Meet Natasha Anderson and her daughter, Khadija, the co-founders of The Original UnBraider which is an innovative product that can take down 4 to 8 braids simultaneously while combing your hair. This makes the process a lot easier and results in a lot less hair damage.

Anderson, who is a mother of 5, first thought of a more efficient way to take down braids in 2004. Her own design was made into an actual tool at a plastic manufacturing company in Taiwan. She personally went to Taiwan with her family to work closely with the manufacturer.

When the tool was created, she began selling it at hair shows, beauty salons, and mall kiosks across California. But even though the business was doing good, she had to bring it to a stop when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and died.

Over a decade later, one of her daughters, Khadija Imara, decided to step up to take over as its CEO. In 2023, The Original UnBraider officially relaunched and immediately got sold out in its first week. Imara’s marketing strategy, which includes making TikTok videos about the product, has proven to be effective as it caught a lot of people’s attention and even garnered over a million views.

“The response has been amazing and I’ve had an amazing mentor to be able to follow in her footsteps and she provided me a blueprint,” Imara told AfroTech. “It was just about utilizing today’s time and the resources and the tools that we have. And the lesson learned was how to approach with a systematic approach, the social media strategy.”

Moreover, the mother-daughter duo wanted the product to not just create efficiency in taking down braids, but also to empower the Black community by being a representation of what Black ownership looks like. They also aim for The Original UnBraider to become a household staple as they plan to increase their production to meet more customer demand and expand internationally.