Our Story

Hi, I’m Chelsey Ce’Mone, founder of Elite Kinks.

I remember as a little girl thinking my hair wasn’t pretty enough. I got my first relaxer between the ages of 1 and 2. No hate to my mama, she didn’t know any better and products for our hair just weren’t what they are today. I never really got the chance to embrace my hair the way it naturally grew from my scalp.

Being around predominantly white people during my most impressionable years had me believing my hair wasn’t it. Their hair was easy to comb, it flowed in the wind, their ponytails would swing when they walked. Meanwhile, I was comparing. During that time, you didn’t really see Black women being centered the way we are now. I was surrounded by European standards of beauty and I wanted my hair to look like theirs.

I remember asking one of my white classmates how she got her hair like that. She said, “Shampoo and conditioner.” I really thought I had found the answer. I was excited. I just knew my hair was about to be silky.

My mama took us to Walmart one time to get our hair washed and I still don’t know what made her do that. The lady was using a lot of shampoo and conditioner and I just knew this was it. I kept thinking my hair was about to come out long and silky. I left with a puff. I was confused. Why didn’t my hair turn out like theirs?

Fast forward to high school, around 10th grade, I finally understood why I had been getting relaxers every 6 to 8 weeks. My hair was naturally curly and I had been permanently straightening it. My edges weren’t “nappy,” they were curly. I used to ask my mom to cornrow my hair so I could get that big curly fro in the morning, not realizing my hair already did that on its own and even better.

From that point on, I started going longer without relaxers and in 2014 I decided I was done. No more. It wasn’t an overnight switch. I had to unlearn and relearn everything. What worked on my relaxed hair didn’t work on my natural hair. I threw wigs on and called it a day a lot of times. Finding the right products was hard.

But I always had a passion for hair. I used to say I was going to open a salon one day. That dream shifted into creating products. In late 2015, I had the vision. By mid 2016, I started mixing ingredients and let me tell you, it was a mess at first. I failed a lot. But I kept going. I kept researching and learning.

Then in 2017, I got pregnant and had my first baby in 2018. Three months later, I experienced major postpartum hair loss. That moment pushed everything into place for me. I truly believe that was God telling me to finish what He had already shown me. That’s when Herbal Oil was created, and shortly after, the Stylin’ Creme.

In April 2019, Elite Kinks was born.

I came up with the name sitting on my sister’s bed. “Elite” made me think of the best of the best, top tier, something special. “Kinks” was everything we were taught to question about ourselves. Together, it felt like an affirmation. That’s how “Know Your Hair’s Worth” came to life.

Because I didn’t know mine growing up. That’s why I compared. That’s why I questioned it.

But now I know.

My hair embodies everything that I am as a Black woman. Bold. Beautiful. Strong. Powerful. Exactly the way it is.

Elite Kinks is more than products. It’s everything I needed when I was younger. And it is my prayer that what I created helps you the same way it helped me.

This is for every woman still learning her hair.

And for the little girl in all of us who just wanted to feel pretty.