Cancel Culture in the Natural Hair Community + Going Purple! | BiancaReneeToday

Hey curlfriends, I'm Bianca Renee and you're watching Bianca Renee Today. And today we're going to do a little curly hair style experiment and do a little curl talk about the cancel culture of the curly hair community. We be canceling a lot of things, a lot of brands, a lot of products. So I just kind of want to talk about like why and if it's necessary and when should we give a brand another chance. Now while we talk about this topic, I wanted to try purple curls. I've been wanting to go purple for a long time and I have two different brands here. I have As I Am, their Passion Purple Temporary Color, and I have Avyn, is it Avyn or Avyn? I'm not sure. This is like a very new small brand. Um, there's not any information here. I had to go to the website. That's how like new of a brand it is. But look at the color difference. I really wanted like a pop in purple, not like a silver purple and Curlsmith doesn't have purple either. I kind of made one by mixing blue and red together, but I just really want a deep purple. So we're going to try this one today. Okay. So back to the curly hair cancel culture. Let's just think about all the brands that have been canceled. You might not even know of all these, but from my knowledge at one point Eco Style Gel was canceled. At one point, Cantu was canceled. At one point, Miel Organics is possibly still canceled. Um, who else? Who else? Shea Moisture has been canceled. And the biggest one that I asked you guys on Instagram, like who have you guys canceled? The most common answer was of course Diva Curl. Now I was thinking about this and I think there is a difference. There's definitely different reasons as to why all these brands are canceled based off of your opinion and mine. Let's just go through a couple of them. Cantu, Eco Style Gel, those were based off of ingredients. People had a problem with the ingredients. With Cantu, um, people said it made their hair really dry and that was because some of their products had sulfate, silicone, um, isopropyl alcohol, which is almost like basically rubbing alcohol, which a lot of brands still sneak in there that you might not have even known. But that was like an ingredient thing. So in my opinion, if we don't like a product because of ingredients and we vocalize that, you know, concern to them, influencers like me express their concerns on why we don't like to use certain ingredients. Then if a brand listens to us and they take out the ingredients, are we still going to be mad at them? Are they still canceled if they literally listened to us and fulfilled our needs? Why? I think we should. I'm actually using the Not Your Mother's Curl Talk Cream right now, but speaking of which, the Not Your Mother's Curl Talk Mousse, the original, had silicone in it. So when I reviewed their products, I said, hey, I can review everything else, but I don't use silicone. So I turned down this product. They got a lot of feedback from my followers. I told you guys to say something. Um, but just the curl hair community in general, a lot of us don't like to use silicone. So they heard us and they took out the silicone. And now this is like literally my favorite mousse because they listened and it works so well without it. Like it literally wasn't necessary. Did I cancel Not Your Mother's because they put in one of their products? No. They listened and I respected that. When Pattern Beauty first came out, I wasn't a fan of their first launch because everything had silicone. They tried to be a little sneaky and say no, what they call it? No, what was the word? Cystic, cyclic. I think it was cyclic. No like cyclic silicones. You guys like, oh, okay. But that's still just not, it's just a certain type of silicone, but it was still in there. And I said what I said. But then the second launch of their stylers, they took out the silicone and I love their stylers. Did I cancel Pattern? No. I voiced my opinion on why I personally wouldn't want to use them and they changed it. And the same thing with Cantu. You guys saw me work with Cantu recently. I hadn't really done, I haven't done a full Cantu YouTube video yet on my channel. And that's because I wasn't like a super fan of their original line. I love the, uh, curl activator cream, but that was kind of it. And some of the reasons why I didn't use their products was because of the ingredients. But guess what? They listened to their consumers. They brought on sister scientist. I went to an event where she talked about everything and they really wanted to make affordable products that will work for us. And they listened. They took out the sulfate. They took out the silicone. They took out the alcohol. So I gave it another chance. I tried it and I liked it. So why are we still mad? We can't just cancel people or brands if they listen to us and they're trying to show effort to make us what we want. Like there's no point in making products if the consumer doesn't want to buy it. Like it's all about the audience, the customer, the customer is always right. There's a reason why that's a saying. So I'm not for canceling brands. If they actually are making an effort to do better, that's the ingredient part. Real quick. I did end up putting a styler first. I went to their Instagram and a lot of the videos, they use a styler before the color. That's already like a thing because like with curlsmith, it's a gel, so I don't have to use a style. I could use a leave-in, but it's a styling color gel versus just like a color. I think this is more like a wax. So that's already one thing that's different that this isn't really like a styler. It's just color. It also says it works best on your hair when it's a little