My Natural Hair Journey- Janine Van Throo
When I started in the natural hair care business, it was not intentional. It was more out of frustration. Of course, I didn’t know then what I know now. It has been a tremendous and enriching journey for me.
I started back in 2004 as a webshop offering natural hair care products for afro- and curly hair. By that time, finding the right products for this specific hair structure was not easy! It was my own need for a quality product that initiated my business.
I have been chemically treating my hair since I was 15 years old. Over the years my hair got thinner and thinner. Although I noticed it, I didn’t realize it. I never paused to look at what was going on with my hair. Or what could be the cause of the falling and breaking off my hair.
For me, it was normal that I saw my bathroom floor covered with strands of my hair. The thinning of my hair happened so gradually that it even seemed normal to me; losing that much hair.
It was only a couple of years later, on a cold, rainy, lazy day, that I decided to sort out some old pictures that I had in a box for years and put them in a photo album. It was only then when I saw some old pictures of when I was younger, my jaw dropped…….was THAT my hair? Healthy, strong, thick, did I mention very healthy looking! I jumped up with the picture in my hand and ran into the bathroom to compare. There was nothing left!
I remember thinking……”Girl, what happened to your hair?” My first reaction was “I have to get my hair back, how do I get my hair back?”
Right there and then I decided that, even though I did not know how, I was going to get my hair back.
I started experimenting with all kinds of products that I bought in most Indian stores, all of them promising growing hair, none of them gave me back my full hair.
Then one day I asked myself, what if I started over? What if, I just cut it all off and regrow it again? It took some time, but then I finally decided to have my Big Chop (this is when you cut off all of the chemically treated hair and start over.)
And this is how my Natural hair Journey started. It started with me walking into a salon asking them to cut off all my hair. It sounds easy, but I promise you that cutting it all off had a tremendous effect on me. I remember standing at the bus stop, right after I had my big chop, feeling very, very uncomfortable. I was so used to the chemically treated hair. I had the idea that everybody was staring at me and my short hair. It took me some time to get used to the new me.
This journey has taught me so much about hair, about products, about ingredients but mostly about ME.
Who I was and who I wanted to be, but also how my hair, without noticing, communicated who I was.
I started learning about natural hair care, learning about products and how to formulate them.
I noticed a transformation in my hair after I started using nutrition specifically for my hair. I learned that it all starts from the inside! Years later, all these insights formed the holistic hair care philosophy I developed; NISH®
NISH® stands for Nutrition-Ingredients-Scalp care –Hair Maintenance, the 4 corner pillars of this holistic hair care philosophy.
And although my main focus with products is for the afro and curly hair, the philosophy is suitable for every hair structure.
In the past years, I shared what I have learned with many friends, family, and clients. We even started a mini-wave on the nutritional part. Encouraging each other to not only eat healthy, but to intentionally feed the body the nutrition it needs as well.
It is my goal to help you, the reader, to understand your hair.
I hope this will help you transform the way you think about hair care and hair maintenance.
I hope it helps you, the way it helped me.
I encourage you to keep learning and take action on what you learn.
As a pioneer of the concept of natural hair therapy, Janine is primarily seen as an authority figure in the industry and earned a well-deserved reputation as the #1 Natural Hair Therapists on the global scale. As a researcher and product inventor, Janine formulates natural care products for afro, curly hair and scalp as well as nutritional products such as “Shake beauty shake,” the nutrition formula manufactured under the Sisay Cosmetics brand. Janine created the NISH hair care philosophy and certification program and served as the head educator for Just Natural Consulting.
Janine leverages extensive research and over 15 years experience in natural hair care to train natural hair therapists to cater to the growing need for natural hair care across the globe. She aims to educate 5,000 natural hair therapists by 2020 through quality education and certification programs.