Acting, Alopecia and Entrepreneurship: The Shalita Grant Story

Today, we are excited to bring you a candid conversation with the unstoppable force that is Shalita Grant - a Tony Award-nominated actress, an NCIS New Orleans alumna, and the mastermind behind the disruptive haircare brand, Four Naturals Hair.

Have you ever wondered about the hair journey of black actresses, the hurdles they face, and the lack of specialized hair care options for them? Shalita peels back the curtain on this significant issue, sharing her personal struggles with traction alopecia, the resulting inspiration to create a formula that would solve her own complex Type 4  hair problems, and her development of a patent-pending hair detangling technique.

We delve into Shalita's life story that includes attending the prestigious Julliard school, traverses through a high-profile role in a popular television show, to her leap of faith into the world of entrepreneurship. Journeying with her, you'll understand the complexities of the hair care industry, the challenges black actresses face with specialized hair care, and how one woman sought to bring change with her own innovative solutions. Shalita's story is not just about business or haircare, it's about resilience, healing, and a burning desire to uplift black women.

Finally, Shalita opens up about her entrepreneurial journey, the growth and freedom it brings, and her dream of living off the grid in Thailand. She shares her vision for Four Naturals Hair, a future where black women and children could have a consistent and empowering experience with their hair care. So, join us for a deep dive into the life of this trailblazing actress turned entrepreneur, and learn how she's challenging the status quo in the hair care industry.

LINKS AND MENTIONS

Bronner Brothers’ Convention - https://www.bronnerbros.com/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/fournaturalshair/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FourNaturalsHair
TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@4naturals_hair
NCIS - Shalita discusses her exit from the series in this article

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Transcript

Kutloano Skosana: 0:05

Hey there, a quick warning to please take care while listening to this episode, as there are references to suicidal ideation. Thanks and enjoy the show. Hello and welcome to Shades and Layers. I'm your host, Ku Khasana Ricci, and my guest today is Shalita Grant, tony Award nominated actress, ncis New Orleans alumna and founder of the haircare brand Four Naturals Hair. Today, we mainly talk about her journey to founding the plant-based treatment formula, but our candid discussion also spans her acting life and her courageous exit from the popular TV franchise, where she had become a series regular. A quick background to that exit is that she left because of her struggles with traction alopecia, which was witnessed by the millions of viewers of the show.

Kutloano Skosana: 0:57

Shalita was determined to find a solution, though, so in 2019, she set to work in her dining room in California and developed a formula that would address her own complex type four hair issues. In doing that, she has empowered her clients or her girlfriends, as she calls them to experience newfound freedom and confidence with their kinky hair, whether on vacation or in their daily lives. Her commitment to healing and uplifting black women has also driven her to develop a patent pending textured hair detangling technique. Okay, it's time to get into this story. Here's my geeky, informative and fun as hell conversation with Shalita Grant. How do you describe your work and what is the deeper meaning you attach to it?

Shalita Grant: 1:52

I describe my work now as making black women's lives easier, introducing ease, and the deeper meaning of the work for me is about healing. It's about generational healing, self-healing, and also like healing in the marketplace for a segment of the hair population whose needs are not being met.

Kutloano Skosana: 2:18

Yeah, so what triggered this healing journey for you?

Shalita Grant: 2:22

Both in the marketplace and personally.

Shalita Grant: 2:25

So I like to define healing very simply as having a different experience. So if you had an abusive relationship, the different experience is a love relationship, like a completely different experience. So for me what that looked like was since I'm a kid, I've learned and known about black hair, and not just because of the hair on my head, but my grandma's owned a hair salon since before I was born. My mother has been a hairstylist, my aunts have all been hairstylists and one still is. So I grew up in the hair salon and I knew, I considered my grandmother a great black business owner in that she was a learner. She would go to these trade shows, the Bronner Brothers Convention like every year or every other year.

Shalita Grant: 3:26

Yeah, so I'm really committed to learning and staying up to date. But as I've gotten older, what I understand about hair for black women is that it's not really about care. It's about hiding it, styling it, frying it, laying it to the side, managing it, but putting it into something that makes it manageable. And that manageability looks like not having to touch it Like frays, like putting it away. So for me, that followed me.

Shalita Grant: 4:04

So I am a black woman with typical black hair, type four hair that's the hair chart that describes the pattern of the hair, so super, super textured. But I have this atypical career that requires the use of my hair. So I'm an actress and so my hair changes with the job. And so my experience in the world as a black woman with this hair and the professional salon space it mirrored my experience on Hollywood sets. So that lack of care and for some people, like they touch our hair with this, like mixture of, like disgust and apprehension that never leaves. So I learned that, like, no matter what level you're on, no matter how much money you're making, you have the same experience and that experience is a lack of options.

