“Only Curls – The Lizzie Carter Interview” is Episode 6 of “What d’you mean you don’t brush it?” The podcast about curly and wavy hair.
In this, the season finale, Lauren and Dylan chew the fat with Only Curls co-founder, Lizzie Carter.
Lizzie walks us through the inspiration behind the brand, and their journey from towel to product range. The events that shaped them and we snag a scoop on their future.
Ways to listen to the Only Curls – Lizzie Carter Interview
Thanks for listening this series. We will be back in the spring with more scintillating discussion and tips on all things curly, wavy, and pushed.
(When we say “all things”, it’s not all things, it’s actually hair. Just hair.)
Episode Transcript
DYLAN – What do you mean you don’t brush it?
LAUREN – The podcast about curly and wavy hair with me. Lauren from Love Curly Hair
DYLAN – And me, Dylan Bray
LAUREN – Welcome to today’s episode
DYLAN – Today we’ve got a special guest. That’s right. It’s our last episode in the season. Do you say season or series?
LAUREN – See in my head I was saying series, season is more American
DYLAN – It’s too American and it it suggests 20 episodes, which, let’s be honest, we’re not gonna live that long. So today, rather than our usual format of tightly organized things, we’ve got a very, very special guest and we’re really excited to welcome Lizzie Carter, co-founder or founder?
LIZZIE – Co-founder
DYLAN – Co-founder of Only Curls. Welcome, Lizzie
LIZZIE – Thank you for having me
DYLAN – Before we get started with Lizzie, who are we?
LAUREN – I’m a curly hair blogger
DYLAN – And I’m a hairdresser who specializes in curly hair. Let’s get started
DYLAN – So Lizzie, you started Only Curls, which is a very, very popular curl brand and you started it in 2017, am I correct?
LIZZIE – 2016 actually
DYLAN – 2016
LIZZIE – It came out of me embracing my curls, shopping for products, shopping actually specifically when the idea came about i was specifically shopping for a curly hair towel and I could not find one in the UK and I was just like, that’s it, this is my business
LAUREN – Wow, gap in the market. That’s interesting. What specifically were you looking for? What did you did you want?
LIZZIE – I’d worked in the states for about five years, and I remembered having an intern had the most amazing curls, and she told me it was all down to the towel that she was using. I kind of brushed it off, didn’t really think about it, and suddenly it kind of came to me a few years later. There’s a gap here for a brand that encourages people to embrace their curls, that teaches people, that, gives them the education of how to use the products. There’s so many brands where curls around afterthought. It’s a sub-brand. And I was just like I wanted to be the kind of the anti-that and just be all about curls only target people with curls and just really specialize in that area and offer kind of a bit, be a bit more niche
LAUREN – Yeah, that’s so true. I feel like for ages it was that it was like, ohh this brand has now brought out a few curly hair products as well
DYLAN – I think it’s probably fair to say that America was quite a way in front of the UK on this. And do you think that you’re kind of like appreciation of curly hair was because you’d been working in America for like 5 years and there were obviously ahead of us on the curls
LIZZIE – You know, you go in to somewhere like Target, and their curly haircare offering was bigger, better, better packaging it, it was definitely ahead. But actually at that time I was straightening my hair. So the whole time I lived in America, I really wore my hair straight. It was really only when I moved back to England that I really embraced my curls again. I’m not even sure what sparked me. It was probably moving out of a corporate world
DYLAN – I think that is a really big thing that you’ve hit on there. So I’ve got a client who is, she’s a partner in the law firm. And she still says to me, but if I have a meeting or if I have to face client, I wear my hair straight and I’m like, why? And she says cause it’s more professional
LAUREN – Wow
LIZZIE – It makes me so sad
LAUREN – I feel like that is such a movement at the moment, isn’t it? Curly hair is professional. You can wear. Yeah you can wear it
DYLAN – Ohh no. Yeah
LAUREN – That’s not like. And. But yeah, the reaction against that is huge
DYLAN – But you don’t know what it was that made you decide I’m gonna go curly?
