To listen to Charlotte Mensah recount her journey to becoming an award-winning hair artist means you will be mentally transported: as an infant from the U.K., to to her family’s village in Ghana, flourishing between the loving walls of her grandparent’s compound, and returning to London to live the profound experiences that prepared her soul and hands to pour the care into the heads she shapes today.
Her story is similar to that of many immigrants: straddling lives between their original home and the foreign terrain to which they have ventured for larger opportunities. Her parent’s birth land was rich in joy and rooted in tradition. Her grandfather took her under his wings when she was a little girl, and imparted his entrepreneurial knowledge. At the center of their home, her grandmother taught her how to sustain a village. When she re-emigrated to the U.K. at age 11, she was presented with circumstances that were starkly foreign, initially socially impenetrable, cold beyond measure and shatteringly isolating.
Resilience was the fruit of her experience. Navigating the school system in London brought out some early grit as she was forced to defend her traditional Ghanaian hairstyle and cultural identity in order to fend off othering and bullying. When she was just thirteen, the unbearable grief of losing her mother awakened the healing and creative energies that coursed through her veins, radiating outwards to ultimately inform her multilayered artistry. From there, she set out on her journey as caretaker, mother, apprentice, beauty entrepreneur and philanthropist. Her road was not without obstacles; she faced racism while securing her first salon space, and later opted to self-fund her hair product line, delaying its launch by years.
When reflecting on her experiences, she credits her perseverance to her ability to joyfully access the lessons she received from her grandparents, and the spiritual connection she shares with her mother. Join me to discover more of Charlotte’s incredible story of hair and love.
Tamu McPherson:
Charlotte, I am so inspired by the way you share your story, and am so excited for you to join us at All the Pretty Birds today. As part of the diaspora, our ancestors are related, and a lot of the traditions that your ancestors would've passed down to you, we would've received even as far away as Jamaica. A lot of storytelling in the diaspora is very similar in principles and messages. So I just wanna, I wanna start with you as a little girl.
You were born in the U.K., and then you moved home to Ghana, to your grandparents compound. What was it like to grow up in this safe space, surrounded by 40 plus family members, in your village?
Charlotte Mensah:
My childhood was so rich. Going to join my grandparents at the age of three months was not my choice - my mom and dad thought that would be the best thing they needed to work. The 70s were very difficult. My parents lived in one room, my dad was working over 50 hours a week, my mom was working around the clock. Everyone they knew - friends, family - advised her to let Charlotte go back to Accra, and when she's a bit older, she can rejoin you.
My grandfather, in Ghana, was just an incredible man. I went everywhere with him; the boardroom meetings, the work events. I was like his little right hand lady. I remember sitting in some of these board meetings at the age of six, hearing a lot of deals being made. And thinking back, it probably instilled a lot of these business ideas I have now.
My grandmother, on the other hand, was a very skillful woman. She was very good at sewing, and then she also had this massive clay oven and she used to bake bread, cakes, biscuits. She was also very, very good at doing hair. I used to think, God, she's got a lot of skills, but she never really took it to a professional level.
But we're always having to write to my mom and dad in London to send us money and provisions. So why is it that she's got all these skills and we're still having a hard time? You know? And things were hard. But grandma was a very prayerful woman, a strong faith and this massive passion. She was always overflowing with joy, very kind. So it was a very rich upbringing.
Coming back to London, away from all that, I got so sad because I lost all of those safeguards. I came back to London at the age of 11, and I was on my own. I felt very lonely. I hardly had any friends, because I looked different. People laughed at me when I spoke. They laughed at my hair. They laughed at my skin color. And all of those things just made me feel like, Oh no, I just need to go back to Ghana.
There's nowhere I could stay here. People were too cruel. But at the same time, I think there was this resilience in me to fight, you know, because I knew my mom had struggled to get me back, because there was some sort of policy that if you don't go back before you are 16, you lose your citizenship, and she didn't want that to happen to me. So she fought really hard to get all my papers sorted for me to join her in the U.K.
