By Seoyeon Kim & Priyanka Ganjoo

Mana Shah started her Instagram and YouTube channel “Naturally You by Mana” to share the numerous tips and tricks she picked up on her own journey to self-love and acceptance. She is based in Philadelphia, PA, and her family is from Gujarat, India. 

Though her full-time job is not in the beauty industry, Mana uses her online platform to break conventional notions of what it means to be beautiful. In particular, her posts and videos on how to take care of South Asian textured hair have received tons of attention. By focusing her message on nourishment and self-care, she has gained a following from women who have similarly felt suffocated by dominant beauty standards. Read on to discover more about Mana’s own process of learning to love her hair, along with her detailed instructions on how to properly take care of your curls. 

Q1. What started your beauty journey with hair and makeup?

I grew up subconsciously hating my hair. When I was young and my mom did my hair for me, she never realized that for textured hair, you're supposed to take the knots from the bottom of the hair and then brush up. She would try to stick a brush to the top of my scalp and tug down, and it wasn’t a fun experience for either of us. You’re actually not even supposed to brush curly hair when it’s dry, and that's nothing on my mom because she simply didn't know any better. She has curly hair herself, which she didn't know until I told her recently.

Generation after generation, there's such a lack of education on how you're supposed to take care of textured hair—which could be wavy or curly or coily—because it’s supposed to be treated very differently than straight hair. 

We're taught to only treat our hair as if it's straight, because that's what we see everywhere. 

As for makeup, I used to be obsessed with watching YouTube videos, learning how to contour and seeing all the new tricks for manipulating your looks. At one point, I had like five bronzers and seven foundations — it was getting ridiculous. When I really started listening to my thoughts as I was getting ready, I suddenly realized that I was focusing on covering myself up as much as possible, trying to attain a look that was the least me. I would think things like, “If I contour here my face will slim down,” “I need to cover up all this acne and scars,” “If I brighten my under eye I’ll look less tired,” and on and on. How was it possible that I put in so much energy to ensure everyone around me got the best, most positive side of me, and this is how I spoke to myself every single morning? From that day onwards, I decided to give up any makeup that did not come from a place of joy. For me, that meant no contour, no concealer, and no foundation. Instead, I took all the energy I once spent watching makeup tutorials and put it into learning about my skin, how to improve it, and how to read ingredient lists. The goal was to look in the mirror and feel joy naturally. 

It wasn’t until almost an entire year later that I realized I was ignoring another very important source of negative self talk: my hair. I realized yet again that every single day, I would spend over an hour blow-drying and straightening my hair. I bought product after product because they all claimed they would get rid of my frizz and make my hair straight. Similar to my thought process with makeup, it became very apparent that my excessive hair routine wasn't bringing me joy. Anytime I saw my reflection throughout the day, my first thoughts were along the lines of: “The more I comb it the bigger it gets,” “How come it never stays sleek,” “I can’t go out with it looking like this,” and “I should try one of those permanent straightening treatments.”

I began to ask myself if I even liked how my hair looked straight and blown out, or if somewhere along the way I had defined beauty to mean flawlessly sleek and straight hair. 

I knew I wanted to figure out what was underneath my heat and chemically damaged locks. That’s where my journey began. 

photo credit: Mana Shah

Q2. Was there anything specific that triggered this process of understanding your hair?

There was one day where I spent an hour and a half, maybe longer, just on my hair because I had an interview that day for a job I really wanted. I woke up extra early to do my hair and got it to be pin straight, which is very difficult to do for me. But unexpectedly, it started raining while I was on my way to the interview. 

I arrive at the building to interview for a job that I really, really want, that I'm really excited about, but I get to the elevator and see my reflection and all I can think about is my hair. It didn't look the way I had spent so long trying to force it to look. I went into the interview, and all these negative thoughts were still in the back of my mind. I felt like I was fighting them while I was in front of this big opportunity that I should have been focused on and present for. 

I actually did end up getting the job anyway—which goes to show you are truly your own worst critic—but on that day, I didn't know I had gotten the position and when I was going over what had happened, I was in disbelief. I was so mad at myself because I'm not a vain person. I'm not a supermodel. I don't need to look perfect for a living. So why am I putting so much emphasis on how straight my hair is?

I wanted to let go of this constant fight I was having with my hair. 

So, I started YouTubing and Googling. I wanted to stop using heat, stop blow-drying, and stop straightening. I gave all that up for about a full year while trying to figure out how to actually take care of my hair, which wasn’t easy because there's just not a lot of information out there on how to take care of Indian textured hair. There's tons of information about other cultures’ textured hair, but because I have fine to medium density hair that isn’t too thick I couldn’t really follow their procedures. Needless to say,  I had a lot of bad hair days in my 2 year transition period of figuring it all out. 