LIZZIE – I think I just, I realized the damage I was causing to my hair and then I started reading a little bit about the Curly Girl Method and I was like alright, I’m gonna have a go at getting my curls back
DYLAN – So how did you. Ohh, by the way, we’ve coined a phrase and I think it’s actually something that you will certainly appreciate this. We call it the Curly Person Method
LIZZIE – 100% agree with that. I think
LAUREN – CPM
DYLAN – CPM, we have to say that every time. Yeah, yeah
LIZZIE – No, we’ve been talking about, we talk about that within our team all the time. The fact that there’s not just curly girls out there, there’s lots and lots of curly people, and it’s not just women that we want to embrace their curls. It’s everybody
LIZZIE – One of the reasons I wanted to start a business was because I wanted to have a family and my job, I used to work in fashion. It was really long hours. It was unnecessarily stressful over knickers, which was what I was designing. It was just ridiculous and it’s just so stressed all the time. And I’m just like, this is crazy. And at the time, my boyfriend Hugo, still my partner, he’s also a co-founder in Only Curls. He always worked for himself and I’d be like rushing off to work and he’d be like, I’m just going to go to the gym now and then start work a little later and I was like, I want this like, he’s still working a full time job. He’s still working really hard, but he can choose his own hours and I wanted that for myself. I also think having worked in fashion, it’s it. At the end of the day, fashion design is product development, looking for gaps in the market and trying to fill them with a product which was clothing or underwear that I was designing. And swimwear. I was doing a lot of like blingy stuff at that time and just seeing how I was just getting beyond that, I can’t do another like bedazzled swimsuit. And so I think I’ve got quite an entrepreneurial brain, I’m always coming up with business ideas
DYLAN – And that’s interesting that you started with the towel because obviously when I think of Only Curls because I think of the products, the hair products, that is kind of almost the missing link between your fashion, a kind of fabric product
LIZZIE – Exactly. And that’s why with Only Curls you’ll see so many different accessories
DYLAN – Yeah
LIZZIE – Alongside the products. And I think that’s what’s fun about Only Curls. It’s like let’s create a hat for curly hair, let’s create scrunchies and let me choose all these colours and that’s what I love and the combs and it’s like we wanted to create this one stop curly shop that you can go on and have fun shopping and it was all about making an experience really. I think my fashion background also drove the packaging and I want it to be really fun and beautiful and that kind of drove it.
DYLAN – I mean, I think that’s a great thing as well because it’s it’s such a fun thing as well, isn’t it? Having those accessories that are just part of the brand as well. It is such an interesting, fun thing to do
LIZZIE – One thing we always talked about, we haven’t talked about it so much lately. In our marketing bit was like the whole approach was curly hair’s a lifestyle
LAUREN – Yeah
LIZZIE – t’s a it’s a lifestyle choice. And with that comes like all these different things that you need. And that was where all our messaging and this sense of community like we started. We did some bags once that said like “don’t touch my curls” on there and they just did so well. We did have pin badges that had little messages on. That was something like “yes, my curls are natural” was one of them
DYLAN – Yeah, Lauren said that when she got the package
LAUREN – Yeah. You said the whole presentation was great. And you mentioned that little badge
LAUREN – Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. I love it all. Yeah. It’s really nice touch. Yeah. They were fun.
LIZZIE – We stopped doing them because from the sustainability point of view, we were like, it’s kind of unnecessary to do these badges in every single parcel
LAUREN – SO it’ll be a collectors’ piece. I should hang on to mine
LIZZIE – Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah
LAUREN – How how long after the tower launched did you start to think about actually creating products as well?
LIZZIE – So the towel launched August 2016. I think we started thinking about the products early 2017, once we’d sold a few towels and we were like, right, we can do this. It was really fun and we, I mean Hugo and I talk about it all the time. Hugo’s very behind the scenes at Only Curls, he’ll love it that I’m including him in the in the story because it’s usually about me and he’s like “I’m always so forgotten” but he does a lot of the tech side. He does a lot of the website setting up kind of all the e-mail marketing, all our Facebook ads and then I’m more product development. So yeah, we started thinking about it in 2017, started looking for a supplier. So we managed to find somebody to work with us and we started developing the products, took about a year and from start of that development to launch and we launched the cream and gel in February 2018
DYLAN – So they were your first two products?
