LIONESS WEEKENDER COVER STORY
Curly Aho, a business dedicated to the care and enhancement of afro and textured hair in Madagascar
Antsa Ramaroson is the co-founder of Curly Aho, a company and a social movement dedicated to the care and enhancement of afro and textured hair in Madagascar. She started with the online community in December 2017, but the business officially started in 2020 with the opening of the natural hair spa, and today it has 30 employees. Curly Aho means “I have curly hair” in Malagasy (native language) and consists of the Curly Aho Community, an online community of 50 000 members, and a support group to encourage inclusive beauty and curl confidence. Texture, a natural hair spa, is dedicated to give access to personalized treatments and curl education and Loharano is a plant-based haircare brand rich in plants of Madagascar, famous for their benefits in hair. Antsa has been featured as one of the Top 50 African Business Heroes 2021. She is a hairdresser and a certified curl expert.
Lioness Weekender spoke to Curly Aho co-founder, Antsa Ramaroson about her entrepreneurial journey, her inspiration for starting a business, and her ambitions for the future.
What inspired you to start your company?
Curly Aho is inspired by my personal story and the stories of Irina and Francette, the other co-founders of the business. Madagascar is an African country where textured hair is in the majority, but yet my curly hair was not accepted by society. I received prejudices and discriminatory experiences from it. When I discovered the hair routine for curly hair and the empowerment that comes with, the part of my body I hated the most is what I am the most proud of, and I wanted to share it with the community in Madagascar. And that's how the community was created in 2017. The three of us intervened on various platforms to raise public awareness about hair discrimination in Madagascar, the strength of self-love through natural hair, and the beauty of hair diversity in our country. We did this in partnership with Embassies, non-governmental organizations, universities, and panels of our own initiative that propelled us as pioneers of the Natural Hair Movement in Madagascar. In 2020, the company received seed capital that we used to open the first certified curl expert hair salon in Madagascar. We named it Texture, as a celebration of the different hair textures. One year later, Curly Aho manufactured Loharano, which means source, back to our roots, back to our natural hair, a range of products rich in the plants of Madagascar.
Why should anyone use your service or product?
As a pioneer of the Natural Hair Movement in Madagascar, our company is crowdsourced directly from the community. The services and the products that we offer are aimed at the education of natural hair, self-love, and inclusive beauty. For example, treatments at the natural hair spa are all personalized and customers receive a written hair prescription in which the hair routine, the tips, the products, and the techniques are listed. The products are labelled with curl expert advice and tips.
Tell us a little about your team
We are a women-based company. The average age in the company is 28. We started with three people and now we are thirty people in three years. As the three co-founders, we are all in charge of three departments. Three seems to be our favorite number! Irina is in charge of the marketing and sales department, Francette is in charge of the natural hair spa, and I am in charge of the production and the R&D.
L-R: Irina Andriambohangy, Antsa Ramaroson, Francette Andriatahina
Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?
After obtaining my master’s degree in project management in 2017, I decided to go back to school again: the hairdressing school. Natural hair is my passion, and I knew that if I wanted to educate people, I needed to start with myself. I needed the knowledge to teach people. I had the opportunity to meet Daisy Henson in France, a Curl Expert and Curl Educator based in California with whom I have achieved the certification as Curl Expert. I was just graduated when I started my business with zero work experience and we opened the natural hair spa in March 2020, two weeks before the lock down in our city due to Covid. However, even in times of a global health crisis, we were fully booked two weeks in advance and this activity allowed us to reach our next milestone which was the release of our own brand of products, Loharano, in 2021.
What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?
Our plan is to make a bigger impact and to offer the best quality of services and products in the country but also to expand to other African countries.
What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?
As an entrepreneur, I have this opportunity to work in my passion field and through my passion, I get this amazing opportunity to impact and inspire more young women to embrace their natural hair so that they can teach their daughters to love their natural hair too. For me, it is a legacy, and I am happy that I was part of this change.
What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to start-up?
Never be afraid of asking for help. Together we go further, and it takes a village to build an empire. Not just one person. Do not start because you want it. Start because you want it even after 30 years. Find your true passion and through your passion create your business and make the very best of it. This is where excellence and motivation meet. The perfect combo.
To find out more about Curly Aho, contact Antsa Ramaroson via email: antsa@curlyaho.mg or visit the company website and social media platforms:
Website: https://www.curlyaho.mg/en/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/curlyaho
