Interview with Pelumi Rae of Care For Your Hair

The gorgeous Pelumi Rae is the founder of Care for Your Hair, a UK hair blog started as an effort to document her own personal journey for her family and friends.

With hard work and a genuine love for helping other women her blog Care for Your Hair has been dubbed one of Britain’s Top Natural Hair Blogs. 

Pelumi has successfully created a platform where women can feel safe, inspired, and encouraged about caring for their hair.Above all that Pelumi encourages all women to see only beauty when they see that person in the mirror.

We were honored to have the chance at interviewing her; here are the details and some of what she had to share.

Pelumi you are like that best curl friend in our opinion, what advice would you give to a girl struggling with her journey and is just one decision away from getting a relaxer?

Aww thank you! The one piece of advice I have it remember WHY you chose to go natural. For those that are re-discovering their natural tresses at some point the struggle will come out so be encouraged in the fact that we all go through it at some point.

You have described before that not everyone supported you when you decided to go natural. How do you handle natural hair naysayers especially in your family?

I let ‘naysayers’ be just that. I didn’t try to convince or prove anything to anyone, I just took care of my hair, watched it grow and let people do the talking.

Once people started to see my hair ‘was actually nice’ (their words not mine) the same ‘naysayers’ were some of the first to ask for tips.

You must admit that your work has really helped with spreading the word in the UK about natural hair care, what do you think is missing from the UK natural hair industry? What would you like to see in the future?

Thank you! To this day I am still so surprised and grateful for all the people Care For Your Hair has reached. What I think is missing is the spotlight on our amazing homegrown natural hair care brands.

Do you have a solution for Single Strand Knots?

I wish! If I did I would put that thing straight in a bottle and sell it! lol another thing I tell naturals with kinky*-curly hair such as myself is that single strand knots are inevitable. Our hair is so tightly coiled it will wrap around itself and cause these knots. However I do minimize them by wearing my hair in protective styles- my favorite being a simple bun, carefully detangling , not wearing my hair in a fro too much (it’s so tempting though) and also braiding/twisting my hair after a wash to keep it stretched.

What is your biggest struggle in your own natural hair journey?

Mine has been retaining length with the color I got back in October 2012. My hair has grown our but I have needed far too many trims and only have about 3-4 inches of color left. In hindsight I should have been incorporating a lot more deep conditioning* treatments.

What is one the most rewarding aspects of being a hair and beauty blogger?

The most rewarding would have to be connecting with so many amazing women on a daily basis. Inspiring one another and watching their progress over time.

Cliché we know, but if you were stuck on a dessert island and you could only have one product, what would that be?

Ooooooo, that’s a really hard one. It would have to be Jamaican Black Castor Oil*. Why? Because I can use the water in the sea surrounding the island for moisture and then seal with JBCO* (one of my all time favorite oils*) lol

Recently you hosted the Strength of Nature event held in the UK along with the most fabulous Afrobella of Afrobella.com, We loved your recap of the Brit Bmixer, what was it like hosting such an awesome event?

It was awesome working alongside Strength of Nature their PR and Marketing team are amazing and hosting with Afrobella was a joy.

Having followed her blog over the years and then getting to meet her was great. She is so lovely and has a very genuine heart.

The event was also good because it wasn’t set up to force feed ladies into buying everything Strength by Nature. Instead to introduce them to various brands and show how the products can be used. This was done by award winning stylist Charlotte Mensa.

This might be a tad bit controversial but what is your biggest pet peeve about the natural hair industry on a whole whether in the UK or otherwise.

Although many brands are jumping on the natural product bandwagon I am happy there’s a much wider selection. However my BIGGEST pet peeve has to be every brand slapping SLS, Paraben, Mineral oil* ECT free on their product. Some brands know this is what we want to see but I always stop to ask, what is in it instead. Is it really free of these things or just replaced with something else that is pretty much the same!?

What can we look forward to in the future from Care for Your Hair and where can we find you socially?

I am not on YouTube as it’s not really my thing, but you can expect some videos soon… what kind? You will just have to wait and see!

Blog: www.cfyh.co.uk

Face book: Care For Your Hair

Twitter: @CareForYourHair

Instagram: cfyh_uk