LIZZIE – First two products
DYLAN – See. I find that fascinating and without giving away, obviously any of your secrets. I I find that the leap to go my background is fashion, I’ve made a towel. Now I’m going to develop a product – that to me is an amazing leap. How did you go about it? Obviously you’re not a chemist
LIZZIE -I did a ton of market research, testing loads and loads of different products, trying to figure out what I wanted these products to be in terms of texture, in terms of what routine was I going to devise. I knew that I wanted to have some sort of leave-in curl cream and I knew I wanted it to be really lightweight. I’m not a strict Curly Person Method follower, but there are
DYLAN – CPM
LIZZIE – There are some rules in there that I think are good like sulfates. I mean I’m not anti-sulfate like I I think there’s lots of confusion about ingredients out there at the moment. A lot of misinformation online. Sulfates, are they bad for you? I feel like people market their products as no sulfates, as if sulfates are the devil. It’s really good cleansing agent but you mean you must know this Dylan, and it’s good for straight hair a lot of the time. It can be good because it’s a great cleansing agent. What it is probably not good for is dry curly hair because it can be a bit drying. I didn’t want to have sulfates in the products, if I’m not having sulfates, I didn’t want to have silicones because there’s not going to be anything in there that effectively removes the silicones. So there was there was a few things that I did think worked from the CPM
DYLAN – Yeah
LAUREN – It’s interesting that you wanted, you knew you wanted to have a gel, right from the beginning of thinking back to a few years ago, I feel like there weren’t really any gels. I don’t really remember. I feel like now there are lots and lots of them. But I feel like early on that was quite a forward thinking, I guess to think about that
LIZZIE – You’re right, I never really thought about it like that. But I do think it was forward thinking. I did sometimes wonder whether we should have even called it a gel because I think…have you tried our Enhancing Curl Gel, Lauren?
LAUREN – Yeah, I have
LIZZIE – So it is, it does have that kind of serum gel texture. Is it a serum, is it a gel?
LAUREN – I think it is nice in terms of application to have it a bit runnier actually. But I guess it depends on the curls
DYALN – So when you started. It sounds to me, and correct me if I’m wrong, that you you were wanting a product that you would use for your hair. So have you found that as you’ve gone further into this proliferation of the original ethos of I want something light and curly, you’ve gone, well actually for some people’s hair that won’t work, so we need soemthing to help them?
LIZZIE – Absolutely. It’s so important to me that we cover all hair types with our products and that’s what we’re working towards at the moment is offering more kind of different routines for different hair types. But the way I’ve tackled it here is with the team that I employ. It’s it’s just really important to me that our head office team is a diverse team of different curl types
DYLAN – So when you were growing up, did your Mum have curly hair?
LIZZIE – She’s got sort of wavy hair, actually
DYLAN – Did she used to brush your hair?
LIZZIE – Yes
DYLAN – Yes!
LIZZIE – Do you know, actually, maybe that’s unfair. Actually I think that might be unfair. She, my Mum always wanted me to wear my hair curly. My brother actually has very curly hair, curlier than mine, and she would spritz it with water and sort of scrunch it in in the morning. So she kind of, she did figure it out
DYLAN – So she got it
LIZZIE – She got it, she did. Yeah. I think there are a lot of parents that haven’t realized that that yet. If you brush the curls, you’re gonna break them up. We’re actually in. We’re actually very excitingly, we’re launching a kids’ range later this year, so that’s going to be an interesting one to navigate. So obviously be helping a lot of parents here
DYLAN – How will that differ from the regular Only Curls range?
LIZZIE – One thing that we really wanted to look at is reducing the amount of allergens in the product. Got things like nut oils in our Only Curls range that we have removed for the kids’ range. Also trying to make it as simple routine as possible. You know with kids, do we really wanna be putting on cleanser, conditioner, cream? Like how many products are you really going to want to put on a 2 year old? And so we’re going to launch with a cleanser, conditioner, a spray and then leave-in styler, I’ve got a one year old. It’s a battle to even get shampoo in my daughter’s hair. I don’t know if that’s normal
DYLAN – And she is she curly girl truist? She won’t use shampoo
LIZZIE – She doesn’t have curly hair!
DYLAN – Ohh
LIZZIE – It’s devastating!
DYLAN – Really?
LIZZIE – Yeah. She’s got such straight hair. She’s got beautiful hair, but she’s not curly. I thought I was gonna have a little homegrown model, you know? It’s gonna be so easy. Yeah. Now I’ve gotta find somebody. So she does not have curly hair, but I have experience of washing a four year old’s hair and it’s impossible. So, you know, for for us the way that we always try and explain it to parents is, you know, get the shampoo in. If you can get a bit of conditioner in, great. If you can’t, get them out of the bath, sit them in front of Peppa Pig, spritz it down with a bit more water and the detangling spray and comb it then. Then scrunch in a bit of leave-in. And I think that’s going to be the best routine for toddlers
DYLAN – When would you see the transition into the Only Curls range? Right around adolescence? Because obviously you’re saying about your daughter’s got straighter hair. And as soon as you said that, I thought, I bet, I bet she goes curly around adolescence. I mean, I had incredibly straight ahir. And I mean, look at it now. Well, I mean, you would not believe, but I had such straight hair. And then when I was an adolescent, it went wavy
LIZZIE – My hair was curly when I was young, but it was more wavy and then hit puberty it was more curly. Lauren was yours the same? When does your curls appear?
