Covered'n'Curly: Muna's Unique Haircare Journey

Muna Sheikh-Mao is the owner of the platform hub/business Covered’N’Curly. She is the eldest daughter and grew up in West London, along with her younger brother and sister. Covered’N’Curly was birthed on 1st July 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown where she was reflecting on starting a business. Looking at her own hair journey, she realised that there is a gap in the hijabi haircare market. She noticed there wasn't enough Black Muslims talking about haircare and wanted to help other sisters by educating them about haircare and the importance of it.

Muna gave us quite a personal account of her hair journey. From a young age her mom always took care of her hair, however, as she got older she decided to explore on her own. In year 6, she started to relax her hair and started experimenting with different styles. She felt shy telling people about relaxing her hair as people may have thought she wasn't embracing her own hair.

Fast forwarding to secondary school, in Year 9, she started to experiment with different hairstyles. At this time in her life, she only wore the hijab when needed or when she wanted to, however, as she started sixth form she then decided to wear the hijab full time, Allahuma Barik. The start of her hijab journey sparked a new level of curiosity within her. She began dying her hair as she felt like she didn’t need to worry about it since she was wearing the hijab. She started to take care of hair a lot more using hair products that were recommend to keep her curls healthy. She was looking at YouTube videos of other hijabis to find new styles to fit the way she dresses and new styles to choose from.

While at University, she started regularly silk pressing her hair, which was very damaging as she didn't realise the importance of heat protectant at the time. The hairstylist she and her friends regularly used did not apply one and that led to all of them experiencing heat damage in some way.

Later that year, she was getting ready for a dinner and saw the potential in her own hair and curls for the first time. Looking at how much her hair had grown but was still damaged it made her realise that she was ready to fix her hair and nothing was to going to stop that.

In 2020, Muna was on a weight loss journey, losing 20kg in the process. She decided that year would be the year of change and looked back at photos of her hair and decided it was time for a big chop. Although her mother wasn't in agreement, she still stuck to her guns and decided to go through with it. She started to venture away from her damaged curls to healthy curls. As she was improving her hair she transitioned away from talking about her hair to actually implementing her haircare routine, maintenance, and being disciplined in doing so.

Covered’N’Curly is a business and platform hub dedicated to hijabi haircare. The main goal of the platform is to provide information on how to take care of hijabi hair from a 360 perspective, including product reviews and tips that are accessible to all Muslim sisters. It's a platform that encourages and empowers sisters to take care of their hair underneath their hijab. With the slogan ‘Cover with Care’.

She started to focus on building connections with other sisters about their haircare, and seeking feedback to see if it is benefiting them. Building these connections was growing the community and more sisters were learning about the platform.

Muna had a plan to start releasing scrunchies and sample pillowcases for the business, however, in 2021 due to personal circumstances and challenges she put that idea on ice. She decided to focus her efforts on Aloe Vera gel, which was a great addition to her own haircare and was providing it to other sisters that were looking to add that to their own routines. Doing this helped her see the future vision of creating a Covered'N'Curly product line.

To show her appreciation of the support from her followers, she's hosted various giveaways to give back to those who give their constant support. Fun fact: I actually won her first ever giveaway. She kindly gifted me with scrunchies, shampoo, conditioner and leave-in conditioner to try and personally the products have been amazing for me ;).

At the beginning, Muna decided not to show her face on her platform at all as she was scared and had a fear of judgement and hate. She didn’t want people who knew her to know it was her running the page at the time. As the business/platform started to grow she started to realise that people seeing who’s behind the platform, makes the business more relatable and and easier to connect with the brand. As she started to be more visible on her platform the more opportunities arose for her.

The biggest accomplishments she's achieved are making an ebook called ‘Natural Hair Salons within the UK’ to help Black and Muslim women to find salons easier, and make their research easier . In September2022, she began selling handmade bonnets that she learned to design herself through YouTube. She was invited onto Islam Channel on Salam Britain in October 2022. She was also nominated at the Sisters Business Awards 2022. In 2023 , Muna and 2 other sisters came together to create the first Black and Muslim haircare event in the UK. This event was held to help educate and empower Black and Muslim women on haircare whilst creating a safe space to discuss it, the first event took place on 27th May 2023.

The biggest challenge she's faced while building this platform is doing it all by herself. It can be difficult trying to balance work, personal life and Covered’N’Curly so time management is key as she has no one to lean on. Lack of resources has also hindered what she wants to do at times, which has affected her confidence of putting what she wants to put on social media. Despite this, she reminds herself the purpose of what she is doing and the vision to bounce back from it. She would like to thank her family and friends for all the endless support and help regardless of doing this all by herself.

2023 is going to be the year of Muna and Covered’N’Curly. She has set her sights on continuing to grow the brand, expand, and plans to launch new products for Covered’N’Curly as well as accessories. She plans to make a greater impact on more individuals even those who may not wear the hijab. She wants to educate herself with more knowledge and experience regarding haircare. She also has hopes of turning the ‘Natural Hair Salons within the UK’ Ebook into a ‘Your Salon Directory ’ App for black and Muslim women to find salons on an international scale. She will continue to be part of Curls Coils and Sister team to host annual events for haircare and build community for black and muslim women. Inshallah Kheri, she will achieve these and more.

We asked Muna what advice she’d give to other creators and innovators in the Muslim community and she blessed us with some gems:

‘Don’t think twice , don’t procrastinate, just do it.‘

‘Don’t have high expectations from friends and family and constantly remind yourself you're doing this for yourself, not for other people. The support comes from the outer world, and not necessarily friends and family so don’t be disheartened. People may show support in different ways and if they don’t support, don’t show recognition and forget about them.’

‘Put trust in Allah in everything you do and make religion the centre of what you do. If you do something halal there will be barakah in it compared to if it’s haram there isn’t any barakah at all.‘

‘Build your network, and go to networking events! You can learn from speaking to the right people and the right people will help you. For you to learn and grow you must put yourself out of your comfort zone.’

‘Don’t doubt yourself, believe in yourself, believe in your sauce.‘

Muna is definitely building an amazing business and platform that is benefiting so many sisters and is making a positive impact within Ummah. We are

wishing all the best to Muna with Covered’N’Curly inshallah. It’s been amazing to watch her grow to where she is now, and I cannot wait to see what spaces she takes on.

Make sure to keep up-to-date with Coverd'N'Curlry on her socials @coveredncurly.

Hope you enjoyed reading Muna’s journey with her platform/ business.

Till the next one, Ray Talks.

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