Shalita Grant: 5:10

So I did a show in CIS New Orleans, which you mentioned, and that was my first series regular role. So how did that job differ from my previous TV jobs? Well, my previous TV jobs were recurring roles, so that means that I had more than one episode, right. But when you're a series regular, you're in all or most of the episodes and you have like a dedicated hair person and makeup person and your hours and the expectation of like working Is way higher, right. So I assumed that with the new job and the new like standards, I guess would come with better care, right, Like I was more forgiving of those like recurring jobs because it's, like you know, it's basically like a one or two off right.

Kutloano Skosana: 6:10

Right.

Shalita Grant: 6:11

Like, oh, you know she's going to do my hair, it doesn't matter. I just need to make sure that for this project, you know, I leave this job With the hair on my head.

Kutloano Skosana: 6:19

Correct, correct.

Shalita Grant: 6:23

But with that series regular job I had the assumption that you know I'm here for the long haul so they're going to make choices that make it easier for me to do that.

Kutloano Skosana: 6:33

And that wasn't the case. No, yeah.

Shalita Grant: 6:35

So I experienced on that show. I have this mandate of like showing up on camera and they wanted me in a ponytail. Then I have this really fragile hair that every time they flat ironed or, you know, did something different to I experienced different damage. So season two was my first full season and we went into, I went into extensions and as a result of those extensions and an episode that was my starring episode but they wrote an episode where the black girl goes underwater.

Kutloano Skosana: 7:12

No, no, stop please. I'm having nightmares just thinking about it In retrospect.

Shalita Grant: 7:25

It seems like total sabotage, right.

Kutloano Skosana: 7:29

And it required me to be in water for like two weeks.

Shalita Grant: 7:33

Chlorinated water. We shot in chlorinated water, took those extensions down and I had traction alopecia.

Kutloano Skosana: 7:39

Oh, I can't imagine Center on my head yeah.

Shalita Grant: 7:42

So, season three, I went back into the wigs because, you know, I realized from the months of being in extensions that they didn't build like a care plan, like a hair care plan. The care plan was the actress cares for her hair on the weekend and we'll pay every few months for her to get these new extensions in. So I thought I'll just go into the wig. Go into the wig. By the middle of season three the hair around my hairline had come down to just my nose, but the hair underneath the wig was like longer. By my hiatus my hairline was down to like an inch and a half and our hiatuses were pretty short, like less than three months like two and a half months.

Shalita Grant: 8:24

Oh my gosh, what a nightmare. There was no like. When I saw that damage, I was actually in a hair salon getting my hair colored and it was in that appointment that I realized that I had to quit my job. I had to quit the six figure job because I'm going back to work with less hair than I had before and so there's really no there's. It's been like this for years, Like I don't know how we're going to hide the lack of hair that I have. So I came back in season four and probably the ugliest wig in television history, Certainly in that franchise's history and I got it. I mean, I really like the, the fans. Every week the show was on and by that point I wasn't even watching the show, but every week I would get tons of notifications like what the shoe polish, what is going on with her hair? Like, come on.

Kutloano Skosana: 9:29

That must be horrible for your self confidence and just your image, you know.

Shalita Grant: 9:34

Yeah, yeah, it was, it was. It was one of the most challenging times in my adult life. I I didn't have like some great childhood. My parents were kids. They were 18 and 17. My mom went to jail when I was five years old.

Kutloano Skosana: 9:52

Oh, lord, you know like.

Shalita Grant: 9:53

I had a lot of instability. So for me, as an adult, it was all about like I have to take the best care of myself and make sure that I'm in like situations that don't like scar me, and so I was in a situation that was scarring.

Kutloano Skosana: 10:13

And so it was like all right, you either quit.

Shalita Grant: 10:16

You quit life or you figure out how to go through this right. So all through that time I was in therapy and I was like an A plus therapist student, like whatever you did all the homework, yeah, when she would like refer to some like psychologists, like work or whatever. I would buy the book and I would read it.

Shalita Grant: 10:44

Like you know, she would tick. Not, han has this meditation. Okay, that's my meditation now. So I found, like the four agreements and it was all about like I looked at the situation as like, look, this is like high school with money, and so, like, this is like not a great situation, but you've actually been in worse, right, like as a kid, you have way fewer choices, and now you're an adult facing a really tough situation. This is an opportunity to grow. This is an opportunity to become even stronger, and so for me it was.

