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

Dorothy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the best boss, mentor, or leader you’ve ever worked with.

The best boss I ever had was my very first job. I worked at a local mens clothing store where I earned 5 percent commission off each sale. My boss was a foreign man who always encouraged me. I was only 16 and I wanted to make $500 for one paycheck. He sat me down and told me how much I needed to sale in order to make that goal. I didn’t know at the time but this shaped me into the entrepreneur I am today.

Dorothy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

With the gifted hands and vivid vision, Dorothy Sanchez elevates the consciousness and confidence of Black women with coiffed perfection, culture, conversation, cultivation, and community.
For the women who travel as many as four hours to sit in her chair, it’s the old-school beauty shop work ethic that transcends trends to turn clients into family after just one appointment.

For others, it’s the realness that shines through her smile and the way her voice carries a honey-dipped code-switch that flashes her Detroit roots to let you know what’s up and what’s not.

For Dorothy, though, it’s a passion centered on serving Black women that helped her come of age and into her own as a beauty professional and Afro-centric beauty activist who teaches and equips Black women to heal, treat, and style their multi-textured hair.

More than just a notion, Dorothy’s Coily Life Hair Care is the first manifestation of a global beauty empire in the making that draws on her eight years of professional styling experience, an homage to African beauty, matriarchal pioneers, and the Black womens’ entrepreneurship.

Dorothy’s premiere natural hair product line meets the needs of millions of Black women who desire to embrace, nurture, and style their hair at home with full confidence and is sold nationwide.
When she is not behind the chair, Dorothy also advocates for the representation of professional Black stylists who know how to care for naturals and Afrocentric beauties, behind the scenes and on commercial, print, and media sets.

With compassion, expertise, and a wide-toothed comb, Dorothy adds volume, color, moisture and definition to our crowns and the much-needed conversations that honor Afro-centric beauty in hair care and champion Black women to love and rock their natural hair.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

At Coily Life, we know that you want beautiful, healthy hair that makes you feel untouchable and full of confidence. To do that, you need to understand your hair and what it needs to thrive.

The problem is, you developed a relationship with your hair based on a skewed standard of beauty. You end up feeling like you have to catch up to something that is already yours and using products and techniques that don’t nurture multi-textured hair the way it deserves. So it breaks, weakens, and becomes damaged.

We believe that your kinky-curly-coily hair is good hair; it’s versatile, resilient, beautiful, and unmatched.

So we created products that heal, grow, nurture, and style your hair with natural ingredients and a healthy dose of honor.

Identity and culture are ingrained in every strand of our hair, so I created Coily Life to celebrate and restore women’s natural hair back to glory.

Here’s how I do it:

We educate women about natural hair and all that it needs.

We created a complete collection of products that focus on our most common hair needs: hydration, length retention, heat protection, and easy styling— so it can do what it does.

We also offer professional styling services for every type, texture,
and preference.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I feel as though I am always pivoting in my business. The beauty industry is an ever evolving market. You have to be quick to recognize trends and how these trends can affect or impact your business. Like the pandemic for example. There was a time in my beauty business when I couldn’t find bottles to store my products in. This could of broke my business but I didnt give up. I started looking for every resource out of country and in country I could find. I found more than I needed and now I have backups for my backups. There will be lots of moment of uncertainty when running a business, it is up to you to decide that nothing will stop you. I think the very essence of being a business owner is to be a solution based thinker.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.coilylife.com
• Instagram: coilylife