Magnificence Rituales: How Aloe Vera Impressed Julissa Prado’s Rizos Curls Hair-Care Enterprise

Picture Supply: Rizos Curls

Like many curly haired ladies, Julissa Prado took some time to embrace her pure texture. Rising up, the Mexican-American, who has a white Mexican mother and a father of Afro-Mexican ancestry, was inspired to straighten her hair. It wasn’t till she hit highschool that she actually went on a journey to discover each her identification and her hair. After not with the ability to discover clear merchandise that labored for her hair sort, Prado began creating concoctions and coverings utilizing pure components. Her primary ingredient of alternative was aloe vera. Aloe vera holds great significance for Prado. Her abuelita would use it to remedy every little thing from cuts and burns to scalp irritations. She discovered very early on the ability behind this culturally related ingredient and began utilizing it in an effort to get her curls again. However earlier than she even began working with the plant, Prado needed to reevaluate her relationship along with her hair and unlearn what she had been conditioned to imagine is gorgeous.

“I grew up hating my hair. I’d at all times straighten it. The primary time I ever keep in mind receiving compliments on my hair was after I first straightened it, and I obtained hooked on the praise,” she tells POPSUGAR. “However as soon as I obtained older and hit my teenagers, I wished to embrace it. I wished to be taught it, and I wished to simply perceive the best way to put on it naturally, and that is when my journey in the direction of self-love, self-acceptance, and confidence actually started. As soon as I started to essentially personal my hair, I started to essentially personal myself as properly. I began with the ability to present up on the earth extra unapologetically, and extra authentically.”

How Prado Incorporates Aloe Vera Into Her Magnificence Merchandise

Prado does not have any precise aloe vera recipe she recommends. She’s at all times utilized the plant on to her scalp for therapy. When Prado first launched her pure hair line, Rizos Curls, she included aloe vera in fairly a number of of her merchandise. It is even the prime ingredient in her new Rizos Curls Detox Scalp Scrub ($28), serving to to appease, calm, and steadiness the scalp whereas additionally offering moisture. “Any scalp points like clogged scalp, itchy scalp, or dry scalp might be solved with aloe vera,” Prado says. “My grandma was the primary one to introduce me to it after I was a little bit lady, and it is simply at all times labored.”

Picture Supply: Unsplash/Jude Sensible

How Aloe Vera Is Historically Utilized to the Scalp

Prado’s abuela would decide aloe from the backyard, lower out the gel, therapeutic massage it throughout her scalp, and let it sit for some time earlier than rinsing out. As an grownup, Prado re-embraced the ritual, utilizing a bathe cap to let the gel work its magic for an entire hour earlier than washing with shampoo. “It actually heals your entire scalp. It additionally makes it stronger and more healthy and encourages hair development.”

Picture Supply: Rizos Curls

Aloe Vera’s Cultural Significance

For Prado, aloe vera’s significance is not restricted to scalp well being. It goes means past even the inspiration behind her extremely profitable model, Rizos Curls, which is bought at retailers like Goal, Ulta Magnificence, and Amazon. Prado associates aloe vera with therapeutic. She associates aloe along with her household, her Mexican tradition, and the medicinal knowledge of her ancestors.

“Wherever we had been, whether or not it was Mexico or in Los Angeles, we at all times had an herb backyard, and there was at all times aloe vera,” Prado says. “I’ve put it on my face, on burns, and on my scalp. It is to the purpose that every time I see the plant, I actually inform it ‘Thanks.’ I am grateful for it as a result of it is helped me by way of some robust instances — no matter what I used to be going by way of.”