Shalita Grant: 11:24

You know those long hours on sets and being disrespected and you know whatever it was like. All right, do you become this or do you rise above this? Do you, you know, grow through this? And I just chose to grow through it, and so I had the choice. When I saw that I was going bald in the front of my hair, it was great Now you gotta quit, and for some people that's really scary. But for me it was like how do you make this choice the most comfortable for you? So it was about learning about finances and learning to live below your means. You know, like bringing my bills down, so I'm not really worried about, you know, the next job. And the next job came like three and a half months after I left that show. That was one of my biggest fears was publicly quitting a job would mean that I would never work in my industry again.

Kutloano Skosana: 12:18

Yeah, sure, sure.

Shalita Grant: 12:20

And so that didn't come true. I worked two shows in the same year that I quit that show, and so when I got into that next year, in 2019, I thought, okay, all right, old girl, that didn't happen, but both of those characters were still in wigs. So if and when you get another series regular job, you're probably gonna run into the same experience, because the truth of your hair is it's so fragile, and so you are gonna have to figure out how to solve this problem for yourself of your fragile hair and your career. That doesn't care about the health of your hair. They just care about getting you on that camera. And so how do you solve this problem, this generation's old problem?

Kutloano Skosana: 13:10

This problem Right. I mean, you'd think it would be figured out by now, but Exactly in 2023, right, you know, in the year of our curl creams and curl costumes. That's the thing, exactly Because we've had this natural hair movement for more than a decade. That's been decades since the 70s, Since the 70s yes.

Shalita Grant: 13:33

So, like, what is happening? Why hasn't this been solved? So when I unpacked sort of the why, right, it's that we have this very raced lens on this hair type, and that lens says that because this hair is so different from type one hair, from straight hair, then we have to create something manmade, chemical, that will, like beat that hair into submission. And so for me, the healing thought was I am a human being and so there is something on this earth that is natural that will solve my human problems because, these are human problems.

Kutloano Skosana: 14:20

Correct, because I'm a human, not an alien. Absolutely absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shalita Grant: 14:24

So I looked to like non-white hair cultures to see how do they approach hair and hair problems and what are they using to solve them. And so I looked at India, eritrea, ethiopia and Greece, and it was from India that I learned about Ayurveda. And, very simply, ayurveda is a style of medicine that looks at all of the human maladies and says, hey, there are practices and natural plants like plants, that solve these human problems. And they don't just solve the symptoms, they solve it at the root. Right, we have to solve the root cause of these hair problems.

Shalita Grant: 15:16

And so they use henna and cassia and a bunch of other herbs. But why? Because henna naturally binds to the strands. So that binding to the strand does a couple of things. Number one it solves porosity problems. What's porosity? Porosity is simply the health of the cuticle. The cuticle is that first layer of the hair, and so our cuticles really determine how our hair reacts to hair products and even water. So low porosity strands the cuticle is made up of more fat, which is why water rolls before it absorbs. And high porosity strands the cuticles are more water salt, they're made up of more water and there are holes in the scale structure. So the hair gets wet, but it gets dry really fast.

Kutloano Skosana: 16:07

It's dry exactly.

Shalita Grant: 16:09

And so that henna paves over the cuticle, introducing a water soluble element to the low porosity hair and introducing a covering to that high porosity, the compromised strand, and so what that does is everything you wanted to do.

Shalita Grant: 16:25

the hair reacts better to water hair products perform way better and you have to use less of them. Also, the dryness and the moisture factor. That gets solved, which also solves that breakage and the slow growth, like we have all these growth plateaus. Your growth plateau isn't a growth plateau, it's a retention issue. You're not retaining the most delicate, sensitive, weak part of your strand the ends. So your hair is growing at half an inch a month, but you're breaking it often at the same rate that it's growing.

Shalita Grant: 17:03

So you need an intervention for those strands. So I looked at all these cosmetic chemistry journals and so cosmetic chemistry is different from cosmetology, because cosmetic chemistry looks at the science of hair for hair products. The cosmetology schools teach how to style and use certain hair products right, so that's why there's this lack of knowledge in our hair salons and our professional spaces. So when I realized what the crux of the issue was, I went to all of these other sources to learn and then solve my black actress problem in 2019.

Kutloano Skosana: 17:47

You know it's interesting. I saw one of the actors from the HBO series Insecure and he was saying, well, I had to learn to be my own barber because I didn't have someone on set who could look after my hair. And I'm thinking, okay, this is like a very successful series and it's all black, black, lead, right. I mean I find that really incredible, like wow, okay.

