Shakira on “Pelo Bueno” and her new Ulta beauty line, Isima

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Show me a girl with curly hair, and I know immediately: he was someone who had a complicated relationship with her hair. Curly hair is never hair – it is a story of unlearning and relearning. Behind each loop is a memory, a myth, a story and the journey to grow to love what had to be tamed.

Even Shakira – whose goddess -shaped loops are as emblematic as her voice – was there. After years of experimentation with treatments, products and even collaboration with a pharmacist to develop her own personalized formulas, the Colombian singer dreamed of a line that could serve other girls with curly hair – especially Latinas – who have long fought to find products that really meet their needs. Enter Isima, a new range of innovative products supported by science designed for loops, available only at Ulta.

Unlike most Latinas with curly hair – especially those of her generation – Shakira’s struggles with her hair do not come from cultural pressure to style it. While she was sometimes wearing an elegant style or a new eruption, she mainly kissed her natural texture, especially when she started playing live.

“I guess I had no choice, because when I am on stage, I need to feel empowered – I need to feel true for me,” she said to PS. “I’m free. I can’t wear super high heels. I can’t wear a wig.”

Shakira’s complicated hair trip was caused by the damage that has been colored, heat style and treatments like Brazilian keratin.

She shares her healthiest days were before starting to color it – when she always wore her natural color.

“Previously, believe it or not, really dark-almost black,” she said. “”[It was] Very shiny and wavy. I had sweet waves. I suppose that with years and hormonal changes, the texture has changed a lot. It has become a little more completed, I would say, and even frizzer. “”

The real fans of Shakira who follow her career and have listened to his music since the days “Pies Descalzos” and “Dónde Están Los Ladrones” remember her long black hair as much as we remember her red hair phase.

“I decided to whiten it and make it bright red [and] Obviously, to go from almost black hair to red – I really had to whiten it. So my hair suffered a lot, and it was the beginning of the end, “she said, laughing.” But it was always a very important part of my identity. It was roughly when I was doing MTV disconnected, and I did it with a sort of punks and reddish hair which represented an era and a period of life. The way I wear my hair has a lot to do with the way I feel. It has always been a large part of my identity. “”

While many women with curly hair – including Latinas and black women – proudly kiss the expression “I am not my hair” (a nod to the emblematic single of India), many of us also recognize the deep link between our hair, our identity and how we present ourselves in the world. Shakira herself admitted to interviews that cutting her hair in a short lob was one of her greatest regrets – she just didn’t feel like her. As a girl with curly hair with curls even tightened than Shakira’s, I tell. Whenever I slept my long curls in a lob, I felt like I was losing a superpowered. These are women like us – Latinas like us – who inspired Shakira to dream of a line that understands and really meets the unique needs of our hair.

“Women like us are in bad shape, in a way,” she said after complimating my size curls – a mixture of 3B and 3C spirals.

I have not always heard compliments on my hair; In fact, I grew up hearing that I had “Pelo Malo”. For those unknown, Pelo Bueno (“good hair”) and Pelo Malo (“bad hair”) are terms rooted in colonial Latin America, dating from the Casta system – a racial hierarchy imposed by the Spanish who favored the proximity of whiteness. Corilla and curly textures were often associated with the hair of blacks enslaved and deemed undesirable, a harmful heritage which continued to shape the norms of Latin American beauty. But in the past decade, young Latinas have started to recover and redefine these terms, including Shakira, who believes that good hair simply means healthy hair, a period.

“Pelo Bueno is bouncing hair – [it’s hair] It’s natural. [Hair] It makes you feel confident and it’s healthy, “she said.” So no matter the texture of your hair. You just have to have the impression of giving him a little love. “”

“Pelo Bueno is bouncing hair – [it’s hair] It’s natural. [Hair] It makes you feel confident and it’s healthy. “”

Curly hair being particularly vulnerable to drought and rupture, ISIMA specifically focuses on hydration and deep repair.

“It is inspired by Latin women because in my community, there is so much diversity. In Latin America, you find all kinds of textures,” she said. One of Shakira’s favorite products in the line is the triple repair Súperbomba peptide mask ($ 38), a treatment rich in depth that checks all the boxes. Formulated with patented non-pestids, soybean and hydrolyzed rice proteins and a unique glyconbond complex, this product is designed to feed the scalp, repair hair connections and provide intense hydration after each washing. Shakira uses it once a week, leaving him for five to 10 minutes, according to his schedule.

And while countless celebrities have launched brands of beauty, little offer like Isima. Shakira has really thought about each stage of the washing day – a ritual that she calls sacred.

“The day I wash my hair, I know that I will get at least five minutes of peace when my children do not interrupt my shower,” she said. “My assistant is not allowed to enter. So I need these minutes to really count.”

From start to finish, she considered everything. Instead of offering a single shampoo, ISIMA includes two. There is a reset ($ 32), a clarifying shampoo that deeply cleanses the scalp without removing the hair. Then there is riquísima ($ 32), a moisturizing shampoo infused with Mexican aloe extract which gently cleanses while reconstituting humidity – ideal for following reset.

Shakira is also the first founder of a brand with curly hair to launch a blue shampoo specifically for the curls treated with colors – a game changer, taking into account the way the richest and most purple shampoos can be on textured hair.

There is also Suavísima ($ 32), a rinse conditioner so hydrating that I was able to jump the hair masks on busy washing days and still have silky and soft curls.

For the style, Shakira likes to apply Don’t Lie loops ($ 32) – A curly cream appropriately – on wet hair, rubbing it before sealing everything with Delicia restorative hair oil ($ 36) for an additional hydration boost.

“I know that for some people, it’s heavy but no, I need it,” she said. “I think women as we need more. It’s like the sentence – the less it is more. But that does not apply to hair like ours. We need more. We need more hydration, more humidity, more performance, more strength – all this.”

The line also includes All in ($ 32), a repairing rinsing conditioner that can be used instead of the curly cream or in layers with additional hydration. It is light enough for the waves that are loose but rich enough to provide serious humidity. Then, there is emblematic ($ 42), a scalp serum designed to hydrate, soothe and balance the scalp while promoting the stronger, healthier and thicker strands.

As for the name of Isima, let’s just say that it was not chosen at random. In Spanish, “ísima” is a superlative suffix that has inspired the names of its shampoos and conditioners – as in Riquísima (very rich) or Suavísima (very smooth). Shakira has brought the same level of reflection to packaging: shampoos and conditioners are delivered with fully removable pump distributors and caps, allowing you to obtain each last drop.

As a person who grew up in Dominican hairdressing salons, where I would sauté my curls directly every weekend to hide all traces of texture, I rarely saw celebrities openly inspire others to embrace their natural hair. There was a specific way I dreamed of carrying my curls – long, fluid and full of definition. But very few celebrities at the time reflected this vision. The only ones who got closer were Keri Russell in “Felicity”, Jennifer Freeman and, of course, Shakira.

So, the fact that one of my real hair icons has not only launched a line of curly hair designed specifically for women like me, but also sat with me and personally traveled the products that would work best for my spirals felt surreal. It was an honor.

“I am 30 years old in career in career, and I have the impression of having a certain credibility. I want to make sure that these products offer what they promise,” she said. And honestly, the quality talks about herself – it is clear that she is preparing her hair life during this moment.

Johanna Ferreira is the director of PS Juntos content. With more than 10 years of experience, Johanna focuses on how intersectional identities are a central element of Latin culture. Previously, she spent almost three years as a deputy editor of Hiplatina, and she has independent for many points of sale, notably Refinery29, Oprah Magazine, Tower, Instyle and Well + Good. She has also moderated and talked about many panels on Latin identity.