LAUREN – I’m just thinking
DYLAN – I asked you this the other day
LAUREN – Yeah, you did. It was quite early when I was little, actually. It was more, yeah, more ringlety then. I’m trying to think whether I lost it in the middle, but then I was straightening it for so long, that actually, I’m not even sure
DYLAN – I mean I guess there’s so many variables. This is the great thing about curly hair, isn’t it really. We can do so many different things on different days
LIZZIE – That’s one of the hard things about having Only Curls that and it’s the same with, I mean you probably find this too Lauren having an an influencer account, it’s you do feel pressure to have your curls perfect all the time. And curls, you know it’s it’s they they are they can be unpredictable and it’s not because of your routine or your products it’s because it can be because of the weather o your hormones or stress levels
DYLAN – Absolutely. But even even something as simple as you’ve walked out the house. If you air dry, you’ve walked out with the house with it slightly damper and you’ve moved a bit faster
LAUREN – Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
LIZZIE – In February 2019 we got featured in the Daily Mail, completely random article with some amazing before and after pictures and it wasn’t a paid for thing, it was just an article. It got picked up by the Femail section of the Daily Mail and we at the time because we kept selling out of these products and at the time we were out of stock and I remember we were actually on holiday. Things always happen to us when we’re on holiday. And we had this article that suddenly popped up. It was over a bank holiday weekend and it stayed a top story on the app for the whole bank holiday weekend. Anyway, all these orders were coming in, so we had to figure out how we’re going to take these orders and we managed to like install a thing on our website that was like pre-orders. Over a weekend we had something like 2000 orders, which I would never have been able to pack. So we took them as pre-orders and then that’s when the business changed
DYLAN – So the before and after pictures, where were they from?
LIZZIE – A hairdresser that was using our products and they’d been posted on socials and some influencer ones as well
DYLAN – So then you get nominated for this Vogue Award, which is amazing, isn’t it? I mean, that must have just been amazing
LIZZIE – It was so good. We didn’t win it, we were nominated, but it was still to be nominated this like small brand, and it was still just me. I mean, at the time, had I even quit my job? 2019, I had quit my job. I was on Only Curls full time in 2019. And then lockdown was a game-changer for business when everyone was realising “oh my God, I had curly hair once” and re embracing their curls so lockdown was actually brilliant for Only Curls. At that point Hugo really came onto the business more full time and he has really helped push it, he’s really forward thinking in terms of what platforms we’re using and he was the one that really wanted to do Tik Tok and I was so hesitant for so long. I’m just saying no, it’s not gonna work. And actually it’s been amazing. So he he’s been brilliant. So him coming on full time during lockdown really helped us
DYLAN – I noticed on your social media the other day that you had a thing where you said we will recommend curl specialists in your area. How do you pick the hairdresser?
LIZZIE – It’s a really good question and it’s one that Sherry and I have been talking about a lot because obviously if we’re recommending and advertising hairdresser, we want to make sure that from a brand perspective, we want to make sure that everybody knows what they’re doing with the products and curls and the whole training aspect is one thing that we are working on now and actually talking about doing training sessions ourselves with the products or partnering with hairdressers. I mean this is where Dylan, you might have some ideas I’m interested to pick your brain
DYLAN – Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I was actually
LIZZIE – Because it’s very new for us and we’re figuring that’s the thing with Only Curls, we’re always figuring it out
DYLAN – But I think there’s a big gap for a product company to work directly with a hairdresser and all those products going back to what we were saying, all those brands, they start as hairdressers. Aveda, well, Sassoon started as hairdressers, they are hairdressers
LIZZIE – Toni & Guy
DYLAN – You guys aren’t
LIZZIE – No
DYLAN – You’re coming from something different
LIZZIE – We’re doing it backwards. I mean one day the Only Curls salon, can you imagine it? Salon, offers training, it would be amazing
DYLAN – We should talk
LAUREN – I think it’s, just quickly. I think it’s interesting that you have done the way around though. I think as a consumer, somebody that would be looking to buy the products, to me the story of you feeling like there is a gap in the market and then trying to create something to fill that gap and using it on yourself and then putting a product out there. That’s actually a much more appealing concept than a huge global company that are thinking we should probably bring out a curl line. And I think actually doing it like you say sort of doing it in reverse almost actually really good
LIZZIE – And the customers as well, I mean they’ve all been on the journey with us. So many of our customers and I mean obviously we’re always looking for new customers. But we’ve got customers that have just been on this journey with us and even influencers that have been on the same, you know a lot of influencers we work with are my friends now you know. I think I’d like to see more celebrities wearing curly hair. I don’t know if that…
DYLAN – Who would you love to see?
