Love stories are rarely simple, albeit always revealing. The same can be said of the relationships we have with ourselves. What begins instinctively can become complicated over time, shaped by what we’re taught to embrace, what we learn to question, and what we quietly edit out.
Self-perception takes shape through culture, family, beauty standards, and the subtle cues that tell us which parts of ourselves belong and which might be better softened, tamed, or concealed. Eventually, though, the things we spend years negotiating with have a way of becoming the very things that define us. For Sarita Cuervo and Tyla Lauren, that reckoning began with the curls and coils they once tried to tame, but have since come to embrace as an expression of self and a love letter to their Latin heritage.
When you first stumbled, or rather, scrolled, upon the two social media savants behind the beauty and style trends flooding your feed, you probably noticed their hair first: Sarita’s long, chocolate curls or Tyla’s bouncy, tip-dyed tresses. It’s harder to imagine those same manes once constrained, routinely pressed or slicked into tight buns to blend into the background. Growing up, both learned to navigate the not-so-unspoken conventions of their classrooms and the beauty standards of the time. Tyla still recalls the “casual” comments about her hair looking more “tamed.” Back then, their natural textures, spanning type 3 curls to type 4 coils, were rarely, if ever, celebrated within their culture or beyond. Today, as brands like Garnier increasingly champion textured hair, that narrative is beginning to shift.
Tyla’s journey traces back to the Lower East Side school system, where her curly-coily crown stood out among textures unlike hers. “As a little kid, you just want to fit in,” she shares. “You don’t want to have a big, giant afro or look any different from the girl that has straight hair next to you because people start to ask weird questions and you don’t know how to answer them.” As one of only four people of color at school, that feeling of being the “odd girl out” followed her home, where, as the biracial daughter of a fair-skinned Puerto Rican hairdresser with straight hair, her texture was uniquely her own. Her mother may not have fully understood the experience of growing up with Tyla’s hair, but she encouraged her to “face” it, to understand how to treat and care for it as something inherently hers. Still, acceptance took time. “I despised my hair at one point,” Tyla admits, recalling the slicked-back buns she favored throughout her teens. “I had side bun blindness because I hated my hair so much.” What Tyla couldn’t have known then was that college would eventually transform her relationship with the curls she had spent years learning to understand.
When Tyla’s college roommate told her she was “out of her mind” for not wearing her natural curls, something shifted. The comment stuck. Slowly, Tyla began tuning out the noise she’d carried from childhood and wearing her ‘fro proudly, first for herself and later for the audience she built online. Exploration became part of the process, from experimenting with color and cuts to the pops of color she continues to play with today through Garnier, all while prioritizing the health of her hair.
Sarita’s story carries a similar sentiment, though it begins some 1,300 miles south in Miami. Raised in a lively Latin household and shaped by the city’s multiculturalism, the Colombian-American creator was encouraged to be loud and outspoken, even as she absorbed subtler messages about taming her long, loose curls.
Looking to her mother and tías, Sarita saw the women in her family altering their natural textures and felt the pressure to do the same. “My mom and aunts have done keratin [treatments] their whole lives, and I [used to do the same] or use other texture-changing products so my curls would be more of a wave,” she reveals. At school, that pressure took another form, with classmates telling her she looked “so much better with straight hair.” Yet while visiting family in Colombia, Sarita found a different point of reference in Colombian media, where women with thick, textured hair appeared on screen. Back home, that sense of recognition was harder to find. Eventually, she stopped looking outward for it.
In her late teens, Sarita began rediscovering her curls on her own terms, trading the impulse to control them for a more playful approach to styling. “The question started being less of how can I tame my hair and manage it to how can I love it or how can I play with my hair,” she reflects. “My curls taught me how to surrender to the fact that every wash day is different, every curl has a mind of its own.” That embrace eventually rippled through her family. Two of her aunts have since done big chops and begun growing out their natural hair, a shift Sarita credits in part to her own decision to embrace her curls. “It’s caused such a beautiful and positive kind of self-acceptance journey within my family,” she says, “and for that I’m very thankful.”
Their audiences have witnessed that evolution firsthand, watching Sarita and Tyla’s curls flourish alongside their confidence. Now, Garnier’s Nutrisse Glossy Curls Color line gives them another way to experiment with the textures they’ve come to embrace. Designed specifically for curly and coily hair, the formula prioritizes care throughout the coloring process. For her first-ever dye job, Sarita saturated her nearly waist-length curls in CR2 “Midnight Cocoa,” deepening their color while preserving their bounce. Tyla, already well-versed in experimenting with color, refreshed her ends with the rich brown CR4 “Glazed Brownie,” covering her grays in the process. “I think it was way overdue for people to have curly hair dye,” Tyla says. “People are always asking me for product recommendations, whether they should go to a professional or not, but now there’s a [safe] and affordable option for women that have curly hair.”
More than a decade after each began rethinking her relationship with her natural texture, their curls have become something more personal than a beauty statement. For Sarita, they’re a love letter to her Latin heritage and the generations of family who came before her. For Tyla, they reinforce an affirmation she now carries with her: “No one is you, and that is your power.” What they once felt compelled to tame has become something worth celebrating, wearing boldly and, perhaps most importantly, entirely on their own terms.
Click here to discover Garnier's Nutrisse 0% Ammonia Glossy Curl Color
