Listen Live
HotSpot ATL Featured Video
CLOSE

Dove has always been a brand with a reputation for helping women love the skin their in, and now the beauty brand is looking to expand on that by helping young girls embrace their natural curls with a new campaign.

The newest facet of their Love Your Curls campaign, which launched back in January, is a children’s book release by Taiye Selasi titled, what else, Love Your Curls!

Selasi tells the Huffington Post that she jumped at the chance “to help girls along their journey of self-acceptance” with the campaign.

Her work seeks to challenge the traditionally-accepted standard of straight-hair beauty.

“We have to have these broader conversations about power and culture and beauty ideals in order to really understand why so many curly girls–six out of 10–don’t think their curls are beautiful,” she said.

Selasi pulled from her own hair journey to create the book of poems and stories. She recalled trying everything from braids to relaxers before finally coming to love her curls in college.

“It was interesting because it was like ’97, ’98, right when Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu were making their debuts,” she said, pointing out how pop culture went a long way to help her accept her natural texture. “I think that was the beginning of a shift, especially for brown women. Then I began to think, ‘Okay! Maybe this is something that I want to explore.”

Ideally, Selasi would love to see girls come around to that point much sooner in life than she did.

“The idea of inspiring a new generation to love themselves, to love their hair, to love their uniqueness,” said Selasi. “It thrilled me because I could remember so well what it was like to be a little girl feeling completely self-conscious, feeling that the culture I lived in didn’t think me beautiful. And it was a journey–one that I hope that little girls can take faster than I was able to.”

Don’t worry about rushing to the store to get your hands on a copy of “Love Your Curls,” because you can download it here for free (our favorite price)!

Dove Releases Children’s Book To Encourage Young Girls To Love Their Curls  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com