Shalita Grant: 18:12

Well, I thought that was incredible too. My stylist on Insecure was a black man and his skill set was he was a barber. He put on a couple of wigs on men, but back decades before, so he was using all these outdated practices, blah, blah. The problem is our cosmetology schools. They teach hair as hair and they teach that lesson to everyone, including the black people. So for black licensed cosmetologists who want to work with textured hair, it's trial and error. It's them, like you know, just trying things out and seeing what works. And then they get a following because they helped a certain group of people and that's that right. But they're not really learning how to deal with this hair in any licensed fashion right Right.

Shalita Grant: 19:11

So that's, why.

Kutloano Skosana: 19:13

Yeah, you have these problems. You're listening to Shades and Layers, and today we have Shalita Grant, tony-nominated actress and founder of Four Naturals Hair. Up. Next you will hear about her many business achievements as well as other high-achieving accolades that she's received along the way. You'll hear how she got herself into the famous performing art school Julia in New York, as in she personally, as a teenager, got herself into the school. And you'll also hear about how she set on a journey to finding freedom in her own body and as a gateway to this healing process, she tried a bunch of different things, like serious weightlifting and pole dancing. So tell me about, you know, the journey of formulation, how that went about and I know there's a patent pending for your formula, so if you can also touch on that and how all of this came about.

Shalita Grant: 20:10

Yeah, so 2019,. I did all this research and then I started experimenting on myself and I looked at, like all of the black women that I tried and it had gone wrong and kind of codified like what everyone had basically in common and then I created this formula that I thought, okay, this could do something. And my first treatment I always call it like my black girl, paranoia, like my black girl trust issues, because you know we have the experience of like getting a hair product and it works at first time and you're like, oh my gosh, I found my thing, and then One uses three uses later.

Shalita Grant: 20:55

Yes, it's a completely different reaction in her hair and it's expensive, or or it's a lot and you feel bad throwing it out, so you just keep it right, yeah, and so I did my first treatment and this is what I saw when I rinsed out my deep conditioner my, my, I saw my waves, right, like we have these like peekaboo curls that happen like your hair ends in a fro when you get it wet. You're like dang. I wish my hair always look this, these beautiful curls right. It's like soaking, sopping wet, right, but then, as soon as it dries, tricks up, stands right up and get really stiff right.

Shalita Grant: 21:35

so I saw the peekaboo girls and my hair was dry, so that was the first thing, but I was like I don't know.

Kutloano Skosana: 21:42

Yeah, I don't know, this is gonna last.

Shalita Grant: 21:47

Yeah, see what happens by my third treatment, like a week after my third treatment, I had like walk past a mirror in my house and I was like what? Because I knew that week I slept on my hair without a bonnet. You know like I, I like committed a bunch of sins, right. I also like working out, rolling around on the floor like my workouts. Back then I went to a poll studio, so I like pole dance, so I'm like, hang on a second, we coming back to that.

Shalita Grant: 22:19

Yes, we are coming back to that, okay because after that that week I was like whoa, I have genuine curls and they're moving. My hair is bone dry. This treatment is different. Like this, this hair today is so different from the three treatments I did before. So let's talk about pole. So why did I choose pole? So in my 20s, I lifted. I lifted heavy and that was like my thing right love it.

Kutloano Skosana: 22:56

I'm really strong, you know.

Shalita Grant: 22:59

And you know there's always so much it is you could do before you're like man I am bored, this is boring.

Shalita Grant: 23:08

So I in my third, like I turned 30 and I was like I want to like learn like a sport, like I want to learn a thing you know, and so I went through a bunch of different ideas and I was watching this like reality show and the lady was like a pole dance studio owner and so I was like, oh wow, I remember doing like one of these classes when I was 18, let me look at it. And I was like, whoa, this stuff is really cool. And so I was in there. But then I quickly realized like in my personal history I've never really felt comfortable in my own sensuality, right, because when I was 17, got myself into Juilliard, moved to Manhattan, I lived in New York for seven years and those first few years were really formative for me so casually got into, got myself into Juilliard.

Kutloano Skosana: 24:05

Okay, all right. Got it, got it. Hey, man, if you could like breathe it Right.

Shalita Grant: 24:14

So I was there and you know I had like some really like tough, like street harassment incidences very young 1718.

