‘Curly is beautiful’: Tunisian women embrace natural hair

In countries around the world, beauty standards have shifted radically in recent years, with a growing number of beauty salons and cosmetic brands in Tunisia promoting natural styles.

Still, the battle is far from won, and many women in Tunisia still rush to get their hair straightened ahead of a wedding or a meeting, and some fear that if they do not wear their hair straight for a job interview, they might not get hired.

Advocates for wearing one’s natural hair believe that at the root of the stigma around curls lies a form of discrimination that they call “texturism”.

“The further you move away from what is considered Afro, kinky or curly, the more socially accepted you are,” said Nawal Benali, a journalist and host of a podcast on racism in North Africa. “Because that’s a marker of proper appearance and presentability.”

Benali said the standards had first been set in “the white, Western world”, calling the obsession around straight hair an attempt to “erase our Indigenous and African features”.

Dhouha Mechergui, who co-founded Pineapple Studio, recalled having her hair straightened by her mother ahead of every religious holiday growing up. She said it took courage to make her own switch to natural, and that she had to work hard to convince women to embrace their curls and come to her salon. “Sometimes I play the role of psychiatrist, because I know making that decision is very difficult,” she said.

Aside from the drive for greater authenticity, health concerns have become a part of the debate, with one major study by the US National Institutes of Health linking chemical hair straightening products to a higher risk of uterine cancer.

For generations, people around the world were told to straighten, braid, cut or otherwise conceal their curls, or else get sent home from school or work. A global drive buoyed by the Black Lives Matter movement gave rise to a major pandemic-era trend of beauty videos celebrating natural hair.

The push did not go unnoticed: French lawmakers last year voted to ban discrimination based on hair texture, while several US states have passed similar legislation. Tunisia has no such initiative, so women entrepreneurs are leading the change.

In 2021, Sirine Cherif cofounded Kamaana — or “as I am” — Tunisia’s first homegrown haircare brand dedicated to curly locks. “When we started, we were the only specialised brand on the market,” she said. “A few months later, there was a domino effect: bigger brands launched their own curly-hair lines.”

And today, Tunisian companies such as Zynia and Lilas Cosmetics have joined the growing industry. For Cherif, the boom is both a lucrative business opportunity and a marker of profound social change.

“We are proud to have encouraged people to be themselves, to resist this societal pressure and embrace their natural hair,” she said. Her company has seen 42% annual growth since its founding, she said, adding: “We want to start a curl revolution.”