Tamu McPherson:
You were instilled with this huge sense of entrepreneurship and resourcefulness. And in British society or the United States, people of color are not generally esteemed for their resourcefulness. I'm from Jamaica, you're from Ghana. We talk about poverty in the sense of a scarcity. My mom left me when I was a baby and I joined her when I was six. So my aunt that I lived with was also calling my mom for those resources. But the thing is, the richness is the joy and the richness is the family and the richness is having that “village”… when you have those principles just coursing through your veins, that is a strong foundation.
So you moved back to the U.K. at age 11, and find this really intense racism, really intense ignorance. And you are at a really impressionable age, and you are also grieving from your move. Your parents relationship dynamics have changed,
When we talk about hair stories, we talk about family and identity, and it feels that your grandfather made you really feel seen and respected. And how do you bring that into who you are today?
Charlotte Mensah:
My grandfather was very, very driven. My grandparents were the first people to buy a home in their neighborhood. There was no street. We had to pave the street ourselves. Like my grandmother and grandfather literally had to make a road so that we can walk to school.
He took me under his wings and we were just so close. When I came back to London, he would write to me every three weeks. Our closeness was so strong.
Because he was a director for a brewery, he was well respected. So he was also a very honorable man in the area. He had like over 400 staff! I think I was very, very, very inspired by him without even knowing. So I had set the goal that I was going to be like my grandfather, but I never ever thought I'd be a hairdresser.
I remember the day he passed, I think I got like five gray hairs in front of my head, like immediately.
Tamu McPherson:
It's interesting how our bodies react to events like that.
Charlotte Mensah:
Yes! But I was excited to come to London. I remember walking out of the airport and thinking, Wow, what is this place? Everyone was walking so fast. No one acknowledges anyone. It was very cold. I know the weather was cold, but the actual energy from the people was not that warmth that I knew of Ghana. I got to the house and my mom lived in a council flat, and that was so different as well.
The windows are small, everybody's in their home. In Ghana, we were outside playing, compound mangoes falling from trees. To me, my mom looked quite sad, because she was doing everything on her own. She had two more kids.
The first day I walked into the classroom at my new school… my God, I've never felt so sad in my life. Everyone was just looking at me like, where have you appeared from? Growing up in Ghana, we all had short hair, but all the girls in the U.K. had cornrows and relaxed hair. And there's me with the shortest hair, the darkest skin, and an African accent. I became the laughing stock of the whole school.
The school had made a group of us, and there was me and three other kids from Bangladesh, and I think one from Sri Lanka. They would whisk us off to this language center, and I never understood why we were separated. I thought, I can understand English perfectly, why am I being subject to this? But that's what happens there, you are considered as other.
I asked my mom to braid my hair so that I could fit in, and it was too short, but she was able to thread it. So I came to school with my new hair and three of the kids picked me up and tried to hang me on the ceiling cuz they said, Oh, your hair looks like hooks.
I remember thinking to myself, But what have I done? I just want to learn.
Because I saw other Black kids, I automatically assumed they would be more supportive. But they were even worse. They would even join in and say, Look at your shoes, look at this.
I had lovely friends in Ghana. Yes. I had loving family. Why am I subjecting myself to this?
I went home and would cry quietly to my mom and say, Please can you just buy me a ticket? I cannot stay in this. Please. I don't feel happy. I feel very alone. I mean it was, it was a lot. It is a lot to remember.
Tamu McPherson:
I think we experienced similar experiences in the United States, being West Indian with the Black American students. They ridiculed us as well.
I wonder if it has to do with just the trauma of Black people within their own country and when new people of color join the community, they're just othering us because they've also experienced it too. They're deflecting the structural racism that they have experienced. But it is painful. And you're coming from there where there's so much love and so much pride directed in your hairstyle and all girls have your hairstyle, to a place where they are ridiculing you, you know?
And simultaneously, you’re becoming a young woman alongside these first few years living with your mother, and then she suddenly passes away when you are thirteen.