Shalita Grant: 24:24

And so I changed really how I presented in public, like if I was wearing something a little more like scantily clad, but I was like going to an event or something like that I'm taking a cab, I'm wearing a long coat, you know like, and in general I just dressed way more and still do to the stage, just like, you know, loose like, don't look at me, you know. And so when I started doing these pole dancing classes you know I'm doing this private thing in public I took it as an opportunity to really get in touch with my sense of sensuality.

Kutloano Skosana: 25:01

Right.

Shalita Grant: 25:02

What is sensual to me, what do I love about me? And then, inevitably, I would just look up at the top of my head. I'd be like this damn wig. It's so hard, it's so hard.

Shalita Grant: 25:17

Like it became like this. It like it became this acute, like this area of my body still makes me uncomfortable my hair. So then I went on this journey of like accepting my hair and so I would go to these classes without a wig and, you know, went through that. So by the time I did in 2019 and I started like experimenting with making a mask and making a treatment to solve my hair problems. After that third treatment, I did my first class with my newly treated hair and the level of freedom and sexiness sense you just like just sensualness that I felt, like going upside down and not having to be insecure about like my wig back, showing right, like and just being like, hey, no matter how much I sweat, no matter how much I, like, you know, roll on the floor, I'm going to look like this and my hair is soft and it's glorious and it's mine and like there was this level of power that I felt.

Shalita Grant: 26:31

You know that you probably felt too when you shaved it off, you know that like there is nothing that takes away from me, because this is just it right, like I am in this state of stasis and this stasis is beautiful right. And that's how I felt with my treated hair. Right, there's no self betrayal. You know the stuff standing up and shrinking on me. I think I look one way and my wig is showing, you know, like that.

Kutloano Skosana: 27:07

Yeah, exactly, I was frictionless. Yeah, it comes with a sense of freedom when you know you feel good about your whole being. There's a lot to be said for that. Absolutely so formulating.

Shalita Grant: 27:22

So when I got to that third treatment, I was like, all right, baby, there is this base treatment formula, this is it right.

Shalita Grant: 27:32

And so I found a formulator and I got, I sent my treatment, I sent all my ingredients and everything, and her job was basically take my layman's formula and put it in a way that another cosmetic manufacturer will be able to replicate this. And so I'm talking to my manager and she sees my hair and she's like hey, I know a lawyer, you should talk to him about your treatment because this is like it's transformational. So I meet with this black man and I show him my before and after photos, right, because I started, you know, I incorporated my business, and then I was like, okay, I just want to make sure that it works on everyone. So I did this product testing period for about two and a half three months, and so these were all black women that came from social media, that lived in LA, and they agreed to do anywhere from seven to nine treatments with me for free in exchange for the photos and all of the information.

Shalita Grant: 28:38

So I showed him a few of these photos and he just burst out laughing. He burst out laughing and I was so like at first I was like what? Because he was also bald, right, so it was like, oh, like I was about to go, oh. But he laughed because he was like I have sisters and a mom and this is what the Jerry curl, jerry curl used to look like, like we used to put chemicals in our hair to look like this. And you're telling me you did this with plants and I'm like hello, yes, I did. She always looks like this water gel leaving whatever, this is her hair now right and so he was like you got a patent this.

Shalita Grant: 29:21

So I found a patent attorney in LA and you know my patent on the formula is based on the fact that it's an emulsion. There are no henna emulsions. Everyone does the powders, they sell you the powder, but there is no emulsion that has all of the humectants that you need. Because that was one of the things that I learned from the henna fails on this textured hair. They would often use a henna powder. That was like a rapid dyeing right. So that was one. They would use henna and just the henna powder and water. That was two, and then some of them didn't decondition out.

Shalita Grant: 29:59

So with those three things, as long as I stayed away from that, I was able to get a successful formula. So in the Four Naturals henna mud mask I have the humectants that you need for low porosity hair All over, all of oil. In the Cassia deep conditioner there's rosemary oil. So there's like all of these different like humectants that make the introduction of the henna to the hair way more palatable to the cuticles, no matter if you're low porosity or high porosity. So now in 2023, when all of the relaxer manufacturers are being sued, the question is when that formula is discontinued, like when those products are discontinued, there's really nothing on the market for textured hair. Not that that was great for textured hair Anyway right, yeah, yeah, we know all the problems right.

Kutloano Skosana: 30:57

There's a reason, there's a lawsuit. Yeah, yeah.

Shalita Grant: 31:00

Yeah. So the formulation process. It took a minute because you know, I ran into the pandemic. So they oh yes, there was that, yeah, yeah. So it's been, it's really been a journey, and I do believe that the entrepreneurial journey is a spiritual journey.