LIZZIE – Embrace their curls?
DYLAN – Yeah, one person
LIZZIE – Meghan Markle
DYLAN – That’s mine! That is mine
LAUREN – That’s so funny
DYLAN – I think it’s hilarious. Yeah, because she obviously has curly hair
LIZZIE – Yeah. Of course she does
DYLAN – I just don’t think a white middle-aged man should be the one telling her to wear her curly. Yeah, don’t think that look great. But yeah, I think that would be… considering who she is as well and her, her philosophy, I think
LAUREN – Yeah
LIZZIE – Yeah
DYLAN – It’s amazing, she hasn’t
LAUREN – I think we can all see in our heads, how beautiful it would be
DYLAN – That’s our task, Lizzie. We’re going after Meghan Markle
LIZZIE – She looks amazing. She does. She’s beautiful. But I think she could wear her hair curly sometimes
DYLAN – So we’ve just come back from a break and now we’re twisting and Lizzie’s interviewing us
LIZZIE – Lauren, have you, have you tried the Only Curls products?
LAUREN – I have, I have the the set of four and yeah I love it. I think as you said before I really like the consistency of the products and they feel like they work really well. And I mean I was just gonna ask because this is just a personal thing for me, but I’m very sensitive to fragrance and even though it’s, it’s not a heavy fragrance but there is definitely a scent to the to the products. Is that sort of a synthetic fragrance that you’ve popped in or where does that come with the oils?
LIZZIE – It’s a really, it’s a really good question and actually I think the fragrance of a product is really important because it is the sort of it, even before you’ve used it, it could be off-putting
LAUREN – Right
LIZZIE – Always wanted something that was quite fresh, sort of slightly coconut without being like sunscreen -y. If that’s a word
DYLAN – It is now
LIZZIE – So I I wanted it to feel really fresh and and to be relatively light
LAUREN – Yeah, yeah
LIZZIE – But what we are launching, I’m really excited about and actually starting with we’re about to start putting them on the production lines completely fragrance free. So it’s our core range. Those four products that we talked about that we launched first and that sort of our proven most popular products are the cleanser, conditioner, cream, gel. We’re gonna launch as fragrance free. So I’m really excited to see how they do
DYLAN – OK, that’s exciting
LAUREN – OK, make a note. I’ll be there
DYLA – Yeah
DYLAN – I don’t think we can conclude our conversation about Only Curls without talking about the changing marketplace and the changing world and and the sustainability. So where are Only Curls on sustainability, what’s your…
LIZZIE – it’s a really good question really important question. Interestingly your options open up as you get bigger. We moved to a bioplastic bottle which means the ethanol that makes plastic is derived from sugar cane and we move to that a couple of years ago when we had enough units behind us to be able to order that. Moving towards 100% recycled plastic on our bottles. We’re looking at adding refill options and pouches
DYLAN – OK
Lizzie – And all our sort of packing materials when we ship are paper and recyclable and all our accessories come in, if we do do an outer plastic, it’s a biodegradable plastic
DYLAN – That’s what I was going to ask you. So the bioplastic coming from sugar cane ethanol, you said
LIZZIE – it’s not biodegradable. It’s called bioplastic, it’s 100% recyclable.
DYLAN – It’s recyclable… Because this is something that I always find fascinating. How often can you recycle plastic?
LIZZIE – How many times? Yeah, eight
DYLAN – Yeah, I thought it was seven
LIZZIE – I remember going through the debate whether we do bioplastic or do we do 100% recycled plastic. I mean, we’ve always got stuff to learn. I’m just trying to always try to figure out the best thing. If that makes it like that’s all we can do, is a brand is like choose what is the best option available to us. The other thing we’ve been looking at is like aluminium bottles, which I think would be great with refill pouches. But then again that’s where the, you know, actually I’m finding it really hard to find an aluminium supplier in the UK
DYLAN – You know they’ve found microplastic in people’s blood now
LAUREN – Really?
DYLAN – Yeah. I always like to put it downer on things before we go
LIZZIE – The the other thing that I like, the reason we haven’t done pouches yet is because they wasn’t gonna move to them when you can’t recycle them. No, I’m like it’s not right just have something that then just goes in the bin. I’m not. I’m not gonna do something because you know, from a marketing perspective, ohh it looks really good
DYLAN – I did the Greenpeace 5 day thing last week where anything that you can’t recycle you put in. So like film off say fruit or whatever
LAUREN – What, you just collect it all together?
