You might know that the main sponsor to this podcast is Iraba Cosmetics. I thought it might be a good time to mention what the big idea is behind this brand, and why Iraba Cosmetics does what it does...

Here it is:

Whether we like it or not, hair is a big part of how we see ourselves. Iraba asserts that with the right tools, we can appreciate our natural curl pattern, and realize that this hair that is so close to our faces is a big part of what makes each one of us both unique, and incomparable. That we, therefore, owe it to ourselves to care for those curls with the best stuff ever.

We, at Iraba, think that the best stuff comes from nature. That no matter how smart we get, it's going to be hard to beat nature's chemistry. So we work with natural materials, and enhance them to fit our lifestyles, and embody our values: Goodness, Ease, and Simplicity.

Practically that means being extra particular about ingredients. So we’ve developed a standard to guide us in ingredient selection. This standard rests on 4 pillars

The first is to Protect our hormones. Hormones are the messengers of our bodies, they run around telling our bodies what to do. Hormones are sensitive to input, and certain chemicals are a bit confusing to our hormones, making them fire off messages that they shouldn’t be. Chemicals that have the potential to cause this confusion are called hormone disruptors, and this is why we don’t use them.

The second pillar is to Protect our scalp, skin, and Hair - that’s why we don’t use ingredients that are unnecessarily harsh. You’ve probably heard of sulfates, and lye, but there are many more. We stay clear of those as well.

The third pillar is to be Safe for kids. That one is pretty self explanatory, we also don’t see why we families shouldn’t be able to share products.

The fourth and final pillar, as I mentioned, is that nature knows best, so we watch and learn. In awe. Whenever possible, we choose to include natural materials, from the African continent preferably. Nature was a medicine cabinet for our ancestors, surely it can be a cosmetics cabinet for us now. We just need to know where to look.

What does it take to be a strong, modern African?

The Iraba PodcastBy IrabaJun 13, 2020