We spoke to Anshita Mehrotra, the creative genius steering the ship at Fix My Curls. With a penchant for redefining hair care, Anshita has taken her experiences and transformed them into a journey of embracing the natural appeal of your hair.
Fix My Curls, her brainchild, is all about celebrating the unique texture of hair, and providing clean and effective solutions that resonate with individuals seeking authenticity in their hair care routine. It’s hair care without the fuss, designed to provide genuine results and promote the natural elegance of your locks. Let’s delve into Anshita’s journey and her no-nonsense approach to using lightweight, clean ingredients, including the innovative golden seaweed hair oil.
1. Please share your personal journey, including any specific hair care challenges you faced, and how these experiences influenced the creation of Fix My Curls?
I started Fix My Curls back in 2019 with a simple goal – to help people love their natural curls.
Growing up, I had a head full of curly hair, and guess what? People kept telling me my curls weren’t ‘right.’ Can you believe that? I had no clue how to take care of them, so I tried all sorts of things – keratin treatments, smoothening, and blow-dries just to fit in. But it ended up damaging my hair more. That’s when the light bulb went off, and I decided to create Fix My Curls with a motto to give clean and easy hair care that lets you rock your natural texture. Whether you’ve got wavy, curly, or kinky locks, we’ve got everything at our disposal. And it’s not just about the products; it’s about the community too. We’ve got a bunch of curly heads who are all in on this journey with us. We’re all about loving your curls and helping you embrace them and we’re proud to say that our product is born and made right here in India. I’ve been through hard times maintaining my hair, and that’s why I want to spread the message that there are simpler ways.
2. How does Fix My Curls make it easier for individuals to embrace their natural texture, while maintaining its unique approach to hair care?
At Fix My Curls, we’re all about understanding your unique curls, so we categorize our products to match your specific curl type. See, there’s no one-size-fits-all in the world of curls. We’ve got a range of products tailored for wavy, curly, and kinky hair. For wavy hair, we’ve got products that enhance those gentle waves and give them that extra bounce. Curly hair? You’ve got a whole set of goodies designed to define and hydrate those gorgeous spirals. And for our kinky-haired friends, our products are all about nourishing, moisturizing, and helping those coils stay fabulous. So, it’s not just about slathering on any product; it’s about finding the right match for your curls. That way, you get the care and attention your unique hair deserves.
3. How do the choices to exclude harmful ingredients in Fix My Curls products align with your commitment to clean and healthy hair care?
We want to be with you for the rest of your journey. So we want to make products that make it easy for you to use the product and have absolutely no side effects. Which is why most of our products rely heavily on emollients like butter and oils and we mostly try to source these from India and we try to use ones which are rich and prominent in our country. Therefore they turn out to be clean as well. We also try to pick raw materials from our suppliers that are definitely aligned with our vision and we don’t compromise on price. So even though we may be more expensive than other brands, that is also because we make a very hard choice in always choosing the better quality ingredient rather than settling for something that is lower quality and then selling it for a cheap price. It was a very obvious choice for us to exclude the harmful ingredients. But our commitment to give you hair care that is going to be with you for the rest of your life is something very personal to us.
4. What were the challenges you faced while starting Fix My Curls, and how did you overcome them?
The basic challenges came with hiring the right people. That’s where I struggled the most in the beginning. I was really good at social media marketing and branding. I enjoyed that work a lot. But hiring was quite new for me. I had to slowly but surely understand that hiring the right people will always be taking a very big risk because you have to trust new people to take care of the brand that you have built, to make sure that their internal moral compass is aligned to the moral compass of the brand. With scaling, we mainly faced issues during Covid because we started in August 2019 and shortly after 6 months into the brand, Covid hit. However we were lucky enough to be on multiple portals before Covid hit so we were able to continue to deliver for a while, wherever the availability was there. In that sense we had a bit of a headstart but we did face challenges at the time.
5. Can you provide some insights about the clean ingredients used in Fix My Curls products and their benefits for hair health?