DYLAN – Collect it all together and then you photograph it. See how much you put in landfills and then you walk around feeling terrible
LAUREN – Yeah
LIZZIE – Yeah. I mean, I just can’t believe there’s still things like broccoli still collecting plastic
DYLAN – I mean, I can remember in like 2000, in the early 2000s, going into a petrol station, and I couldn’t believe this. I’ve never seen it before or since. But there was an apple in sealed plastic. You know what you’d get… Like batteries almost. Do you know what I mean? Well, you know, it’s that hard that you have to actually cut round it. And it’s sealed and I’m going, isn’t this apple packaged anyway? Yeah, the whole thing’s packaging. And it was hung, hung on a hook like that. Have I stepped into the future of madness? I haven’t seen that before or since
LAUREN – No, that’s quite extreme. I’m interested in your pile of plastic. How big?
DYLAN – I’ve got it. Just on the offchance, I wonder if I can get this in
LAUREN – Is the idea that you do that and then you, you do the same challenge again like in a few months to see if it’s smaller or is it..
DYLAN – No, no, you just do it and then you photograph it is to make you and everyone aware of how… Well, I’m recycling plastic, but again, but this is all the rubbish
LAUREN – That it’s really interesting
DYLAN – I think it is something that we normally do a product review. And we intentionally, yeah. Because we obviously arranged this a while ago. We we haven’t reviewed Only Curls
LIZZIE – You should. I’m interested. You should have done it live. I would have been that.. I love feedback. I would have taken it on board, constructive or negative. I love it. I love all our reviews. I love reading them
DYLAN – A high pressure situation though, wouldn’t it? And today we’ve actually got the founder of the company glaring at us! No, no, we. And we always talk about the sustainability. Yeah, it’s very good that it is being addressed and it’s important that it’s for people like you that it seems it’s been addressed in a genuine way
LIZZIE – One of the problems is that when you use recycled plastic, it has a grey tinge to it and it doesn’t look as good because it does have. And that’s the thing. If you’re buying something that’s a white plastic bottle, it’s, it’s not going to be white if you’re using recycled plastic. So there’s a whole education side to the consumer here
DYLAN – I think that’s fascinating if you explain it up front and actually make a feature of that because that’s the key ’cause it’s gotta look kind of intentional. Yeah. As opposed to this is, I’m sorry about it. It’s not quite as pristine as it’s like, no, it’s not pristine because of this reason. And then I think I could see, well, you know, like when you start wearing your hair curly, you get used to it and then you look back at a photograph of yourself with your hair straight and you go, how did I walk around like that? But you wouldn’t have said that. When you first
LAUREN – Yeah
DYLAN – And I think the same thing with if you saw a slightly off white thing. But if that becomes the norm
LIZZIE – You’re right, we want to get to a point where you’re like, I can’t buy that bottle that looks so weird. Like, so why, I don’t know about how you like walking around with a plastic bottle now. Like I was leaving the House today and I was like, I almost forgot my water and I was like, no, I can’t buy a… I can’t turn up wih a plastic bottle
LAUREN – Judgment. Yeah, absolutely
DYLAN – So obviously we’ve got the fragrance-free coming
LIZZIE – Yeah
DYLAN – Looking at the sustainability of packaging will be an ongoing. But what’s next for Only Curls?
LIZZIE – We talked abut Little Curls. That’s coming
DYLAN – Little Curls, of course is that what’s called?
LIZZIE – It is is that. Yeah. Ohh no I didn’t. I should have given that now I think it’s fine, it’s trademarked. We’ve got the .com. I think I think I think it’s OK. I think we can like you’ve got exclusive. Exclusive, what’s the word?
DYLAN – It’s a scoop!
LIZZIE – Yeah, it’s a scoop
DYLAN – Our first scoop!
LAUREN – So Next up, it’s time for one cool thing this week. So just to recap, this can be can be curly hair related or it can be not curly hair related. And I think every single time so far it’s not been curly hair related
DYLAN – I mean, I yeah, I want Lizzie to feel comfortable. So I think we should start with you, Lauren
LAUREN – Because they’re always so weird? OK. I thought this week what I want to bring to the table is wooden roller coasters
DYLAN – That’s hard to get to a table
LAUREN – That’s my cool thing
LIZZIE – Why? Why specifically wooden?
