Winnie's Textured Tale

What is 'Textured Tales'?

Welcome to our first ever 'Textured Tales' post: a blog series where we share real-life stories about growing up with textured hair - from the hairy ups and downs, to finally cultivating a newfound love for our kinks, coils and curls. In this segment we take a deep dive into Carra CEO Winnie's personal hair stories. Want to be included in our future posts? Send us a DM here! We can't wait to hear your own stories.

Winnie

Heritage: Nigerian 
Hair type: Type 4 

Managing my hair looked like going to an ‘aunty’ every weekend for my cornrows. From a styling persective, this was fun because I got to choose from different cornrow styles but from a care perspective, however, things were a little bit more complicated. My hair was hot combed from the age of 4 for a big family wedding soon after, it was chemically straightening - I really wanted my hair to be like those kids on the relaxer kit - bouncy and full of colourful baubles. I never really knew my hair was curly until my adult years, nor did I really know how to care for it. 

On one particular occasion, I went to a salon to get a cut and wound up looking like John Lennon. I cried my way home. 

In later life and when I started working in Corporate London, I would visit the salon, have my hair extensions taken, get my hair chemically straightened again and put the weave back on. Eventually when I decided to ‘go natural’, I braided my hair for a few months straight and when I took them out, I was surprised to see these curly wisps around the roots of my hair - whose hair is that??? I raced to a salon in Brixton to get the straightened ends chopped up. And just like that, a whole new journey began but of course now I have to learn how to care for it in its natural state. All I can say is RIP to all the money wasted on products and routines that simply did not work. 

My motto now is simply to have a blast with my hair whilst focusing on the health. I have gone from a beautiful honey to a candy floss pink. I have learnt that my hair loves (especially whilst it is coloured) regular deep conditioning, protein treatments and that trims make my curls go round... quite literally.