Kutloano Skosana: 31:20

Yes, tell me more about that.

Shalita Grant: 31:23

So okay for me. I come from children I mentioned that. That's how I, like, have learned to understand a lot of my childhood and so my mother is a felon, a convicted felon and so when she got out of jail for her the options were super limited. So she started working under my grandma. And then, you know, my mom has had like 50 different careers and they were all of the like get rich quick right Right.

Shalita Grant: 31:58

Yeah, so as a child watching this adult make horrible financial decisions, you know I suffered like we moved every year, sometimes twice a year. I went to six different elementary schools. You know it was. There was a lot of flux in my childhood and as a kid you know you're trying to figure out like why is my grandma got a house and my mom doesn't? Right, my grandma has seven kids, she's been married five times, like whatever.

Kutloano Skosana: 32:31

But whoa lady, I know, I know Like it's the on my mom's side of the family.

Shalita Grant: 32:38

There's just like the generational curse, if you will, is just like having kids super young. So my great grand, my great great grandmother, died when I was nine years old. My great grandmother died in 2018.

Kutloano Skosana: 32:53

So yeah, wow, they had. Okay, they had to be very young then.

Shalita Grant: 32:57

Very young, very young. So you know, my great grandmother started having kids when she was 13. Wow, my grandmother had my mother when she was 15, 15, turning 16. My mother had me when she was 18. So for me it was like great, you can't have kids young. Because, even though my grandmother is now established, right, it was really hard, like for my mother when she was a kid, right.

Kutloano Skosana: 33:27

Right.

Shalita Grant: 33:29

So for looking at my mom, it was like you have to have one job, like my grandma's had this one business, my mother has 50. So like that's why we're so broke, that's why there's so much instability. So when I was in school it was like all right, I need to finish school and then I need to get higher education, but it needs to be in one thing. And so I did that for myself in the most unstable industry ever.

Kutloano Skosana: 34:04

Yes, but I think.

Shalita Grant: 34:06

I have a higher tolerance for that kind of thing and so the hustle and need was really strong and I worked right and I was able to support myself. So when I got to 2019 and I saw this incredible treatment that I created, there was a ton of fear around going into business for myself, Because my whole story was you can only do one thing.

Kutloano Skosana: 34:31

If you're going to be successful you can't be a multi-hyphenate. So there was growth.

Shalita Grant: 34:38

Yeah, there was a lot of growth that I had to do in that area and it was constant Believing in myself. Part of how I dealt with my imposter syndrome was at first it was like I know that this thought inside of me that's saying who do you think you are?

Shalita Grant: 34:59

Man that thought of like you can't do this, nobody in your family is successful doing this Right, like my grandma provided service right, like she didn't have a product, right. So I knew that the end result of these thoughts are that I'm supposed to stop. Why? Because I already dealt with this in one area of my life with acting right, so I was already acutely aware of how that worked. So I just thought, all right, I'm going to learn.

Shalita Grant: 35:25

Who do I think I am? Well, I think I'm an entrepreneur? Well, you, never. You don't know any successful. Okay, well, there are books, so I'm going to get some audible books on successful entrepreneurs and then, after listening to one of them, I had the courage to stand up to that inner thought and move forward. Right. And so now my relationship to that who do you think you are? You can't do that is well, I'm going to learn. I'm going to learn how to do that because you're right, yes, you are right. You are missing one word yet, yes, so I will teach myself, I will be open to learning so that I can do that and I can shut you up with my action. So you know, it was evolving from hiding for weeks, months, from tasks that I needed to do to progress my business right. I know there's an evolution.

Shalita Grant: 36:25

There's an evolution right and so applying a lot of love and patience, and then like interviewing the voice, and now that process is a lot shorter for me now. So it's like, oh, I get that, like that stabbing feeling and then it's like oh okay, well, you just don't know what thing.

Kutloano Skosana: 36:43

Let me just pull up a YouTube video. Sure, perfect, perfect. So now you've got product out in the market and how are you selling it at the moment and who are those clients buying it?

Shalita Grant: 36:56

So I'm selling direct to consumer and I'm also, you know, selling directly to salons right now because of the strike. So I've funded my business with the money from, you know, my first life, for this whole time. But then the strike happened right, and so my mindset, you know, from one of the hardest points in my adult life, has always been like what am I learning? What?

Kutloano Skosana: 37:22

am I learning?

Shalita Grant: 37:23

And where is the opportunity? So now I'm fundraising. I am like getting all of my things together and like you know, having meetings with people and things, and so this is what I've learned from this process, which I wouldn't have known if I wasn't needing to explain my business to people Is that about 30% of my business since 2022, when I started selling direct to consumer in February is repeat purchases, so good.

