“As a little girl growing up, I thought ‘pretty’ was having my hair straight,” said Dominque Deverreaux, co-owner ofHowever, the process to get to “pretty” – treating the hair with harsh chemicals known as perms or relaxers — can be a painful one for Black women – including Lewis.
Three months ago, Donaldson died from breast cancer. But the multimillion-dollar company she started operates from a warehouse in the Fulton Market District – shipping products around the world. “I was mixing my hair products in my dorm room. That’s when I had my husband do my big chop sophomore year in my dorm room. He took some kiddy scissors and just cut off all my hair – and it was like this low, and he left me like kind of bald on one side,” Lewis said. “But it’s all right. I love him.”