bit dry, which I have seen from using color before. So I'm going to let this air dry for a little bit and then come back and continue the conversation. Okay. I'm back. I tried to diffuse a little bit because I'm trying to film this during nap time. But I'm going to put on some gloves. That's what I've seen them do on their Instagram. I don't know if that means it's going to stain anything. When I do use the curlsmith one, I can just use my hands and it comes back easily, but I don't feel like having purple hands today. So let's just do some gloves and get started. Now this, I don't even know how many ounces this is. I'll have to go to the website, maybe open it before you put the gloves on. Now, if I'm going to compare this to curlsmith, for example, it's going to be pretty hard to beat curlsmith ingredients just because, you know, they're vegan. It's pretty much made out of fruit and vegetables, but I did go on the website and this is silicone free and I don't see any harsh ingredients in here. This isn't a vegan product because it does have beeswax, but I don't see anything else that's like harmful in any way. Oh, look at that color though. Oh, this is going to be fun. This is going to be fun. Now back to more canceled brands. Another, two other ones were Shea Moisture was canceled for like a week. And Miel Organics, those two companies were both based off of not their products, but more, whoa, this is a weird texture. Whoa. It's almost like bubbly. Those two brands were canceled from a business standpoint, like corporate was canceled. With Shea Moisture, they did sell their company and they made commercials and they included some Caucasian women. And people were upset that they were trying to reach a different audience when their products have always been tailored to black hair. Now, if a white company buys a brand, they're probably going to cater to a white audience as well. That's just kind of what I would expect would happen. It was one commercial. Was it necessary? No. Do I think it was the biggest of deal? No. I think we get a little territorial. Like those are our products. No one else can use them when like so many different ethnicities, races, backgrounds use quote unquote black hair products. Um, I don't know. I personally didn't cancel them for that. With My L Organics, things get a little tricky. A YouTuber, natural hair vlogger, bought their products with her own money. She did a review on them, didn't really like them. So the brand found her contact information from her purchase, which should be private information, called her and basically was telling her that she was wrong and she used the products wrong and was trying to explain how her video just was incorrect when it's literally her opinion. So that's kind of weird. It's kind of weird to do that. A little bit of an invasion of privacy. Um, as a fellow content creator, we have the right to give our opinions of products, especially if we pay for it with our own money. So that was kind of a weird sticky situation. She did a whole video on it. That's the drama with My L. Oh, this purple's pretty. That went on really nicely. I did get it on my face, but I love this color payoff. I might end up adding more when it like is more dry. That's usually what I do anyways, but we'll see. Okay. Side one. Now I also asked you guys on Instagram in my story, I said, what would it take for you to forgive a brand? And when it comes to like My L, I don't know if they ever came out and like did a whole, oh, don't know if this is going to stay in my clothes. Very experimental day. We're just going to go with the flow. I don't know if they ever like apologize. I didn't really look into like the followup. So you can let me know in the comments, if you know the full story, I don't know if they apologized or not. So it's just tricky. It's like, I think it was the owner's husband that actually called and it has like nothing to do with the actual products. And I know some of you love and swear by My L products and it's like the only products that work for you. So do you stop using products based off of the owners, even if the product works really well? I don't know. It gets tricky. I guess it's based off your personal opinion and you're spending your money on the companies that you want to support. So I totally can get why you might not want to support a company that doesn't have, I don't know, the same moral values as you. I don't know. I've been on the fence. Like a lot of you've been asking to review My L, but I know that happened and I don't know what to do. I really don't know what to do. I really don't know. So you guys let me know how you want me to handle My L. So, you know, I'm saying all this stuff, right? I'm saying that I do think that when it comes to like ingredients, for example, if a company changes the ingredients and they listen to us, we should forget them. Right? So I asked myself right after I said this in my head, I said, okay, well, if you believe that, what about DevaCurl? That was an ingredient situation. They reformulated. Are you going to give DevaCurl another chance? The answer to that is no, but this is why. The difference is DevaCurl just kind of like everything exploded and it just like stopped and there was no real resolution. There was no accountability. There was no answers. I've been wanting to do a follow up about DevaCurl, but I really have had no update for you guys because it's just like not being talked about. I keep hearing people say like, oh, just wait. We have this type of evidence that's going to like explain everything, but I just haven't heard anything about it. And DevaCurl never apologized. They just said that it was user error. They blamed it on people not shampooing enough. They said