When Dominican-American Magdaline Hurtado decided to embrace her natural curls, she had a hard time finding hair ties that could hold her curls without breaking or causing her hair damage. While visiting the Dominican Republic, she came up with the idea to create a wider silky scrunchie that would work for textured and fuller hair types. The Scrunchies 02 ($24) is more of an oversize style and comes in Biggish for thicker curls and Smallish for thinner/finer textures (think loose ponytails), while the Scrunchie 01's style works great for tighter-hold styles like high ponies, buns, or half-up and half-down styles.
"Discussing beauty as a Dominican-American reminds me of my heartaches. From a young age, I was told what I needed to fix, enhance, or avoid in order to look beautiful," Hurtado said. "I would try and try and try again, but I could never meet the Eurocentric standards that were brought upon me. The easiest feature I could change, which felt like a disguise, was my hair. A ton of rolos and perms later, I found myself becoming consumed with unrealistic and unnatural beauty standards." It was the lack of diverse representation that fueled her passion to launch Hello Updo. "I'm currently unlearning everything I was taught around beauty by our culture. There's a lot of hatred rooted in the country's history that still exists today, so it's very important that I use my voice to influence the new era of diverse representation," she said. "I feel like the 'pelo malo' (bad hair) mentality subconsciously drives my passion to make a difference in hair and beauty."