Shalita Grant: 37:52

When people use the treatment, which there are about three treatments in every jar. They are having the same experience that I had in 2019. And they continue to use the product. So who are my users? My users are our black women with type four hair. My users are people who are caring for children with textured type four hair. So it's been really awesome getting emails from people who are like hey, I actually started using your treatment because you said it was good for the scalp, like it would, you know, not harm my scalp. In fact, I have a scalp inflammation issue and no matter what diet I go on, my scalp still is inflamed and I used your treatment and it cooled my scalp and I got a good night's sleep.

Kutloano Skosana: 38:47

Right.

Shalita Grant: 38:47

And so the other thing that I love is that people are recognizing how much money they save, and that was one of the things that I learned, too, when I first started using the treatment. Not only do you use fewer products, like less of it in your hair, everything works Like everything works like it says it will, and if it doesn't, you're not in the dark like, oh, what happened to my hair. You're like, oh no, this stuff just leaves a terrible residue, like it's the product not my hair right.

Shalita Grant: 39:18

And so they are also saving money because they're not having to buy wigs and extensions and they're not, you know, spending all of this money doing all this styling and stuff, because their hair is so much, so much more manageable that they can do it at home. So, people are silk pressing and then treating and then enjoying their curls Like it's just an easier life with your hair gives you all the options that we like to have, but safer now, because we do all sorts of things.

Shalita Grant: 39:51

Yes, going to the beach. Like I had product testers, her first treatment she was high porosity. So people with high porosity, the first thing that they notice is the perma curl definition People with low porosity hair. It takes them treatment three for most low porosity to see those perma curls. But she went to Hawaii for her 52nd birthday, jumped in, was told me she was swimming with the turtles and she had curls. She was walking through Hawaii putting flowers in her hair like first time in 52 years like enjoying her hair.

Kutloano Skosana: 40:27

Yeah, yeah, because you always have to plan around. You know Exactly. So that goes back to your first question.

Shalita Grant: 40:34

Oh, black girls, man, it goes back to your first question Like how do you describe what you do I make black women's lives?

Kutloano Skosana: 40:43

easier. So it's a treatment. Can you combine it with other hair products?

Shalita Grant: 40:48

Absolutely so. Here is the difference between the Four Naturals treatment and every styling product on the market. The styling products say if you use my pattern, if you use my curl mix, if you use my whatever, you will see curls. The Four Naturals treatment says after you treat your hair, every product you use, you'll see curls. Okay, that's the difference.

Kutloano Skosana: 41:13

Brilliant. Charlita Grant is the founder of the brand Four Naturals Hair and, as you've heard, her journey to entrepreneurship was triggered by a very public struggle with traction alopecia. And now we find out how she's enjoying this entrepreneurial journey. We get into the shades and layers rapid fire and also hear about her vision for the brand in the future. Quickly, before we get into the rapid fire, what have been the best things about being an entrepreneur? What are the three positives you can name?

Shalita Grant: 41:46

The three positives, I guess the first one is growth. That's like my mindset, right, Because, listen, I started from the bottom. You know what?

Kutloano Skosana: 41:59

I'm saying so. My whole life is like it's only up from here, baby, you know.

Shalita Grant: 42:05

But the amount of growth that I've done like getting up every day and getting up for myself, for my business- you know, that's been really powerful. Going from that like the learned helplessness, like rooting that out of my spirit, you know that's been super powerful. The second part of this journey that I really love is really the feedback, and I count the feedback as repeat orders. Like yesterday a woman like made her. This was her second time. You know, two days before that it was a woman's fourth time.

Shalita Grant: 42:44

So it's like, oh, this is so great, like it's catching on, it's happening. The third part I don't know. I think the third one would be the freedom. Really there is a freedom, but then there is really the there is an obligation. So the freedom to work anywhere, right, like if I decided to, because I live in Mexico, I love to, we love driving around and like going to different cities or whatever, flying somewhere. And so the freedom to work from the beach. I love that, yeah yeah.

Shalita Grant: 43:24

But I'm up. I'm up at six am, no matter where we are, you know. Sure this morning it was five, so it was like you know that, I love that, I really love that, and I see the more success Four Naturals has. You know, I can make my little dream come true. What is my new dream? Ask Well. I want to be a farmer in Thailand. What For real yeah.

Kutloano Skosana: 43:54

I love that. I want to farm marijuana.

