We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chenelle Moseley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chenelle below.

Alright, Chenelle thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

The mission of naturalbychen is to teach, to educate and to empower the black community on how to care for and love their natural hair, especially individuals with highly textured type 4 hair. Growing up in the beautiful island of Trinidad and Tobago, I never liked my natural hair. I felt like it was to “hard,” or to “nappy” to comb, which would often hurt when my mom combed it. This happened because there were not quality products for my hair type. As a child, I wanted my hair to be like the kids that had loser curls, or mixed hair and often dreamt that I had that hair. This was because growing up, this hair type looked beautify, it was easier to comb, and it made those individuals looked beautiful. I hated washed days as that’s when my hair would be the most difficult to handle, as it would get tangled and knotty causing pain at time when my mom tried to braid it so my mom would often put me to sleep on her lap while I got my hair braided for school. I begged my mom to give me a relaxer because it became the norm for individuals that had kinky hair, but my mom refused. After much attempts, she eventually gave in as I was getting a little bit older and needed to learn how to start caring for my own hair. After getting a relaxer, I felt like I had “good hair.” I did not feel unattracted or that my hair was “nappy” but I felt like my hair fit into the social construct of what beauty is as it was straight. I always thought that textured hair was hard to deal with and after years of wearing my hair relaxed and seeing the start of the natural hair movement, I wanted to embrace my natural hair again. I was excited to finally embrace my true self, my true identity, but that was short lived as the representation that I saw on social media was not representatives that looked like me. Although I was happy to see the world starting to embrace natural hair, they were mainly showcasing individually with looser curls, the hair that I felt was more desirable. So I attempted to use the products that they were using because they were the face of natural hair, but my hair was not looking its best because we did not have the same hair type. I struggled with my natural hair, trying many different products but it was not working for my textured, kinky hair. This was also a very frustrating time for me because although I felt like we had come a long way from the historical oppression of black hair, I still felt like individuals with my hair type was not being represented. So I went back to relaxers, went back to natural hair, back to relaxer then finally I kept my natural hair. That was within a span of the last ten years of my life. However, that all changed when God blessed my husband and I with a beautiful little angel after many years of struggling with infertility. In 2019, My angel Gabriel came and changed our life, he changed my life, and I was the happiest, woman alive because God had touched my once barren womb and made me a mom. While caring for my beautiful angel Gabriel, seven months after covid came. While we were on lock down, I needed to care for his hair so after the first lockdown was Liften, I ran to my local beauty supply store and inquired about getting some natural, quality hair products for his hair. Now that the natural hair movement has been in effect and things have changed from when I started my journey back in 2011, I was excited to see all the different brands for our hair. However, my excitement was short lived as the products were not working for my baby’s thick, coily hair. I because sad and a little frustrated so I ran back to the store only to have the same experienced. I showed my husband that the products were not penetrating his hair strands, the scent was too strong, it smelt like perfume, and it actually was making his hair break off. At that moment, I began to flash back on my life as a child and new I did not want my son to grow up not liking his hair which is a big part of his identity. I knew that the Social Worker in me had to bring change into my son’s life and I knew I had to do something but did not know exactly what. That was when the voice of God ministered to my heart and told me to go and study black hair. I questioned what I felt because I already knew about black hair, but God kept putting this desire in me to study black hair, so I did. I began to study more on black hair, I began to research the Scient on black hair, on different ingredients, how to care for black hair, what works for black hair and what does not work for black hair to name a few. While studying black hair, I began to focus more on ingredients and what would work for our hair type. While reading, knowledge and wisdom began to pour into me, so I began picking out ingredients and writing down my formulation to start making products in my kitchen. After gathering all this information, I began to formulate and make my own products that would work for my baby’s hair. The first product I made was my Sheacocoa Hydrating Deep Conditioner and was instantly surprised at how soft it made my baby’s hair on washday. It made me cry because as a child washday was what I hated the most so to make a product that would make washday easy for my baby just touched my heart. That was when I knew I was on to something and that I wanted my son not to go grow up hating his natural hair but to love it. I realized that there’s many individuals that have our hair type that’s struggling to find products that work, and products that’s helping our hair to grow and strive, so I knew I had to take a leap of faith and put my brand out there. I wanted to be the face behind individuals loving their highly textured hair and knowing that there’s a brand out there that cares about our hair. I wanted to ensure that the next generation of little boys and girls, know that kinky, coily hair is beautiful and that we do not need to cover up our hair, or relax it to look and feel beautiful that that our hair in itself is beautiful.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Chenelle Moseley, and I am a child of God, a wife, a mom to a beautiful little angel named Gabriel who’s three years old and I am also a Social Worker. I was born in the beautiful island of Trinidad and Tobago where I spent my childhood life before migrating to Canada to live with my parents. I grew up in an extended family. My childhood was filled with lots of laughter and although I was an only child, I never felt it as I had all my cousins, my aunts, grandparents, my uncles, to name a few. I loved my family. I was close with them all so when I had to leave, it was a sad time for me but I was also happy to be with my parents. I’m also a lover of sports. I did track, long jump, soccer and many more. While living in Canada, and at a very young age, I always had nurturing tendencies and loved caring for others. I loved helping individuals and often felt compassion towards others. I knew right away in high school that I had to get into the helping field but wasn’t sure exactly what. I thought I wanted to be teacher, I wanted to be lawyer, a social worker, in fact I want to be everything that would help other but after taking a course in high school called Challenge and Change in Society, I knew right away that I wanted to be a social worker. I went on to university and earned my BA Hons in Sociology and Social Worker and did my practicum in a shelter for abused women and children which touched my heart that I knew I was in the right area of Social Work. I then went on to gain employment in an area of government where I assist women and children impacted by intimate and family violence. I love what I do, I love helping my families and bringing change, but most importantly I love social issues especially issues that have affected the black community. As a social worker that advocates daily for family, I also had a passion and love for black hair which has deeply impacted our community. I have always been aware of the discrimination that black hair face, the systemic racism, and the oppression that we have all experienced and why we felt the need to cover our hair to make it fit into Society’s norm and to be accepted. Although I struggled with my natural hair growing up and into my adulthood allowing me to go back and forth from relaxers back to my natural hair, I knew that one day I would want to truly wear my natural hair. Although I started to embrace my natural hair, finding products for my highly textured kinky hair have always been an issue so at times I did not want to deal with my hair because it was always dry, breaking, and hard to deal with. The truth is at one point I did not care about it because I just felt like individuals with my highly textured kinky hair did not have quality products to maintain our hair and I often felt like the representation on social media was not individuals that had my hair type but individuals with loser curls. However, the birth of my son Gabriel changed not only our life, but where God would now shift my purpose and focus.

