Curly Hair Comeback

Published on Feb. 17, 2025, at 10:05 a.m.
by Braden Barksdale.

The struggles of not knowing how to style or wash curly hair correctly, the constant use of a straightener, the endless fights with a brush or not feeling beautiful with your own hair — these are all situations that women with textured hair may find themselves in one time or another.

Fifty-six percent of adults in the United States have wavy, coily or curly hair, making up more than half of the country. Curly hair has also been found to be associated with a fun-loving, warm-hearted and outgoing personality, but this is not common knowledge.

Straight hair is normalized for children at a young age, especially in the media. Busy moms do not typically have the time to learn how to style curly hair. Curly hair is a dominant trait so the curls might have come from the father, leaving moms clueless as to how to tame the mane. Straight hair has also been touted as more attractive and more professional. All of these reasons and more affect the way curly girls approach their hair.

However, thanks to the rise of social media, women are learning to cherish their curls.

Small strands, big difference

During the pandemic, the hair industry experienced a surge, and embracing one’s natural hair became popular. More curly brands emerged, and more curly products started surfacing in the beauty industry. Social media has played a large role in the rise of embracing natural hair.

Curls Monthly has capitalized off the explosion of coveting curly hair. Barbra DelleMonache started out as a curl coach, but now she has transformed her business into a ‘trial size’ curly-hair product subscription service. With a subscription to Curls Monthly, customers receive five pocket-sized products to try, along with a guide on how to use the products.

Katy Walker, Curl’s Monthly’s brand partnership director, explained, “We want to provide subscribers with a shopping experience. Almost every other shopping experience allows consumers to try out the brand. Curly hair products should be the same. This subscription service is a risk-free trial.”

Walker’s PR strategy focuses on getting brands to partner with Curls Monthly and putting them in the monthly mail out. This way, the brand gets advertised on Curls Monthly’s social media pages and website. Walker tries to find smaller brands for the subscription service, so their brands find a way into the curl world. She picks brands that DelleMonache likes, what subscribers ask for, curly-girl-approved products, and sulfate- and silicon-free products.

Curls Monthly has encouraged many people to embrace their natural hair. The company has earned significant media placements. DelleMonache was a Forbes 30 under 30 in 2024. She has also been featured on “Good Morning Philadelphia,” and in Bella Magazine and Naluda Magazine, among others.

Curls Monthly is solving a problem that many people with curly hair face: not knowing if their hair is curly or how to style it. According to one study, 22% of people didn’t know how to style curly hair, and 16.4% didn’t realize their hair was curly or wavy.

Social media talks

Social media is the foundation of the Curls Monthly business. DelleMonache started as a curly hair coach, but now has transformed her business to help almost 20,000 people love and care for their natural hair. Walker said that DelleMonache was able to undergo a smooth transition and be so successful because of the following she had already attained. Walker contributed the success and growth of the business largely to social media.

She said, “I saw Barbra’s videos on TikTok and then attended a curl coaching class. I started to learn more about my hair and how to take care of it. Now, every time I wash my hair, I can see the difference, but it has been a journey. It took me years to get here because my hair was so damaged from the heat. Now I love my hair, and I know what it needs to be healthy.”

Furthermore, the hair world has made it a trend to color and apply heat to hair. While these damages are detrimental to straight hair, they are even worse for natural curls. Walker explained how she doesn’t think people realize how damaging straightening curly hair in the long run can be. Social media is largely attributed to the growth of caring for curly hair.

Consumers started doing their own research and learned how to take care of their curly hair. Walker mentioned that beauty schools do not teach about curly hair in their classes. In order to learn how to correctly cut and care for curly hair, cosmologists can choose to take extra courses like the Deva Curl classes, which can be expensive to attend.

During the pandemic, salons were closed, and people had more time on their hands. This extra time allowed individuals to learn more about proper care for their curly hair. According to Loreal, there was a 25% uptick in in consumers letting their hair dry naturally; in addition, Google searches for “how to make your hair curly” increased by 50% and searches for “shoulder length curly hair” increased by 350%. Thus, curly-haired influencers were able to seize the moment and produce educational content.

Kylee Kaetzel, Associate Vice President of Consumer at SolComms, manages the beauty and wellness clients. Kaetzel expresses the importance of diversifying pitches to include social media accounts.

She said, “Just because someone sees an article in Cosmopolitan doesn’t mean they will buy the product, but if they see the brand founder on Instagram or TikTok, that increases the buying chances.”

Kaetzel currently manages 10+ clients at SolComms. She harped on the importance of having a “360 approach” when wanting to ensure a successful campaign for a haircare product launch. This includes identifying exclusive targets, press releases in advance, finalizing messaging, taking editors on dates, hosting launch events, influencer strategies, paid campaigns and partnerships.

There are a couple of primary goals that Keatzel focuses on when managing a PR campaign. She mentioned, “Get as much press as possible. Get as many placements as possible. Whether that is traditional PR, print, influencer partnerships, thought leadership or business press, it is really important to hit every box.”

SolComms and CurlsMonthly are both businesses that thrive from being present and engaging on social media platforms.

Influencers

Instead of partnering with influencers, however, Curls Monthly uses more of a “content house” ideology. This means the company uses in-house influencers to market its brand. This means the company uses in-house influencers to market its brand. The founder, DelleMonache, has attained over 152,000 followers on Instagram.

Along with DelleMonache, several other influencers use their platforms to promote natural curly hair. Ringlet.Riss has over 207,000 followers, and sophiemariecurly has over 444,00 followers. Frizzandfrillzz has over 213,000 followers and has amassed a following through her business, Curlfriend Collective, designing silk hair products.

SolComms involves influencers in their campaigns, but they take a different approach.

“At SolComms we do organic earned seeding. If it’s in the client’s scope, every month we will generate a list of 20-25 influencers that would make sense for the brand. We send those influencers the products with no strings attached. Obviously, the end goal would be for them to share and tag the brand, but we can’t guarantee that.” Kaetzel explained. “On top of that, we also do paid influencer contracting. We align ourselves with content creators that make sense for the brand’s demographic and audience.”

The curl industry is continuing to expand, thanks to curly-owned business and influencers.

From ashamed to appreciated

Even celebrities are embracing their naturally curly hair. Zendaya shared her curl routine on YouTube. On the “Kelly Clarkson Show,” Emmy Rossum said she embraced her natural curls for her daughter. Tori Kelly, Andie McDowell and Kimberly Schlapman, a member of Litte Big Town, have all welcomed their naturally curls.

Influencers and social media platforms are growing the curl community day by day and post by post. Now, curly girls can learn from the internet how to care for their hair. Curly hair is making a comeback and is here to stay.