Happy New Year Curlfriends! I am so excited to welcome this new year and I hope you are starting 2021 with renewed commitments, energy and love!
I wanted to take a moment to share with you some of the great things happening at Uncle Funky’s Daughter in 2021.
You may recall that in 2020 we faced some supply chain and production challenges due to Covid19. Thankfully those days are behind us and our R&D team is now focused on new product development. One exciting bit of news I wanted to share with you all is that we are launching a new Heat Protectant line this year!!
Not everyone wears their hair curly all the time. In fact, our Funky Junkies frequently talk about how they are switching up their hairstyle. We like to wear our hair in a twist out, a flat twist, a wash & go, braids…and sometimes we want to blow dry and straighten our hair. When our Funky Junkies wear their hair in a straight style, they want to protect those curls and get them back after they wash and condition their hair the next time. So, we designed a Heat Protectant line with a series of products to help you achieve your silk press while protecting your curl pattern. Our line includes: a shampoo, deep conditioner, heat protectant primer, split end treatment and a hair gloss to make sure your hair looks flawless after you style it! It is a complete line and we are very excited about it!!
Hearing Your Voice
Maintaining an open relationship and communication with our Funky Junkies is extremely fulfilling and important to us as a brand. One of the shortcomings caused by Covid19 in 2020 is the inability to attend trade shows. These events allow us to connect one on one with our Funky Junkies. It’s a great opportunity to hear your voice and educate you on how to use our products, but also talk about the challenges you’re experiencing. It is at these events that we listen to you and the goals you are trying to achieve with your hair. We are inspired each day to solve the beauty challenges you are facing.
Another great way that we capture your voice is through social media. In one of my recent Facebook lives, I asked our audience what else they’d like to see from us and we heard suggestions like a hair mousse, a protein free deep conditioner and co-wash (which we already have!). We take every suggestion we receive and we discuss it with our team. I want to make sure we create good quality products that will ACTUALLY work. We really focus on creating ONE product that really works in its category (so for instance, we will not create 10 hair mousses with different ingredients or scents and call them different names), but rather, we create one product that will work across curl patterns. We care about results, not just marketing talk.
Knowing Your Products
One thing I recommend to our Funky Junkies is when you’re buying a product, read the label to understand the ingredients that are in those bottles and make sure that the ingredients will actually do what the package says they will. Whether it’s a mainstream brand or a small boutique brand, you really need to understand the message and marketing behind a product (because some of it can just be marketing!). So one advice I can share today is when you purchase a product, ask yourself these questions: where is this product made, how is it made and what is it made with.
Given my consulting background, I am a problem solver. So if a product doesn’t work and doesn’t solve a problem then we go back to the drawing board. And that’s why it takes us so long compared to other brands to launch a new product. My bar is so high on the products that we launch. I test every product on my hair and on my kids’ hair. If I won’t use it, we won’t sell it…period. I want to make sure a new product delivers the results it promises, not only the appearance of it but the efficacy of it as well.
Store Expansion
Another great thing happening this year is that we are anticipating some store expansion throughout 2021. We have partnered with TjMaxx and Marshalls, so you might be able to find some of our products at select stores. You can also find Heal & Renew in select Walgreens stores. Our Ultimate Travel Kit is now available in over 1,500 Target stores nationally. We are also currently working on another partnership, and hopefully later on this year we’ll have some additional exciting news to share. I cannot wait to discuss all the details with you! Let me know in the comments below which stores you want to see UFD this year and which new products you’d like us to launch!
Xoxo
Renee Morris @lifebyrenee
10 comments
Good evening! I am excited about how Uncle funkysdaughter is progressing.I can not wait for new products.
Thank you so much Grace!!
xoxoxo
Renee
My daughter and I are constantly debating back-and-forth on whether or not 4b and 4c curly girls can safely straighten their hair while saving their curl pattern. My daughter has 4b natural coils and decided to have a beautician straighten her hair (18 inches). Her coils never came back and she eventually had to cut off all 18 inches of the damaged hair from one-time of straightening. Since then she has grown out around 10-12 inches of hair and still insists that “girls go back and forth all the time”. My argument is that it’s ok for girls with looser curls (3a-3c) to safely straighten their hair since it requires less heat to straighten. I have 4a-4b natural hair and I am very afraid to straighten my coils since it would take a lot of heat to do so. And I love my coils too much to risk damaging them. I am also in love with UFD’s Curly Magic and refer it to everyone who compliments my coils (thanks for a great product)! If my daughter insists on straightening her hair, I will recommend that she tries your new line of heat protectant products.
Thank you so much for having faith in our brand! I have had the SAME experience…trusting a stylist to straighten my hair and having it burnt out…TWICE!! So, I totally get the anxiety about straightening it. It is so important to understand the products your stylist is applying to your hair. I learned this the hard way and it drives how I design products today.
xoxoxo
Renee
UFD should consider adding a step to the instructions for applying Curly Magic. I used to plop the product onto my soaking wet hair and then finger-comb. My hair would end up looking stringy. I was almost finished with my bottle of Curly Magic and decided I wasn’t going to repurchase it because I didn’t like how my hair looked. I recently learned, from cosmetologists Aeleise and Aishia at blackcurlmagic.com, that I should EMULSIFY Curly Magic between my hands before applying it to my soaking wet hair. That one little piece of information, which is not included in the directions on the bottle of Curly Magic, was a game-changer for me. Not only does my hair look better than ever, but I am now understanding just how concentrated Curly Magic is. I will be reordering it now that I completely understand how to use it. Thank you for considering my suggestion.
Thank you for the feedback! We will definitely consider this as we look at label updates.
xoxo
Renee
I am SUPER excited for this new silk press product line! About a year ago, (through seeing several dermatologists) I found out that I have a severe allergy to ethylhexylglycerin (a common preservative ingredient in most cosmetic products). I came across this particular brand through a fellow Instagram black queen and tried it out! I was sold the first time I used the products!! I went from trying various hair products to get my hair to become healthy and grow to wishing now that I should have found you all sooner! I also have been wanting to straighten my hair via a local natural hair salon but was hesitant on the products they use. I’ll definitely be bringing the entire line to them for my hair. Using hair products with that particular ingredient affected my entire body and caused severe hair loss/breakage, in addition to depression in regards to appearance. I’ve recommended this brand to close family and friends and they too see the value of the brand. I’m very thankful for this brand. Thank you so much!! Truly
Janae,
That is AMAZING!! I so love…love…LOVE that you have discovered our products and they are working wonders for your hair. It’s stories like these that keep us holding up the bar of excellence for you.
xoxoxoxo
Renee
I just want to say thank you for some amazing products. Curly Magic really changed everything for me and it is my holy grail gel that made me stop looking for other products (I’ve been using it for about 5 years now). I also love Squeaky, which has helped with scalp issues I’ve had. I hope in the future you all continue to expand on what products are offered in salon sizes, because those are all I purchase. I also hope that you all might come out with a glycerin-free leave-in conditioner, because that’s an ingredient that I have trouble with living in humid South Florida. However, I really respect that you all are committed to having one product that works in a line instead of multiple with slight variances; it really simplifies the consumers shopping experience and makes it easier for me to know I’m using the best you offer. I’m super excited about this new heat protectant line. I too had a bad experience straightening my hair last year, and my curls in my bangs have not completely returned, so I am really happy I can try again using products I can trust. Thanks again! ❤️
Thank you SO MUCH for trusting us with your hair needs NC. We are based in Houston and also struggle with the humidity issues, so I totally feel your pain! 🙂
We will keep working on solutions that work for you!
xoxoxo
Renee