Shalita Grant: 43:58

Ah, okay, right, right yeah, because we just became legal and I went back in 2018 for a month, the month of December, and I loved Thailand. I loved it. So, yeah, I would love my business to be in a space where I don't have to be on the North American continent, that I could be on a different continent and still like run my business but also live a much simpler life.

Kutloano Skosana: 44:26

Right, why not the North American continent?

Shalita Grant: 44:30

Well, I've been here the whole time, so for me it's like I want to see.

Kutloano Skosana: 44:36

Yeah, yeah. So what's your vision for Four Naturals? What do you see it becoming?

Shalita Grant: 44:43

I see Four Naturals becoming a very well-recognized and appreciated staple in textured hair care. I see hair salons adopting the Four Naturals detangling method and black women and children having a better experience in salons, no matter who owns it. As long as they're caring for naturals, they know that they're going to get a very consistent experience.

Kutloano Skosana: 45:14

I love that Perfect. I hope it comes through soon. That patent Great, so the rapid fire. If you had to write a memoir, if you haven't already, what would it be called and why?

Shalita Grant: 45:31

Don't fucking give up.

Kutloano Skosana: 45:33

Yay.

Shalita Grant: 45:35

Love it, don't fucking give up. And really I used to say this thing like really young I was like people would be like hang in there, like don't let go. I've had depressions in my life and you know I've struggled with, you know, suicidal ideation since I'm like eight years old and one of the biggest lessons for me has always been like those extreme, that extreme unhappiness. You know the end result of that, the losing the battle, is taking action on those thoughts right, and so it's always been for me, like listening to why, like, why is life so unbearable for you? And then what I've taken away from those, you know, big depressive episodes in my life have been like different ways in which I was not open to myself and not open to my own truth, living in a way that you know I think other people want me to.

Shalita Grant: 46:39

Right and not being open to the truth of of Shalita right. And so I think that for a lot of people, you know, we're afraid of being alone, we're afraid of the loneliness, we're afraid of those thoughts, and I've learned a lot, I've gained a lot of value from being an attentive listener to myself which is something that I never had as a kid and I know a lot of people, even if they didn't have like my circumstance. You know you could have a ton of money and be neglected Like it doesn't matter, right.

Shalita Grant: 47:20

And so learning how to be that active, attentive listener to myself.

Kutloano Skosana: 47:26

Right yeah.

Shalita Grant: 47:28

So that is what my book would be. It would be all of those, all of those low points, all of those really learning points, those pit stops in my life, and don't fucking give up, yo, because it really does get better. I literally went from sleeping in my dad's basement at 17 to the 25th or sixth floor of a dorm building in Manhattan with views of the Hudson River, one night to one night. That happened, that happened. Okay, don't fucking give up, Don't fucking give up Word, just don't fucking give up.

Kutloano Skosana: 48:03

You're an actress, so assume you'd play your own self very competently in your biopic. But if you had to choose someone else, who would it be To be the lead actress?

Shalita Grant: 48:17

I'm so horrible Because I couldn't even think of anybody. I don't know. I don't know these young actresses, I don't know their names.

Kutloano Skosana: 48:29

I know I'm outed.

Shalita Grant: 48:33

All right.

Kutloano Skosana: 48:33

All right, all right, we'll let that one pass. Thank you, but if you had to host a dinner tonight with a famous black woman, in whatever industry, who would it be?

Shalita Grant: 48:46

Dead or Alive.

Kutloano Skosana: 48:47

Dead or.

Shalita Grant: 48:47

Alive, okay, so dead. It would be Josephine Baker. I've been obsessed with her since I'm nine years old.

Kutloano Skosana: 48:55

Yeah, stories, man, she was mesmerizing too, she was mesmerizing, but she was a full human.

Shalita Grant: 49:03

There were really dark periods for her, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Kutloano Skosana: 49:09

So I think that's it from me. Is there anything else that you think we should cut and touch on as far as hair care for black women goes, or you know anything about your story that you're burning to let people know?

Shalita Grant: 49:24

No, I think we covered it. I think it was really awesome. I'm glad that I got to come on here and talk to you yeah.

Kutloano Skosana: 49:30

Thanks for your generosity. I appreciate it, and that is all from me today. If you would like to connect with Shalita or hear more about her work, you can visit her website for naturalshaircom. A link is included in the show notes, together with her socials. I hope you've enjoyed the episode and that you will share it with others. Also, if you haven't already, please give us a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify, so that others can find the show too. Thank you, I'm Kudrunas Kasanarichi, and until next time, please do take good care.