In 2019 God had blessed my husband and I with our beautiful angel Gabriel after many years of struggling with infertility. I was extremely happy to be a mom and I love every minute of it. Gabriel brought me so much joy.

But I was not expecting that his birth would turn me into an entrepreneur and a business owner for natural hair. My passion and love for natural hair has allowed me to formulate products that work for individuals with highly textured, kinky, coily hair, and after making my Sheacocoa Hydrating Deep Conditioner and seeing how effective it made our hair inspired me to create more products.

I Then went on to make my Ayurvedic Hair Growth Oil, Moisturizing Twisting Cream, Hibiscus Leave in Conditioner and Ayurvedic Sealant Butter. I took a leap of Faith and launched those five products not knowing how individuals were going to accept me. I did not have a background in business or entrepreneurship or a background in Chemistry, but I had a passion and love for black hair that God poured wisdom and knowledge in me that formulating became so easy as if I were doing it all my life. I received so much love and support from individuals in my community that they asked me to create more products. Within eight months I formulated my Sheavedic Herbal Moisturing Shampoo, Curl Aid Curl Defining Cream, Hibiscus Curl Refresher, and Ayurvedic Curl detoxifying mask. Not only do I make handmade hair products for black hair, I also teach my customers how to care for their hair. I travel to their home showing them how to wash and care for their hair, I educate them on how to use the products and I also teach mom’s how to take care of their children’s hair. I also travel near and far doing exhibition shows where I showcase my products speaking about my brand while also offering free consults to my customers wanting to talk about their hair and their struggles. I have truly found my purpose and being a social worker ties in nicely because I encounter a lot of individual battling with hair loss and hair concerns that has truly impacted them that I often find myself counselling my clients during our hair sessions. I love black hair; I love who we are, and God has allowed the birth of my son to truly bring out this gift in me as I noticed that there’s a need for what I’m doing especially here in Canada where natural hair is on the rise. My brand has also helped these individuals to not only love their hair, but their hair is growing, its soft, its manageable and it is not breaking which has been the major problem for our hair type.

