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A Black-owned toy company has introduced a new styling head for children with type-4 hair in honor of World Afro Day on Thursday (September 15).
Purpose Toys, a company that aims to represent natural hair, recently launched the "Crown and Coils" styling head under its Naturalistas line of dolls, per Black Enterprise.
"From the standpoint of authentically representing distinctively Black characteristics, many doll products marketed to Black children don't often reflect their beautiful coils, curls, or natural hair color, which can inadvertently send the message that hair that looks like theirs isn't equally valued, CEO of Purpose Toys DeeDee Wright-Ward said in a statement.
"We want to change this," Wright-Ward added.
The "Crowns and Coils" styling head kit includes over a dozen hair accessories and an educational tool that teaches users how to manage natural hair.
“With the ‘Crown and Coils’ set featuring 20 culturally-curated hair accessories, namely our signature Crown Afro Pick and Crown Braid Barrels, our Styling-Heads are a loving nod to the experience of growing up as children who spend a great deal of their lives in variations of culture-based hairstyles,” Wright-Ward said. “With Afro-textured hair being a distinct identifier, our hair and styles are more than simple trends, but a unique representation of our incomparable culture.”
Wright-Ward noted that she partnered with Amazon to launch the new product.
“With the support of Amazon and the exclusive release of ‘Crown and Coils,’ Naturalistas continues to make history as the first all Black, culture-driven fashion doll line to not only center and celebrate children with coily and curly hair, but also to highlight the beautiful nuances of Natural Black Hair," she said.
The styling head retails for $29.99 on Amazon.
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