LAUREN – Right. OK, so they’re obviously different to a regular..
DYLAN – More sustainable
LAUREN – More sustainable rollercoaster. Gosh, I hadn’t even thought about it from that angle
LIZZIE – I’d be nervous about safety.
LAUREN – Yeah, I know what you mean. I think it’s become, it’s almost like a retro thing. I think they’re bringing out wooden roller coasters now as new. You know, they’re meant to look kind of rickety and, you know, maybe not so safe but actually
DYLAN – They’re menat to look not so safe?
LAUREN – I think that’s part of the charm. Don’t you think that’s that’s the charm of them is that…
DYLAN – The lack of safety?
LAUREN – I I think they put like creaking noises in, you know, I think they like pump creaky noises out. So that to give that impression
DYALN – A almost like a fragrance of roller coaster?
LAUREN – Yes! Yeah exactly. Just to kind of give you that impression
DYLAN – And screaming?
LAUREN – People screaming for their lives. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But very, very fun with metal roller coasters. Um, it’s how scary can we make it? How many times can you go upside down? And I think with the wooden roller coaster, you’ve got to be a little bit more clever. And just think how much fun can we make this?
DYLAN – So it sounds like you are a roller coaster fan?
LAUREN – Absolutely. I feel like I’m the only one
DYLAN – An the entire industry pinning its hopes on you
LAUREN – I think it’s me. Nobody will go with me
DYLAN – Ohh
LAUREN – Yeah. Conversation stopper
DYLAN – I’ve just bought a wooden rowing machine
LAUREN – Really. Yeah. Is it really?
DYLAN – I mean, it’s a boat
LIZZIE – Wait, is it actually a boat? A canoe
DYLAN – But let I don’t want to steal your thunder
LAUREN – No go for it
DYLAN – No, I’m not going to. Have you been on a rollercoaster Lizzie?
LIZZIE – Not for a really long time. But
DYLAN – Pre pandemic?
LIZZIE – Pre pandemic. When was the last? I can’t even remember the last time I went on a rollercoaster. Honestly, I think we’re talking 15 years. I grew up relatively near Alton Towers and…
DYLAN – I’ve been on one
LIZZIE – No! How can you… which one?
DYLA – It was the rollercoaster from Lost Boys in Santa Cruz. And I went on with my ex-girlfriend. And she didn’t know I’d never been on a rollercoaster and I didn’t tell her until I got off
LIZIE – And how did you find it? Well you’ve not been on another one, so..
DYLAN – I hated it
LAUREN – Did it go upside down?
DYLAN – I did
LIZZIE – On on the topic of roller, I actually think one thing that I’m definitely going to make a comeback and probably already are… I’m like I’m always the person that’s like 10 years after anyone else. How have you tried matcha tea? I love it. Everyone’s like yeah like in 2017. Are roller skates
LAUREN – Yes! I’ve been looking into getting some roller skates
DYLAN – So we’re not talking blades?
LIZZIE – Skate, not blades. I don’t think they’re cool. I think it has to be fours. They’re cool. In Only Curls colours. Pastels
LAUREN – Yeah
LIZZIE – That’s what I want
DYLAN – Because you would look great with curly hair kind of swooping around. This is an entire advert. Roller skates are great
LAUREN – Yeah. And. And more difficult than rollerblading, I think
LIZZIE – Yeah, I think so. You can’t turn…
DYLAN – Do you could ever go on a roller coaster on roller skates?
Lauren – On roller skates
DYLAN – Not upside down obviously. You kind of clipped in. You’ve shattered your ankles. By the time you get off. How was it? Ohh. Amazing. I can’t walk, but..
DYLAN – So Lizzy that’s the that’s really the quality of one cool thing. Yeah. So do you feel comfortable sharing your one cool thing with us?
LIZZIE – I know mine was going to be so mines really boring. This is one thing that I’m into at the moment and it’s going to bed early
DYLAN – Ohh. This is good. This is good. Are we keeping you up?
LIZZIE – No, no no. Seriously. Like this is, you know we’re talking earlier about the Americans are ahead of us
DYLAN – Yeah
LIZZIE – They go out to dinner at 5:00 PM. They get the babysitters in between like 6 and 8. And that’s when they get back. Feel like. I think this is a good idea. If you go out, you have your dinner, you have a drink, you get back, you’ve still got your evening, you can still be in bed by 10, but you’ve had your night out. They’re really into happy hour over there as well. If you think of happy hour in the UK, I think of like a Wetherspoons or Yates or whatever. Whereas over there it’s like cocktail hour. Happy hour happens between like 5 and seven. And like, I’m into that, into like happy hours. I’m into happy hours. That’s my cool thing
DYLAN – Happy hours!
