight. They’re asking for it, let’s deliver it. But let’s make sure [we have messaging that] they’re still beautiful natural. This is just a style. It’s not more beautiful than your curly hair.”

Dellinger is also constantly exploring ways to impact the beauty industry at large. Over the years, she has hosted a reality TV show to help elevate woman entrepreneurs, launched a distribution network for Black-owned beauty supply store, and is currently prepping for a new beauty mogul-development program. 

She has also been running a virtual Black Women Making Millions Academy since 2021, as part of her partnership with Beauty By Imagination (BBI), which is home to Ouidad, WetBrush, and Goody brands. 

“We’re looking to target 25,000 businesses to help them with MBA-style classes every weekend,” says Dellinger, sharing that BBI has invested “$450 million worth of resources,” into the academy. Next year, she hopes to expand with an in-person component.

And, for those wondering, yes, CURLS is still very much Black-owned. Dellinger retains majority ownership and control of her brand. With her BBI partnership, she’s growing bigger and better, with new innovative tools and products launching this fall. 

She’s also able to impact change on a broader scale as the sole Black member of BBI’s board of directors. “I’m shaking things up,” she shares about leading a DE&I initiative to hire more people of color at the director and VP levels. “I’m very vocal in these meetings so they can hear us… I’m here to help other people win. And if I can do that by impacting this 500-person organization to bring more people in, I will do that.”

Of course, getting to this place in the beauty industry wasn’t without challenges. Dellinger has often shared her bootstrapping story of going from the “projects to the penthouse.” She credits her ongoing success to research, dedication, and being able to “shift into opportunities.”

Sometimes, it has resulted in huge wins like the brand’s hero collection, Blueberry Bliss. When it launched, “no one else was working with blueberry in our category,” she says. It has also resulted in a couple of less-than-epic launches. “I went to market too quickly and got too comfortable,” she reveals about a different collection. “And that was a cost of about $7 million.”

Even if not at that scale, growing pains, Dellinger says, come with all businesses.

“You always go through also cycles of growth, stagnation, growth. And, I think evolving and changing has to happen — because if you don’t, you get stuck and left behind,” she explains.

“So, I keep innovating, making sure I keep an ear to the post to make sure I understand what my consumers want and develop products that have great performance, smell good, and [have] a great clinical story behind the ingredients.”

And, as CURLS and the overall haircare market continue to experience meteoric growth, Dellinger sees this as a boom for both businesses and consumers. 

“It is a good thing for us as, a people, because never before have buyers cared so much about what the Black consumer wants. Never before has it been so intentional. [Is it] really authentic or not? I don’t know. Some are more than others. But I can say that this is a time to be a Black business owner,” she says. 

“It’s also opening doors. [Retailers] have pledged a percentage of shelf space in their stores and are having their black brands highlighted in TV commercials, and on end caps, in their stores. So it’s a good thing. And for us, it’s keeping us motivated to continue to do another 20 [years].”