Where it all began....

Welcome to our very first curly hair Blog post! It only took 3.5 years to make happen - but hey, better late than never right?! If you manage to read through the entire post - please drop a comment at the end, Curly Haircare I'm good at, blogging not so much! I need all the encouragement I can get 🤣 I thought for our first Blog Post I'd take you right back to the beginning - The Who, The What, The How and The Why.

So let's get to it....

I'm Kaycee and in 2018 I was a stay home mum of my 2 little curlies and wife to Tim (aka Mr TLC as he is now fondly known). My Curly Hair was something I both loved AND desperately struggled with, often wondering "How do I look after my curls!".

Whilst feeding my youngest one morning, I found myself mindlessly googling 'Best Products for Curly Hair'. I opened a page, yawned and closed it. Opened another, balked at the promises of some treatment that would 'Tame your Curls' showing the typical curly before photo next to a smooth, sleek, socially acceptable after photo. Yuck. I wanted to know how to make my curls less frizzy and healthier, not how to get rid of them.

I was just about to give up when something caught my eye - Old Google had given me the goods, in the form of a link to a Facebook Page -

'Curly Girl Method Australia & Nz'. I clicked without hesitation.

I swear to you - The clouds parted, The sun glistened through the windows, birds chirped and a choir of Angels started singing in welcome.

I had found a place where curls we're not only welcomed, but CELEBRATED. It was everything my Curly Heart desired.

That link and this amazing group lead me down the deepest, craziest rabbit hole you could ever imagine - Ole' Alice's Wonderland ain't got nothing on a Journey into the Curly World. I fell HARD.

I read every post, memorised ingredients, asked questions, posted photos. I chatted with other Curly hair folk, washed my hair daily to try new techniques and ultimately, became a "Curly Girl" through and through.

Fast forward 6 months, maybe 12 - who knows? Time flies when you're having fun.

I had started to get things pretty down pat. The curls were twirling, clumps were bumping, plops were plopping and I was Squishing to Condishing my heart out. BUT I was still using curly hair products from Supermarkets and Pharmacy's and I knew it was time to step it up a notch.

Being a Hairdresser by trade, I really know the difference professional curly hair products can make, so I decided it was time to get back to salon products. In the Curly group there was this local brand that everyone was raving about, Organic, Salon Profession, Aussie owned and made, and most important of all, it delivered awesome results.

EverEscents Organic Haircare was their name, amazing hair products was their game. I placed my first order without hesitation - A Deep Treatment and The Universal Styling Cream. After a few, short days of (not) waiting patiently, my order arrived! HELLO WASH DAY! Into the shower I jumped, new curl products in hand, excitement barely contained, amazing curls to come. The Deep Treatment was up first and WOW - I had used Salon Products for years before CGM, but nothing that made my hair so soft without Silicones, what was this sorcery! To this day this is still one of my favourite curly hair deep treatments. To say I was excited to try the Styling Cream was an understatement. I carefully pulled away the little silver seal, splodged a tiny amount into my hands, started rubbing them together and sniffed.

That is exactly where my excitement ended that day.

For some bizarre reason all I could smell was eau de vomit 🤮

Now I'm not sure if there's some kind of science-y explanation for this, like there is for the folk who think Coriander tastes like soap (weirdos), but either way, it was not something I could put up with. So I promptly gave away my entire tube to some poor, unsuspecting soul and that was the end of that. Luckily I loved my Deep Treatment.

Not long after my Eau De Vomit experience, I was pondering, as I often did, about what I was going to do with my life.

I mean, I was a High School drop out, Hairdressing Paralegal who had scooped Ice Cream and sold furniture as a teen, had babies relatively young and was now a stay home mum - but what next? Then it hit me! I was more sure about this than anything - I was going to retrain in Hairdressing (after a 10 years hiatus) and start teaching everyone and anyone I could about Curly Hair Care. Within 2 weeks I had secured a job at a local salon and I was ready to change the world - or so I thought. I quickly realised that not every one, including my new boss, was as excited about this amazing Curly Girl Method as I was. Teach people to love their hair enough they don't have to pay us weekly to straighten it? No thank you Ma'am. *insert sound of a quickly deflating balloon here* Nevertheless I persevered, doing the training I was told to do. Blow drying, straightening, keratin smoothing, you name it I did it. Little me really thought if I could prove to my boss that I was an awesome employee, she would let me teach her some Curly hair styling techniques. I was wrong. Thankfully she was open to me styling a couple of my own clients curly. I politely declined a lesson on how to diffuse curls while vigorously shaking the roots and moved along.

Sometime during this period I spotted a post on Facebook - EverEscents Universal Styling Cream had been released in an All New Fragrance (cast your memory back to the eau de vomit and ask yourself why that may have been 🤣). Anyhow, I messaged the team and asked if it was possible to purchase a sample size. I explained my past experience and therefore my hesitation to invest in a full size again. After reading my messages the awesome team offered to send my a full size cream to try out. LEGENDS. And so they did. I tentatively opened the seal, splodged out a bit, rubbed my hands together and sniffed. My little snoz was met with the most delightfully pleasant smell, with no eau de vomit at all. I was a happy curly again! Now through all of this, I was still a member and avid fan of the Curly Group on Facebook. So I reached out looking for any local curlies who might like to come see me in salon. A few made bookings which was AMAZING, but even more amazing was a call I got out of the blue.

It was none other than Nathalie from EverEscents.

"I didn't realise you were a Hairdresser! You know you can get our products at wholesale cost right?" she asked. "Oh wow! That's amazing, however I don't have any purchasing power at the salon and my boss isn't interested in new ranges right now" "No, no. I mean just for yourself, for you to use!" She told me. I was stoked - who doesn't love an offer like that. That evening at home, I was pondering once more. An idea was swirling around in my head.

I wanted EVERYONE to try EverEscents and see how amazing they were.

I wanted EVERYONE with naturally wavy and curly hair to learn how to love it and care for it. I wanted EVERYONE to be able to access all these other awesome goodies only available in the USA.

but I just wasn't sure.... was this really something I could manage, was there a need for it or was I just some kind of crazy curl fanatic?

Over the next few days, I dabbled and played around with a very basic website builder. I created some pages, listed some products and tried to make it look professional (Note - it didn't). One evening, sat at the dining table, I called Mr TLC over.

"Bub, I want to open an online curl shop so everyone can buy all their products in one place and not have to pay lots of shipping and I can get EverEscents wholesale and I already know some other stuff I want to stock and look I've built my website I'd just have to pay for it and then launch it and I think it'd be really fun and I really wanna help everyone and wouldn't it be cool and then I could help lots of people...." Speedy ramble, speedy ramble, speedy ramble. "No"

That was the extent of his answer. After more rambling and begging and persuading, he put his hand on my shoulder. "Kayc, this will be another thing like sewing cloth nappies. You'll spend a tonne of money, enjoy it for a few months and then get bored again." I couldn't argue with that. He'd only listed one of many. many hobbies I had adopted, invested in and then swiftly abandoned. But I knew exactly what he was getting at.

So, like the good and compliant lady I am (mum would attest to that) - I gave up, my curly dream was over.

Just kidding!

I paid my website subscription, placed an EverEscents order and launched This Little Curl (whilst being eternally grateful that I married a very understanding man who loves me more than I deserve and is the best ever and very very handsome). Our first weekend after launch, I posted a special coupon code in the Curly Group, as a big thanks for their help with market research and so forth. We had an incredibly overwhelming amount of support and orders and so began my REAL Curly Journey. We started with 1 product range, a few random accessories and now we're here.....and I couldn't be more grateful.

Kaycee xx