Then I stumbled upon something called the Curly Girl Method, where I found information that was the most helpful for me—though it was initially all about trial and error because there are so many rules. For instance, though oiling is very popular in the Indian community and usually works great for most Indian hair types, it’s actually considered an anti-Curly Girl Method because you're supposed to avoid non natural oils. 

So I started with the Curly Girl Method as a basic guideline. First, I cut out sulfates because they dry out your hair. When your hair doesn’t have a balance of protein and moisture, it becomes frizzy. As I did more research, I realized that because I got rid of sulfates in my shampoo, I also had to cut out anything that wasn’t water soluble that I couldn’t cleanse with a conditioner or something that wasn’t as harsh as sulfates. So cutting sulfates also meant no silicones, waxes, mineral oils—any substance that wouldn’t be properly cleansed without the sulfate. 

After getting rid of harmful ingredients, I focused on lifestyle changes. Just by not using a regular towel on my hair to dry it, I cut down 60 percent of my frizz which was incredible. I also switched out my cotton pillowcase to a satin one, because cotton absorbs moisture from your skin and hair while you sleep. 

I eventually got to the point where I could wash my hair, and choose to style or not style it. Nowadays, I usually just wash my hair and put in a leave-in conditioner, and I still don’t have to wash my hair until another week or so. This also made me realize that since I'm not using sulfates to strip off all the natural oils that are in my hair, I'm not producing as much oil. There's nothing triggering the oil production because the existing oils are there in a balanced amount.

Q3. It’s interesting that oil is such a conventional Desi wisdom with hair. How did you find out that didn’t work for you?

It wasn’t necessarily that oils didn’t work for me. It was more so that I realized I hadn’t been using them correctly. For example, when I had frizzy hair, I would put argan oil in my hair to try to get rid of the frizz. That was one of those products that I kept buying because I thought it would magically fix everything. But argan oil is a sealing oil, which means its purpose is to lock in hydration. I had been putting argan oil on top of dry hair that I had blow-dried and straightened, which basically just blocked the moisture from entering my hair. What I should have done is use a penetrating oil instead. Simply put, a natural oil can either be penetrating or sealing: if the particular oil’s molecules are small enough, they will be able to penetrate the hair shaft and enable that strand to hold onto moisture for a longer time before they evaporate; if they aren’t small enough, they’ll sit around the hair shaft and essentially seal in the moisture you’ve added already. 

A sealing oil is best used on wet hair. If your hair isn’t wet and you’ve already gone a day or two since washing it, the chances are you’re not actually “sealing” anything in and you’ll be left with oily hair. Putting sealing oils like black castor oil, argan oil, grapeseed oil, and avocado oil on dry hair is really just going to make everything worse. Likewise, if you use a penetrating oil after a sealing oil, it’s not able to do its job and actually penetrate your locks. 

It's crazy because a lot of the marketing behind oils can be misleading. For instance, the Johnson & Johnson baby oil is technically a sealing oil. But they don't say that on the bottle; they say it's moisturizing. I have a friend whose baby has an extremely dry scalp, and she had been rubbing Johnson & Johnson oil on the baby constantly, not understanding why the baby’s scalp was getting worse and worse. I told her to put coconut oil first and then put the Johnson & Johnson oil on top, and it literally made the biggest difference. 

A simple google search of “Is _______ a penetrating oil?” should give you fast results. As a reference, I have a whole post on oils and how/when to use them on my Instagram. 

Q4. What impacts have you seen with your hair journey and Instagram page?

One of the most fulfilling aspects of my Instagram page is connecting with my followers through direct messages. Whether it’s answering questions, offering advice, explaining techniques, or recommending products, I’ve gotten to witness so many transformations. Some of these girls were in the same boat as I was years ago; they never even realized that their hair is textured and now all of a sudden, they’re seeing their hair bounce and spiral and wave for the first time. It’s extremely fulfilling to be able to be a small part of that realization that natural hair does not need to be changed; it just has to be nourished. 

My goal has always been to keep it simple. I want to show people that hair doesn’t need to be a multi-step hour long process. The most popular video on my YouTube channel is my Simple and Fast Curl Routine. In that video, I walk through exactly how to wash, style, get dressed, do my make up and be out the door within 60 minutes (with air dried hair!). It absolutely can be done. 

Q5. Walk us through a longer version of your hair routine. 

