If you’re South African and consider yourself a naturalista, you would have to be living under a rock if you didn’t know about the Clicks Curls Natural Hair Expo that took place in Johannesburg in March of this year. In celebration of curls of all types, the giant retailer hosted the 2-day event at the Galleria Conferencing Centre where I had the the opportunity to participate in my biggest brand collaboration to date – representing Aunt Jackie’s Curls & Coils by taking to the stage and delivering a talk on the state of natural hair in South Africa.
I had the honour of doing this talk with my long time friend and colleague, Amanda Cooke, and can’t even begin to tell you how excited we were to have been offered this opportunity.
Prepping our stand the day before
Photo supplied by Clicks.
So off I flew to Johannesburg for the weekend, and met Amanda at OR Tambo airport on Friday morning 23 March. From there we made our way to our Air B&B and settled in for the evening, making sure to go through our speeches that very evening. As you can imagine, nervous excitement took hold of us the next morning of the event, but we were determined to do our very best and to reach as many of the women in the audience as possible.
Well let me tell you that both Saturday and Sunday were so incredibly awesome. Amanda and I both had the times of our lives up on that stage and I personally loved meeting so many of my followers and supporters. There were mothers and daughters and grandmothers who came up to me to let me know that they’ve been following me for ages and that they watch all my videos. People were also asking me about my husband and how my boys were doing. Guys, this honestly meant so much to me, you have absolutely no idea!
In my element, sharing my passion for natural hair. Photo supplied by Clicks.
We got up on that stage four times over the two days, and I loved every minute of it. Photo supplied by Clicks.
The audience getting involved. Photo supplied by Clicks.
It was probably the most fun I ever had for two working days – pictured here with Nhlanhla, Carmen Cairncross, Jena Scheepers and Amanda.
On Sunday the 25th, I was interviewed by Cosmopolitan Magazine’s beauty editor and I was asked to share my biggest tip for looking after natural hair. It was only for their Insta Stories, but it was still such a huge deal to me as I grew up reading Cosmo Mag and couldn’t believe that I now had a small affiliation to it! That was definitely a pinch me moment.
Sharing my top tips for natural hair. Photo supplied by Clicks.
Having a look at my Insta Story with Cosmopolitan Beauty Editor, Aphiwe Khambule. Just look at her glowing skin! Photo supplied by Clicks.
Trying to go all extra in the Cosmpolitan Beauty Lounge. Photo supplied by Clicks.
Find yourself a curlfriend who can make you ugly laugh about the littlest of things like Amanda over here 🙂
Living my best life!
It was so lovely to see all these gorgeous and talented South African hair bloggers again! Back: Idorenyin Akpabio (Idorenyin Hope), Middle Row: Isabel Ngulube (Mzansifro), Unathi Petros (Natural Dilemma), Aisha O’Reilly (Aisha and Life), Front Row: Ncomeka Mpofu (Woodenmirror_TheBlog), Amanda Cooke (CapeTownCurly)
You can see exactly what went down at the event by having a look at my Highlights reel on my Instagram page, but I also had the pleasure of being interviewed regarding my thoughts on the hierarchy that seems to exist in the natural hair community by the Afrikaans TV show called KLOP. You can watch that interview below. It’s in Afrikaans though with lots of English sprinkled in between so hopefully you can catch the jist of it. It was also my very first TV interview, so definitely another pinch me moment. Hopefully I came across coherently!
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