The Curl Code: how curl care and self care means wellness for all

Lori Fish Bard is a wellness expert, licensed clinical nutritionist and board certified integrative health coach, and long-time client of Oasis . After finally becoming comfortable with her curls, Lori's hair began thinning after childbirth. She discovered she had an autoimmune disorder called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis . Her wellness journey began, leading her to the importance of gut health, integr...

We're kicking off the second season of the Curl Code by sharing vulnerable, illuminating, sometimes hilarious and always incredible stories from the show's launch party last year. This live event brought together curlies and non-curlies of different generations and backgrounds to discuss lived experiences of their curly hair, including hair care, trauma, and self-acceptance. Regardless of what we...

The natural hair stylists at Curly Oasis salon are back with more curly hair wisdom, styling advice, and stories of hair trauma and healing as curlies of all kinds share their journeys and learning to embrace their natural texture and living authentically.    Wafaya Abdallah brings her decades of experience in the beauty industry, and commitment to clean beauty, to conversations with industry pion...

Michael Yost has been a hairdresser for 25 years, and a business owner for 16 of those years. Much like the rest of the industry, he didn't think much about styling curls or natural texture until the last seven years or so, even though he's a curly man himself. Around that time, he also sold his business, and now, Michael is the president of Strategies , which teaches salon and spa owners how to c...

Luby Ismail came up in the same Egypt as Wafaya; longing for straight, silky hair, and taking hot irons and chemical relaxers to it to try and meet the beauty “ideal.” As an adult, Luby is an intercultural educator and public speaker, and realized one day that she couldn’t be authentic in her teaching if she wasn’t authentic in herself. Her journey includes living with multiple sclerosis, and in t...

Scott Musgrave started Curly Hair Artistry as an online education forum back when Facebook was in its prime, and Wafaya Abdallah was what you might call an early adopter. His philosophy of embracing natural hair texture and cultivating curls, instead of "dealing with" dry, frizzy hair, was still cutting edge a decade ago (no pun intended). Since then, they've teamed up to take the learning into re...

Kelly Swann started out as an apprentice Oasis Curl Salon . Originally she knew nothing about the art of hair styling. She was a great student and went on to have her own salon in Denver, Colorado.  Shortly after taking ownership of her own salon, Let Em Have It , in Denver, Colorado, Kelly and her team experienced a terrible tragedy. She reflects on how they coped–and didn’t, maybe–and what absor...

Curl Stylist Sydnei Cave grew up with a lot of the same "curl wisdom" as many women of color. Oil your scalp, braid your hair, use relaxers. But, as she became educated in hair science and curl styling, Syd increasingly understood that those approaches were based in a philosophy of beauty generations before her had adopted as a legacy of slavery. First, absorbing society's attempts to keep women o...

For some people, walking into a curl salon is the first time someone looks at their hair, often worn out, bedraggled or caked in product, and says "OMG what beautiful curls! I can't wait to see them!" That was certainly Hannah Gaber 's experience when she first went to Curly Oasis , recommended by a friend who knows the struggle. The journey of learning and self acceptance--and finding an unexpect...

On the Curl Code, we hear stories and struggles of learning to care for unique curly crowns, and how that so often leads to a larger discovery of authenticity, and making the decision to show up in our full light. Each episode tells a story of learning to care for curls, led by Curly Oasis salon owner and curl educator Wafaya Abdallah, with people of all backgrounds--curly or not! Tune in to get s...