What I am most proud of it when clients send me testimonies of their hair journey, when a mom would reach out telling me her daughter wants to wash her hair because she loves the product that smells like chocolate. In addition, I love when mom’s would say their kids do not cry when washing or combing their hair. This makes me proud because I know the struggle I went through as a child and how painful at times it can get when combing our hair so to create a product that can help my people love and embrace their hair brings joy in my heart. MY customers have also grown to trust me and my brand as they have shared that they also watched my son and I using the products and they have watched how it has transformed our hair. They also knew that I would not use anything harmful on my baby. Furthermore, what sets me apart from others is that my products work, its natural, I have the hair type that has often felt left out from the natural hair community to when customers see my hair, they often say we have the same hair, and they get more drawn to me and my brand. The success of my brand continues to grow as in December 2022, I launched my Buttercream Body Butter that has been my fasting selling products as customers think it is the best body butter, they have every used. I also launched my hair bonnet to keep my customers hair protected at night which has also been a success. Lastly, my brand has not only helped the black community, but my clientele has grown to South Asian, Caucasian and Europeans and many others that have found success in using my products.

I am truly humbled that God has turned a little country girl into a business owner that has been in business now for two years because never in my life would I think this would happen to me. To be able to formulate hair care and now skin care products that has helped hundreds of individuals grow their hair and heal their dry skin make me feel like I’m sleeping and needs to be woken up. I am thankful that my son can be a witness to see his mom bringing change to our community and I pray that he can use me as an example to bring positive change in Society. To see my business taking off is truly a blessign and I’m happy that I am walking in my purpose and bring change to not only my community but for the next generation of little black boys and girls.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

What has helped to build my reputation in the market is the fact that my customers speak of my honesty. I have always been transparent and honest with my customers about who I am and how this business came about. I showed them my passion and love for natural hair and nothing working for my hair really hurt me and that the birth of my son and his hair made me realize that I needed to do something for him and my community. I have told them my educational background as a Social Worker and that I do not have a background in Chemistry but what I’m doing is a gift that God has poured in me to help others. They have also watched my hair journey within two years and also my sons and has seen how our hair continues to grow and be transformed. Furthermore, they also listen to the way I speak and have shared that I am not only knowledgeable about natural hair but also passionate. They have also told me that I care about black hair and that its more than a business for me as I have been working full time as a Social Worker, I care for my three year old and I also run my business that has also turned full time. They see how hard I work and how I try to support my customers when they have asked me to assist them in caring for their hair. Lastly, my reputation continues to be positive as my customers can attest that my products work, and customers began to see their hair transformed that they continue to refer others to me and continues to support my brand.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

The best source of new clients for me was when I started to do exhibition shows. I was not aware of any shows in the community, so my customers started to encourage me to start doing show and started to refer me to individuals that were organizing them. I did my first show in August 2022, and it was a great success. I then started to research on social media and found many other shows and other individuals that have been in business before me started to tell me of shows while I was doing mine. I have been doing exhibition shows since August 2022 and has been doing it every month since then. For the month of February, I would have completed six shows and I have shows lined up for the entire year. This has upscale by business by 100% because the demand for natural hair products is very high that customers run to my table when I am there. While at these shows, customers would also come and testify of my products and encourage others to get it which they would. Because I travel across the city, customers would also come and purchase their products there which would save them on shipping. I also offer discounts to my customers, and I also offer washday services to individuals that have shared they don’t know how to care for their natural hair. Exhibition shows has also allowed my brand to grow and more and more individuals are believing in my brand. I am also being reached out by organizers to partake in their show, I’ve been speaking at shows on natural hair and more and more customers are wanting me to be their personal hairdresser. The best thing I did for my brand was to take my second leap of Faith and step out in the community and show my face and my brand. This also gives my customers an opportunity to meet me face to face and see my brand in person before purchase.

Contact Info:

• Website: naturalbychen.com
• Instagram: @naturalbychen
• Facebook: @naturalbychen
• Other: Tictok -Naturalbychen

Image Credits
make up by: @Annashasmakeupmagic Photographer : @naturalimagephotography.ca