that they got their ingredients checked and they didn't see anything wrong with it. But then it's also like hundreds, if not thousands of people had the same exact problem when they use the same product. So there has to be some kind of correlation there. And I don't know if they maybe found it and tried to cover it up, but it just became a little suspect that there was nothing wrong with their products, but all of a sudden now they have new packages and a whole new formula. Why would you have a new formula if there was nothing wrong? You know? So I just feel like even for me, I even, I personally never had any problems with my DevaCurl products. Maybe because I had so much, I had the old ingredients and I never had any issues personally. But I listened to you guys. I trust you guys, my audience, and I'm not going to review things that you guys don't like. And DevaCurl became like just such a traumatic situation that like some of you are still just like hurt. Like if you hear the name DevaCurl, it's like makes you shiver. And I don't want to give you like a PTSD situation by just talking about products. Like they have new products out. They have a, they have a mousse. I love mousse. And I saw, I was like, Ooh, I probably would have loved this product, but there's just no point in me reviewing a product that's just going to upset you guys, like a lot of you lost hair, like your hair fell out, so it's just like a trust factor at this point. They never apologized. They never took accountability for what happened. They gave refunds, but I feel like that just wasn't a, that wasn't good enough for a lot of you. And if that trust is broken within a brand, there's just so many other options out there. Then it's like, why risk it? If you lived in a country and DevaCurl was the only curly hair product sold, maybe you might give them another chance because you have no other options. But if you're here in the U S like there's so many curly hair brands now that you don't even have to risk anything. So I think that's the difference between like a can-do eco styler, not your mother's pattern versus a DevaCurl situation. It's just not worth it. Okay. Let me look at this hair. I got to get the back parts. I'm kind of using this whole thing. I am using a lot, but I do want it to be like popping potent purple. This is probably done better in sections. You guys know I'm the worst sectioner of all time. I just don't have the patience. It kind of doesn't really have a smell. If you like really put your nose up in it, it smells like wax or Play-Doh. It doesn't have like a fragrance. Now going back to me asking you on Instagram, what would it take for you to actually forgive a brand or uncancel them? Some of you said like, there's nothing you can do. Like we're just done. Once you, once we're done, we're done. And if that, that might be the case for something, maybe like a DevaCurl situation where the trust is just broken, but if it's an ingredient thing, I really think you should give a brand a chance, especially if you try a brand and you just don't like one of their products, don't give up on the whole brand. Maybe that product just isn't right for you. For example, even going back to Cantu, the Cantu Curl Cream is a thick product. It's too thick for my fine hair. Does that mean that none of their products work and I'm going to cancel Cantu because I don't like one product? No. I would use like a mousse or their Curl Activator. It's a lighter lotion cream. So it could be you choosing the wrong product. Are you applying it incorrectly or maybe applying too much or too little depending on your hair's porosity, density, and hair type. So just give things a chance unless there's an actual like chemical reason as to why you should not be using that product. Okay. I'm going to get my ends a little more down here. Oh, speaking of cancellation, literally today, I just saw a headline that said Olaplex is under fire because they have an ingredient that is now banned in, uh, Europe, I believe, that apparently can cause cancer and infertility. Great. This is why curly hair people have trust issues. I did some more research. And by research, I mean, a couple quick Google search and some TikToks and some scientists were saying that there is such a small amount in the Olaplex number three bond perfector that it's probably not going to affect you. There isn't any actual proven evidence of infertility in women. They tested this on rats and they saw that it happened with a large amount. So they kind of just said, let's not risk it and let's take it out. So they're making it mandatory for that ingredient to be removed. It's often sometimes found in perfumes and it's more toxic to be used in a perfume because you're spraying a lot all over you versus a small amount in your hair. I am currently pregnant. So will I be using Olaplex anytime soon, especially pregnant? No, because why risk it? Like just why? It's not the only bond product out there. I actually prefer the CurlSmith Bond Curl Rehab Solve. CurlSmith is made out of like vegetables and fruits. Like it's just such an easy brand to just trust. And I hope that they never break our trust because we just can't go through any more heartbreak. So I'm really counting on you CurlSmith to never let us down. But at the same time, am I going to cancel Olaplex? No, because they already took out the ingredient. It's an ingredient that kind of just goes with like the fragrance. It wasn't even a big deal that actually changed the functionality of the product. So they took it out as of January 2022 has to be gone. I think they've been talking about it since 2019, but it has to be completely out of the products by March 2022, which is now, but I already have products on my shelf