Charlotte Mensah:
I think that was like, just my world definitely ended that day. I couldn't even speak for a week. I remember she had a lot of headaches and she would, you know, just say, Oh, I've got a headache. I just wanna be quiet. But of course, you know, she was a young woman. She was juggling about six, seven responsibilities at once. But at the same time, the little she had, she would always give, you know, and her name was Love, and she really lived up to that name.
She had a brain hemorrhage, so she was in the hospital, and she died only two hours before the operation. She was in the hospital for two weeks, and every time I went to visit her she'd be like, Did you hear from this person? How is this person? She was just thinking about other people, and she was not well herself. But that's the sort of person she was.
When she died, I was traumatized.
Tamu McPherson:
And you became a caregiver at that point. You began taking care of your siblings, and this is where your natural talent for hair emerges, because you start to take care of your sister's hair. I imagine the act of caring for your sister, there must have been a connection between you and your mom that brought you to be able to keep her close even when she was gone.
Charlotte Mensah:
It made me understand that through creativity, I felt joy. I felt a sense of happiness. Every time I did hair, it felt like, Oh, it's not that bad. It's not sad. You know, mom's fine. It was like healing, it was like my therapy, and it's still therapy for me because when I stand in my salon today, people come in from all walks of life. From the superstar to the girl who works as a cashier at Tesco's, they're all people and they all have something to share with you. And them being in my presence and need doing their hair, it's like, it's still part of the healing.
Tamu McPherson:
Do you feel like that's what's guiding you? Do you feel like that's why you don't falter?
Charlotte Mensah:
One hundred percent. It was always clear that this is what I want. I have always been very independent. Even if it takes a long time, I always have been extremely patient.
Tamu McPherson:
Which is interesting, because I think today, with social media, a lot of young people think that overnight success is the norm, or that you'll be so prolific in such a short period of time.
Charlotte Mensah:
My product line took me six years to bring to market, and people will say to me, What's wrong with you? Some people are bringing out products in six months. I said, That's them, that's not me. And I'm not in competition with them. I'm in my own lane. I know exactly what I'm doing and I'm not in a rush.
Most people, I feel, don't even know who they are. They're just copy-and-pasting and, and just in a hurry. They wanna be successful. But what are you putting out there? What is the legacy of what you're doing? And for me, I've always seen this as more than just hair products. It's a whole life.
Tamu McPherson:
Can you share your journey to finding the Manketti oil?
Charlotte Mensah:
I always thought, okay, if I'm gonna bring out a product, I want the ingredients to come from Africa. I knew about shea butter from my childhood and I loved it so much and I wanted that to be the main key ingredient. But by the time I got around to launching the products, which was like five years of research and product development, I realized that shea butter was already everywhere. I wanted to find the next best ingredient that's coming from Africa, but one that no one was using yet. And I didn't know that myself.
I'm very fortunate to have these amazing jobs where I get to do destination weddings. So one of my destination weddings took me to the Serengeti, which is out of this world. After the wedding, I decided to take a couple of days off for myself and get a head massage.
They used this oil, and honestly my hair had never felt so soft. Like days after I'm feeling my hair and I'm thinking it's still soft, it's still got moisture, it's still hydrated! I decided to research, and I found out that the Manketti oil had existed for over 6,000 years.The indigenous people in Namibia, that's where it was mostly used, but it was not highly regarded, because this was a time when everyone wanted something western and new.
In 2016, when I launched my products, people were like, Is it coconut oil? Is it avocado oil? I said, No, it's, it's Manketti. So it comes from the Mongongo tree and it's mainly found in the southern parts of Africa. I love the oil that it produces. It gives you the hydration and the moisture that Afro curly hair needs. But it doesn't weigh it down like most of the products that we were using at the time, which were heavy with glycerin and petroleum. I launched with a shampoo conditioner and the Manketti oil, and it was a hit.
Everyone was saying to me, Wow, how did you do this? And the reason why it took me six years is because like I said, I wanted it to be right. I wanted it to be something that was aesthetically pleasing because I felt like everything that we had in the market for Afro earlier was always very old fashioned.
On the European market, there were so many beautiful luxury products for hair. I wanted to really, you know, have that establishment of like luxury products for Afro curly hair.