I typically only do this longer routine about once a month for maintenance. If you’re reading this and just starting to play with your natural hair, I’d recommend following it once every week or two weeks. The products listed below are a mix of both hydrating and strengthening (protein) to help inch closer to healthy balanced hair. The first thing you have to do is cut out sulfates, silicone, waxes, mineral oils, drying alcohols, and that will make a huge difference. To make things easier, there's tons of websites and apps that will tell you if a certain hair product’s ingredient list is approved or not approved — CurlScan is one. 

Step 1: Cleanse scalp with Not Your Mother’s Curl Talk Shampoo

Step 2: Condition mids to the ends with Not Your Mother’s Curl Talk 3 in 1 Conditioner 

Step 3: Deep condition hair with Curl Talk Deep Conditioning Hair Mask, leave on for 3 minutes and rinse out. A little goes a long way. While you wait, detangle your hair with your fingers or a brush if needed. For extreme tangles or to speed up the process, I love my Behairful Brush.

Step 4: Turn off the shower and apply Curls Blueberry Bliss Leave in Conditioner with your hair flipped over using the praying hands application technique (sandwich your hair between your palms and smooth downwards and away from your scalp) Avoid the roots and the scalp.  

Step 5: Use the same application technique to apply Curlsmith’s In Shower Style Fixer. Work through each strand but avoid roots and scalp. 

Step 6: (Yes, we’re still in the shower) Scrunch your hair to encourage your natural texture to form. Hair should still be dripping wet at this stage. 

Step 7: Scrunch out the excess water with the Perfect Hair Care Towel (you’ll be amazed at how much water this thin towel will absorb)

Step 8: Plop your hair in the same Perfect Hair Care towel (a method of tying your hair in a towel that maximizes curl definition and speeds up air drying time) Leave the towel on for about 20 minutes, taking advantage of this time to get dressed and ready for your day, and remove. 

Step 9: Air dry  to 100% dry—Since I love volume, I typically keep my hair moving from side to side every 5 minutes or so to encourage root lift as it’s drying.

And that’s it! Steps 1-7 were all done in the shower. The more often you do it, the faster you’ll become. The healthier your hair is, the more consistent your results will be. If you’re a visual person, head over to my Youtube where I have the entire routine up. 

photo credit: Mana Shah

Q6. What advice do you have for beginners?

There are 2 things I wish someone talked to me about earlier:

1.) The goal is healthy hair. We all have our individual curl patterns that will emerge once we reverse the damage and achieve a balance of moisture and protein. Focus on these goals and keep it simple. On social media platforms there’s going to be tons of information and advice, but also picture after picture of girls with big beautiful perfect spirals. “Curl Envy” is a common phrase in the curly girl community. Let’s cancel that, shall we? You may uncover that your natural hair pattern is uniform spirals and that’s fantastic. My hair is nowhere near uniform. I have spirals, waves, and still some pieces that barely wave. For textured girls, our hair patterns are almost like fingerprints. It’s unique to you. Yes, it’ll change as the damage is reversed but to chase a ‘look’ that is unnatural to your own unique hair essentially puts you right back into the same mindset when you were straightening.

This journey is about loving the natural you that you see in the mirror. Only you can make that decision.

2.) You’re going to have bad hair days in the beginning. The odds are that by now you’ve spent quite a few years straightening, blow drying, dying, bleaching, and overall mistreating your hair. If you were to fracture your leg and go to the hospital, would you come home and question why your leg was still fractured? Probably not. Be patient, because the transition period is as much about reversing the damage you’ve done as it is about learning what your hair likes and doesn’t like. If your hair is really bothering you in the meantime, feel free to clip it back, throw on a headband, or throw it up. You’re transitioning to natural and healthy hair. It may be frustrating, but it will be worth it. 

Q7. How do you see your platform evolving? 

I started my platform because I wanted to spread positivity and encourage people to embrace their natural selves. I had a very tough time figuring out how to actually care for my own hair because there is such a huge gap of education in the Indian community on textured hair. Once I finally got a good grasp of what ingredients and techniques to use for natural hair,  I was already helping a lot of my friends figure out their hair, convincing a lot of them to give up their straighteners. That’s when I realized that there’s more girls out there and that I should share what I knew, even though I get so camera shy that filming my first YouTube video was a disaster (it took all weekend). 

In the future, I hope that I'm able to encourage more and more girls to reflect on their own negative thoughts. If they're able to uncover that they're doing certain things because of external definitions of beauty that were forced onto them, and that they want to change this mindset and how they perceive themselves, that would make me incredibly happy.