I’m Ruth Wallis and I am the founder & formulator of See My Curls. Here’s a ‘long story short’ version of how it all came to be. The story of See My Curls began back in April 2013. But wait a minute! For it to make a bit more sense I have to take you back to the early 90’s.
1991 – my family and I moved from Ghana, West Africa to Australia when I was in primary school. New school – My family and I were the only Africans in a little country town in NSW, Australia. This was where I discovered, all of a sudden (according to my peers) that I didn’t have “nice skin or good hair” and this led to a “little” dislike of myself with lots of confused questions to Divine Intelligence. High School – I started doing my own hair in braids as my mum didn’t want me to relax my hair at the time. Then finally, in my final year of high school (1999) my mum relaxed my hair but because my hair was very thick. It did not work like I had hoped…e.g. soft, silky, blowing in the wind like the model on the packaging!!! Apparently there was something “wrong” with my hair. It was “stubborn”! 2000 – 2013 – I continued to do my own braiding every 4 months (all day 8 hours plus) & relaxing (hoping & praying NOT to burn my scalp with all the harmful chemicals in the products!!).
Got married and had my first baby – Evie. I was sure her hair would be considered as ‘good hair’ and it would be easier to manage especially as she would be 75% African & 25% English/ Welsh. But as it turned out Evie’s hair started to change at age 2. So I began to look for products to manage Evie’s so called ‘bad hair’. I knew however, NOT to use any relaxers on her hair. Evie’s hair was always dry and brittle – and every attempt to detangle and brush her hair would always end in tears. I tried every product I could find in the shops. But nothing made any difference to the condition of her hair or my hair. April 2013 – I remember complaining to Divine Intelligence and asking why he gave us Africans and mixed race people such “bad hair.” To my surprise he replied…. “I didn’t give you ‘bad hair’, you just need to know how to look after it”. So in reply I simply asked, “Then show me how!”
From that day on the ideas and inspiration began to flood in. I loved every bit of the research aspect of this learning journey with the Divine. I decided that I would have to create something that didn’t have harmful chemicals. No store-bought products ever worked for us. In fact everything that we tried from the shops only made the condition of our hair worse. So I set out on a mission to create a blend of natural and traditional ingredients to heal, hydrate, and condition my family’s hair, and enable it to grow without tangling or breaking. As a mum of two (at the time), I wanted my kids to grow up loving their hair and skin.
Having grown up in Ghana I remember using organic Shea Butter on my skin and hair as a small child! It was only when I began to research for See My Curls that I discovered why Shea Butter had become a staple ingredient in traditional methods of hair and skin care in Ghana.
My first Big Chop was in December 2013 and marked the beginning of my own natural hair journey. Soon I had strangers asking where I bought the products that conditioned my daughter’s hair and my hair so beautifully and asking if they could buy it from me. So I decided to prepare See My Curls for purchase and the rest as they say is history.
See My Curls has been running since 2013 as a family business (with a rebrand from AfroShe in Jan 2023). We love the transformation of our own hair and are thrilled by the continual feedback we receive from people all around the world who write and send their pictures to tell us that See My Curls products had transformed their hair.