We choose lightweight ingredients like olive oil, sunflower oil, and grapefruit seed oil to avoid weighing hair down, skipping heavy coconut oil. Most Indian curl types are in-between wavy and curly with fine hair. Heavy products don’t suit them. We also limit glycerin due to its humectant properties, which might not be ideal for humid climates, mainly found in the south of India. In our hair oil, we’ve got golden seaweed, fantastic for slip, making it easy to run your hands through your hair. It offers UVA and UVB protection and shields against artificial heat, like straighteners and blow-dryers. We incorporate ingredients such as rice bran and matcha for shine and hair strength. Our hair oil includes retinol for scalp growth and has shown promise for those with alopecia, reducing hair fall and breakage over time.
6. How do Fix My Curls’ products stand out in terms of catering specifically to Indian hair textures while being versatile enough for people with frizzy hair worldwide?
We use oils that you can find in India. We try to source from India, but more importantly we try to focus on ingredients that are lightweight. We try to focus on products that of course have oils and hemp and butters in them, but feel weightless. We in India have a very different curl pattern, usually fine and thin and in between wavy to curly hair. We’ve tried to maintain that moisture and protein balance which is also why we heavily focus on separating our products into these two categories – moisture heavy and protein heavy. That’s how we make sure the Indian hair type benefits most from it. But also generally when you make a good quality hair product, it can be used worldwide. Our brand is in 10 other countries outside India. They are currently quite popular in Germany, Nepal, and Malaysia. And I think that is just because if you use good ingredients it goes a long way.
7. What’s next in the pipeline? What’s your vision for the brand?
Well, we’re gonna focus very heavily on problem-solution areas. There are very specific problems that Indian consumers go through that perhaps somebody in a different country doesn’t. We deal with hard water, and certain weather conditions which people in other countries don’t face. So, we’re going to try to tackle a lot of these areas very specifically through the brand rather than just launching more generic ingredient-centric products. I think we have solved the initial set of concerns that most people with curly wavy hair have. We have a product for basically almost everything. Now we want to focus on problem-solving products and it’s gonna take some time.
8. Could you share some success stories that highlight the effectiveness of Fix My Curls products in taming frizz and enhancing natural curls?
We have a lot of testimonials on our Instagram on our website. Let me share one example – We posted a “Share your look” section on our website and we received around a thousand photos. It’s crazy that over a thousand people decided to share their results with us. It reflects the brand loyalty and customer support that we receive from customers who do like the brand. Most people tell us that it’s life-changing to be able to finally see their hair in its natural state especially for people with very coily hair. They are shocked and surprised when they discover that their hair is not dry and frizzy anymore. Those people always send the most heartfelt long messages to us. We also maintain a very personal relationship with a lot of our customers, especially the ones who have been with us since 2019.They’re still here. I think that our Instagram is testimonial enough that shows a number of people who support the journey that we are on.
9. Can you share how Fix My Curls’ partnership with Vanity Wagon has developed over time and the unique ways it has contributed to making clean hair care more accessible and enjoyable for your customers?
Two and a half to three years back, we started our journey with Vanity Wagon. We’ve been on the platform for a very long time and I believe we were one of those first curly hair care brands or hair care in general brands on the platform. Vanity wagon has been really supportive in taking our brand to new heights. Without Vanity Wagon’s support, we would have never been able to reach a certain level of trade all across India. It’s an honor to be recognized so widely and a lot of credit goes to Vanity Wagon. Vanity Wagon is a platform that brings together customers who believe in the same value system. It’s really beneficial for us being on Vanity Wagon since we have a group of customers who are happy to buy the product because they think in the same direction as we do.
10. What message would you like to convey to individuals considering Fix My Curls products, to enhance their natural curls and manage frizz, especially while making mindful choices for their hair care routine?
First and foremost, if you’re starting on the curly girl journey, don’t use heat. If you’re going to simultaneously keep blow-drying and straightening your hair, then it’s not going to work for you and you’re never going to see the true potential of what your hair has in store for you. Stick to your journey. Give it two to three months and then make a decision. Secondly, invest in good quality products along with complementary products like satin pillowcases, satin bonnets, satin scrunchies because it makes the styling of your hair last long. Sleeping on cotton and using a cotton towel on your hair will lead to excess frizz. Lastly, try to follow curly hair influencers and really listen to what they’re saying because right now we have a community of people who genuinely care in India, and it will grow very large in upcoming years, maybe ten times larger than it is today. Just look at people who’ve been in the community for a couple of years. They definitely know a lot and they have spearheaded curly hair in India.Don’t be afraid to ask questions because you never know how the answer could really help you enhance.