LIZZIE – Happy hours between 5 and 7
DYLAN – The pursuit of happiness!
LIZZIE – Have you dinner, have your drinks, get home. You can still go to bed on time and you still feel good the next day. It doesn’t ruin your next day. Does that make sense? So you can have it?
LAUREN – Yeah. Yeah
LIZZIE – Happy. Maybe it comes down to like, work, life balance. Like. Yeah
DYLAN – What time do you go to bed?
LIZZIE – I actually, I’m saying all this. I still go to bed quite late. I’m always working, but I still have my night out. Even if I go to bed
DYLAN – Yeah, that’s true
DYLAN – Yeah. So yeah, I’m backtracking because originally I said going to bed early was my thing. It’s not. It’s not. It’s not because I still go to bed late. So that was…
DYLAN – It’s daytime drinking, basically
LIZZIE – See, I am fun. I didn’t come in with going to bed early. You’ve kind of you’ve drawn it out of me!
DYLAN – This is my skill as an interviewer
LAUREN – Dylan, what’s your one cool thing?
DYLAN – Ohh right. OK Ohh I know you know using people’s names. Shortening people’s names that nobody ever shortens to imply that you know them better
LAUREN – OK.
DYLAN – And then lengthening people’s names that nobody ever lengthens. So there’s converse. So I was watching a documentary on this musician. Right. And they have these talking heads on. And this guy comes on and goes, yeah, it was the 60s, man. They were all there. You’re like, oh, God, here we go. And he’s like, so the door opens and who should walk in? But Jim. It was a documentary on Jimi Hendrix. Nobody has ever called him Jim. In fact, Jim sounds more formal than Jimi. Yeah. Ohh, it’s 2008 man. They were all there. The door opens and who should walk in? But Baz, Baz, Obama. And it’s just like, it is so mad, you know? Like Dan Craig, Gas Barlow, there are so many
LIZZIE – Do you know what this is called? A power move
DYLAN – Is it called the power move?
LIZZIE – I think it is. It’s
DYLAN – This is why we need business people in here
LIZZIE – Yeah, we’ve actually. So actually. So Hugo’s recently bought this really funny book called Power Moves and he was just reading it the other day and laughing to himself. Things like, ohh, you just got the wedding invite? Ohh, I got that a month ago. And like, just like like trying to make out that you’re a better friend with it. It’s just like, it’s really funny
DYLAN – I guess it’s a little bit like the humble brag as well. Yeah, that kind of thing. But I really like doing the opposite
LAUREN – OK
DYLAN – So like, have you seen that film with Bradley Pitt? That Thomas Cruise is pretty good, isn’t he?
LAUREN – What are you trying to convey with the, with the lengthening of the name?
DYLAN – I just think I like things that just catch people off kilter, but but not quite sure. Like, have you ever said Netflix but hit ‘Flix’, Netflix. So do you watch Netflix?
LAUREN – Right
LIZZIE – It’s just like, say it with confidence
DYLAN – Yeah. You have to say like, everybody says it like that
LAUREN – Yeah
LAUREN – So just to wrap things up for today, Dylan, thank you so much for hosting and allowing me to be your Co host on
DYLAN – What d’you mean you don’t brush it?
LAUREN – And a huge thanks to Lizzie for joining us today. It’s been an absolute pleasure
LIZZIE – Thank you so much. It’s been great
DYLAN – Same time tomorrow. I’d like to say Loz, how much I’ve enjoyed today, and Elizabeth has been a pleasure. Is it short for Elizabeth?
LIZZIE – It is actually, yeah
LAUREN – Well, Dylanello. If you, if you enjoyed today’s episode
DYLAN – Me?
LAUREN – I’m talking to you!
DYLAN – Specifically me?
LAUREN – If you enjoyed it
DYLAN – There’s nobody else on Earth called Dylanello
LIZZIE – Season two or series two
DYLAN – Series two
LAUREN – So if you enjoy today’s episode, don’t forget to like and subscribe, review, tell your friends, tell strangers. And crucially, don’t forget to mention the new name for the Curly Girl Method, the Curly Person Method
DYLAN – CPM. And remember, you can get us from all your favorite places that you get your podcasts from and selected news stands. We’ll see you next week when we will be hosting live from Lauren roller coasting on roller skates on a rickety wooden frame. Bye.