Healthy Roots Dolls

When I was growing up all dolls had straight blond hair and blue-eyes, from baby dolls to Barbies, so I never had a doll that looked like me. I’m not blond. I don’t have blue eyes. Ok, today I can have both, but what if I don’t want that?

When we were in the toy store, I never saw dolls that looked like me. Anybody remember Baby Alive with her multicolored gel food? Those gel packs you mixed with water to create the “food” to keep your baby alive, then she pooped it out into her diaper. You weren’t supposed to eat the gel food. Spoiler Alert. It didn’t look edible anyway, but it was colorful. It came in green, yellow, and red, made not quite the consistency of jello. Wouldn’t want to make it look too edible right?

Yelitsa Jean-Charles, the creator of Healthy Roots Dolls, like I, didn’t have a doll that looked like her growing. According to her bio during her junior year at the Rhode Island School of Design, she created Healthy Roots Dolls, a toy company that creates dolls and storybooks that empower young girls. She created the company with the goal of helping children of color love their hair.

I first learned of Healthy Roots Dolls watching the show Start Up on PBS. A show that showcases entrepreneurs striking out on their own. The show tells the story of how those entrepreneurs are making their way in the world. The program showcases the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial experience.

I am an African-American female with curly hair, and growing up there was always the pressure to straighten the hair to fit the majority culture. Unfortunately we weren’t taught to love the hair we had, or even how to style the hair that grew out of our heads. There were many Saturdays spent at the salon “getting our hair done.” Getting your hair done meant one thing, having it straightened. Back in the day, it was with a pressing comb. A pressing comb is an iron comb with a wooden handle that sits on the stove to be heated, then combed through the hair to straighten it. Then we “graduated” to chemical relaxers. I was a kid with a lot of hair, hair my mother considered "unmanageable." So, when my mother discovered chemical straighteners, she thought it would be the perfect solution for my “unmanageable” hair. My first lye relaxer was put in my hair by one of my mother’s sisters. She was not a professional hairstylist. Guess what? My hair fell out. I went from a whole lot of hair to very little. The product was too strong. It’s a memory that stays with me, and is relived slightly all these years later every time I step into a hair salon.

Well, well, well. The pandemic hit and hair salons were shut down and I was not completely unhappy. What did I do? I decided to cut my hair off, let it grow out, and relearn it’s natural texture, and color(but that’s another story). I chose to sit with my natural hair, and learn to take care of it and love it in it’s natural state. I was liberated. I had been straightening my hair for years, basically on automatic pilot. The pandemic slowed me down and gave me time to rethink lots of things.

So, when I saw Yelitsa’s story, I was so excited to watch. She had the same childhood experience I did, getting blue eyed blond dolls for birthdays and Christmas. She didn’t see her face or her hair texture reflected back to her. What does that do to a child’s sense of self to not see her self reflected back at her? Yelitsa tells the story of the one time her parents got her a black doll and she started crying because “it wasn’t the pretty one.” She went on to create Zoe, a beautiful brown doll with curly hair whose hair can be styled, a doll that looks just like lots of kids with curly hair. She created Zoe so other children would not have the experience of self-loathing that she had, my words not hers. Zoe even comes with hair products!! Zoe is on a mission “to make as many new curlfriends as possible.” The Zoe doll teaches young girls with curly hair that their hair, my hair, is beautiful while at the same time teaching them how to take care of it. Styling videos teach how to style the dolls hair in box braids, havana twists, or just worn curly, the same styles that can be done on the little girls hair. Did I mention that Zoe comes with product?

Visual information is easily perceived. When I see myself being reflected back at me, then I feel valued. I feel seen. That’s what Yelitsa’s creation, the Zoe doll, does for kids with curly hair. How liberating!

Yelitsa’s mission according to the website, “is to bring curl power to the toy aisle with products that reflect the diversity of our reality. Job well done Yelitsa Jean-Charles!

Check out Yelitsa and her dolls at https://healthyrootsdolls.com/