Carol’s Daughter is still breaking new ground after 30 years in the game. The Black haircare brand partnered with New York Knicks shooting guard Josh Hart for a Black History Month campaign, and his game day hairstyles, and this is the start of a significant trend in women’s brands: making men feel special, too.
The partnership between Carol’s Daughter and Hart began when the company’s founder, Lisa Price, noticed how expressive the men around her were with their hair.
“I shared with my product team that I had been noticing a lot of young men in particular deciding to loc their hair,” Price said. And while she notes that she does see a lot of women with locs, it’s not as many young women in the same numbers she saw the young men. The women she sees getting locs are older, like in their 40s and 50s, deciding that they are going to wear sister locks.
“I was at a high school graduation, a middle school graduation, a college graduation, and I couldn’t believe how many people I was seeing in the audience from middle-schoolers on up through college, men with cornrows, with the man buns, with locs, and sharing that with my product development team like maybe we need to you know change our focus a little bit and focus on some of these people because this population is growing.” The analytical data may not show it, but Price knows what she saw.
Enter Josh Hart.
The brand added the New York Knicks guard to the campaign back in February, just ahead of All-Star weekend, celebrating the history of Black hair, not just for one month but all year.
“Being a professional basketball player, it’s important for me to look good on and off the court, Hart said. “Braiding my hair gives me confidence and has become a form of self-expression. With Carol’s Daughter, my hair looks and feels its absolute best, allowing me to be my best self!”
When a photo of Hart’s hair with “I love NY” went viral, his braider Sandra Finn was honored. “Josh is very open with me when it comes to his styles,” she said. “He has an idea of what he wants and I pretty much just put my spin on it. We’ve been collaborating with new styles usually once a year around playoffs or if he’s in my city (Houston). Each look takes about two hours.”
And Hart was more than happy to showcase his love for New York via his braids. “When I did the New York braids, that was an expression of how I really felt about New York,” he said in a promotional video for the campaign. “How I came here and they embraced me as a player, but also as a person. It was a way for me to show love to the city. I feel like I’m making a cultural impact.”
Finn worked with Hart on the hairstyle in partnership with Carol’s Daughter. Hart debuted the style during the January 10 game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
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It may not be an obvious fit at first glance, but given how instrumental Carol’s Daughter was in the Black women’s natural hair movement and how so many Black men have embraced their natural textures, evolution is happening in a major way in sports, too.
Partnering with Hart just made sense from the brand’s perspective. “We teamed up with Josh Hart because he’s all about family, Black culture, creativity, and staying true to his roots — just like us,” LeAnne Leget, the assistant vice president of brand engagement at Carol’s Daughter, told Andscape. “He really understands what the brand is about, and the way he unapologetically weaves his braid styles into everything he does, on and off the court, made him the perfect fit. He moves with purpose and his vibe matches the heart of Carol’s Daughter.”
“Now, I know nothing about sports, other than what I hear my husband talk about. That’s just who I am,” shared Price. “I mentioned to him ‘Oh, Josh Hart is on set.’ He’s like, ‘Josh Hart? For Carol’s Daughter, Josh Hart?’ Then he goes, ‘The cornrows! Oh my god, that’s genius.’ You know, so yeah, kudos to the brilliance of the team.”
Carol’s Daughter
“To look at athletes and know that you can go from a Josh Hart to a Jalen Hurts to somebody who’s bald to the football player with all the hair that does the dandruff commercials [Troy Polamalu], it’s what has always been. But when I first started Carol’s Daughter, I remember women telling me about their sons using their stuff when they would come to the shop and get more supplies,” she remembered. “‘Yeah, I had to get extra because my son used all of my hair oil, my husband used all of my conditioner. This one used my lotion.’ So men have been using our things for years.”
Price said it’s a good reminder that the work she and her team are doing is more than selling shampoo and conditioner; there is pride in how people wear their hair.
“I love when our forethought dovetails with everything that’s going on, and whether it’s a political statement or it’s a release, and a moment to smile in the middle of the turmoil that can sometimes be politics,” Price said. “I’m grateful that we’re [in the conversation] and we’re in there the right way.”
Price hopes people will see the campaign and Hart’s hair on the court and realize that while it’s hair and it’s fun, this is who Black people are, and it deserves reverence and respect. For many, our hair bonds us, which makes our current moment with athletes embracing their natural hair even better.
“It’s their choice [on how they wear their hair on their face and heads], hair is an accessory and it’s beautiful to see men embracing that accessory the same way that we have and just being so bold about it,” Price said. “Because they happen to be sports figures, that means somebody at school is like, well, if he’s doing it, I could do it. So I’ma do it.”