Néctar Naturelle launches new curly hair product line for children
Néctar Naturelle — a Puerto Rico-based hair product company — launched its online store on Feb. 1 featuring its first line for curly hair products for children, such as baby shampoo, hydrating conditioners, leave-in conditioners, and others.
One of its products, the beach and pool leave-in conditioner, is for all types of hair and it works as a hydrating method after hair comes in contact with pool chemicals and beach salts, allowing the hair not to dry out or get tangled before washing it that same day or the next day.
After the COVID-19 pandemic started, Nicole Rivera-Rivera, a content consultant, started noticing how difficult it was to find hair products that managed to wash her daughter’s afro-curly hair in online and in person stores.
In an interview with News is my Business, she said she decided to take out a $4,500 loan through nonprofit organization Kiva and launch her own online store of products, which she called Néctar Naturelle — because of all the natural oils they have, like sunflower oils — for kids who need the same type of products for their hair.
“I made comparisons on how to improve the products I had tried and contacted Ivdia Velázquez, the creator of the Linda Mami products,” said Rivera-Rivera, owner of Néctar Naturelle.
“She has the experience of combining chemicals and was the one who created the recipes for my products, this being her first line of hair products,” said Rivera-Rivera.
The products were set to be an affordable price, ranging from $7 up to $18 and there are also travel sized kits with a variety of the shampoos and conditioners in 2-ounce bottles.
The products are not just the regular shampoo type, but are moisturizing and tear free, specifically for children to prevent irritability when soap gets in their eyes, as Rivera-Rivera explained.
In addition, to try and make another sort of impact in the community, the entrepreneur made it her mission to use Naturelle’s social media platform to inform of Caribbean heritage and its uprising.
She will be sharing a series of more than 200 informative posts on Instagram for the month of March, based on the book “The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its Peoples” written by Stephan Palmié and Francisco A. Scarano.
She also tends to share posts from other accounts that represent the Caribbean, the community of color and some recommendations for young children’s books with characters of color for kids to feel identified.
“I want to be able to use the brand to combat the racism that is so normalized in many parts of the Caribbean, such as Puerto Rico, that curly hair is bad hair, and that curly hair must be controlled… I want to help eliminate that,” said Rivera-Rivera.
Néctar Naturelle’s products can be used in all types of curly hairs and adults can benefit as well in smaller portions, of which they can read more information about it on the company’s website.
It is recommended that people with colored hair use Naturelle’s conditioners combined with shampoos for their specific dyed hair.