and I just checked and that ingredient, which I'll put right here for you guys, this is the ingredient you want to avoid. It's in my current product. So I don't have the new version. So if you do buy Olaplex, make sure you buy the new version at the new ingredient that they replaced it with this Benzyl Benzenate that you could see that on the website. That's the new version that you want to get and you can still use Olaplex and a lot of their products did have sulfate and silicone. So there wasn't much I can use. Like the number three Bond Perfector was the only Olaplex product that I could use anyways. So until they change more of their ingredients, I'm not really using it anyways. Okay. This looks really fun. I feel like a mermaid. I'm going to let this air dry and then I'll diffuse and then I'll go back in with some more if I need to. Once it's like nice, big and curly. I'm going to see if this comes off my skin easily. Let you know how that goes. Yeah, I'll be back. Alrighty. This is drying really fast. Like it's been maybe 10 minutes and I would say, it's about 96% dry. I am going to diffuse. I'm going to use my GSQ by Glam Squad diffuser. It's already purple. We're sticking with the theme. So let's do it. All right. All right. This color, the color is popping. Wow. Super vibrant. And I didn't even have to like go back in for a second coat. So this might just be more like potent in color than the Curlsmith ones. I would assume that a wax would hold color better than like the fruits and veggies in Curlsmith. Curlsmith is literally made out of like strawberry, watermelon, blueberry. Like it's so organic and so vegan natural that it might take a little bit more work to get that real like artificial color. So there's not really any surprise there. Feel wise, it's a little dry. I probably should have used a leave-in conditioner versus just a styling cream just to add some extra moisture. But the curls are defined. I don't know if that's because of just my curl cream that I used or because of the actual product. I am a fan of the Curlsmith being a gel. So it's a colored styling product versus just adding color on top of your styler. But I mean, I really like it. I do want to fluff it out. I would add oil, but I don't want, I don't think the oil and the wax are going to be friends. So let me just try to raise the roots a little bit. Definitely not soft, fluffy curls. It's a little, there's definite hold there. That's for sure. So fun. Temporary color. So fun with no risk of damage. Please play with temporary color before you decide to dye your hair any kind of color. So I'm going to add a little bit more to some inner areas that I missed and this did come off on my skin super easy. I just used a wet wipe and it came right off. Wow. In conclusion, my hair looks bomb. It looks so cool. I think I'm going to find like a mermaid costume and just walk around the house and you know, do the dishes. So fun. And this is day one here. So I'm actually getting some pretty good volume for day one. Um, I did do some scrunching, so it is on my hands. Just going to grab my son's water wipes. This is literally just water. Comes right off. So that's good. Um, I was able to wipe it off my shirt so I don't see it being a problem. I don't know if this would pass like the wear a white t-shirt test like the curlsmith one does. It does have some fallout. Like I don't know if you can see on my shirt on the baby bump. It's like little dust particles. Same thing happens with the curlsmith ones. I don't know which one's better. It's probably the same type of amount of like fallout, but now that it's dry, I don't think it should do that anymore. Now that my hands are dry, let me see what happens. Doesn't transfer unless there is, I got a little wet curl. Unless it's wet, it should not get all over the place. So going back to cancel culture and the curl community, I'd love to know your opinion. What brands have you canceled? Why did you cancel them and what would it take for you to actually forgive them and give them a chance when it comes to things like ingredients being changed or maybe an owner in a company made a mistake. It's like, we're all humans. We all make mistakes. You've made a mistake. I'm sure there's a point in your life where you asked for a second chance and you were given that second chance. And because of that second chance you're able to do better things and move on and learn from your mistakes. If this is something that like continues to happen and let's say the owner like harasses everyone that ever says anything bad about them. Okay, like that might become a problem, but maybe they were having a bad night. Even as an influencer myself, I have to hold back from responding to trolls and sometimes people just like to push your buttons and if it's on the wrong day, you might want to clap back. As a business, you should be professional enough to not clap back, but I know we have those days and if we can offer grace and forgive someone, I think we should. If there is a genuine response and a genuine accountability for their actions, that's my opinion. So if you want to give the Aven hair paint wax a try, I will link them in the description box. If you enjoyed this video, this topic and you like me kind of talking about things as I do my hair, let me know. Join the conversation below and also follow me on Instagram, tick talk and Twitter at Ms. Bianca Renee. I post new videos every Sunday and I'm really trying to get to 600,000 subscribers. If you are new here, please hit that subscribe button. If you're here every week and you haven't pushed that button yet, I mean what are we waiting for? Hit subscribe, give me a thumbs up and I'll see you guys next time. Thanks for watching Bianca Renee today.