My line is owned a hundred percent by me.
Tamu McPherson:
I want to take us back to how you got started, as an apprentice at Splinters.
Charlotte Mensah:
Yes. So, like I said, at 13, I loved doing my sister's hair. Later on in my youth, I was very fortunate to get into the first Black salon to open in the U.K., called Splinters, opened in 1971. This salon was like going to a five star hotel.
For a year, I only washed hair. Can you imagine just washing hair? You can't do anything else. These days, kids wanna do everything. After one month, they're like, Oh, I'm a stylist. But in those days, you went through the hierarchy. You couldn’t just turn up and do a blow dry. So you were given a stylist job.
Winston was the founder, and he was very, he was very much more than just the hairdresser. Around him, you always had this idea that you are gonna be great, so you have to act great. There was so much black excellence. And I remember at 16 thinking, Wow, I would love to be like one of these people. So it was like the perfect thing to happen to me. Getting this job really gave me that family foundation again.
I had a baby quite young, at age 22. It wasn’t enough for me to only be at home and be a mom, and I knew I loved the work I was doing as much as I loved looking after my baby. I worked for a few other salons to gain experience, and by age 24 I knew I needed to own my own salon… but I didn’t know how. So I rented a chair in a European salon, and my clientele grew very rapidly.
I had lots of clients that were booking me, I think I was maybe even busier than the actual salon. So one day the owner said to me, Oh, you need to pay the rent like three months in advance. I'm like, Well, how can I pay the rent three months in advance? I'm literally working week by week. I haven't got that bulk of money to pay you up front. I think it was a way of him trying to get me out, but he didn't know how to say it. He just said, Pay up front.
So then I had to bring all my clients home. I didn’t love the idea of so many people coming to my home, because people really glued to me. You finish their head, and they still wanna hang out. And I felt like I didn't have the space. But everything around me was really expensive because I'm living in Notting Hill. There was no Black salon or any Black shops on the whole road!
Every shop I rang, they said, No, no, no. Like nobody. It was just so many nos. One day I drove past this business center that had signs up saying “to let” so I thought, well it hasn't got a shopfront, but I'm just gonna go and ask. Something in my spirit said, that's where you're gonna have your shop. So I went in, viewed the studio, and next thing I know, I've got the studio.
But before I could open, I had to go through the Portello Business Center to write a business plan. They introduced me to the Prince's Trust, who were very instrumental, because they gave me a loan when no bank would, as well as a grant. They were the first people to say yes to me. They gave me that power and the confidence to start my first business. So I opened a salon, which I went in with like 50 clients by about, which is -
Tamu McPherson:
I mean, I don't know anything about hair salons, but 50 clients seems like a lot.
Charlotte Mensah:
It's a lot. But, can you imagine, after about two years, I had almost 400.
Tamu McPherson:
This is word of mouth. Before social media!
Charlotte Mensah:
Just word of mouth. I did a few magazine editorials, but those days we didn't even have many magazines! Where would they even put you? You have Black Hair magazine or Pride Magazine or Black Beauty, and that’s it. You didn't have a chance to get in Vogue, or anything like that. That was so rare. Nobody would look at you.
Tamu McPherson:
Because they just didn't see Black beauty as -
Charlotte Mensah:
They didn't see it. It was a very European standard of beauty with very straight hair, very light skin. Your nose had to be straight. A Black African would never get a chance, and even if you were like a Black African, they would highlight the picture so much that you would look light skinned! So it was very difficult.
I always think, when I was 15, I'd be buying Ebony, Jet and all of these magazines from the States. And I've been buying like Elle Magazine, Marie Claire, I've been buying all those magazines since I was like 18. I always think, there's so many different hands opening these magazines. Why are we not seeing it? Why are we not seen in it?
If you were seen in a magazine, it would be poverty-stricken, someone begging with a big stomach, flies all over their face and a big begging bowl. There was never anything beautiful or inspiring. We just weren't seen. It was difficult, but I think you just got on with it. You didn't even let it bother you. You just got on with it and you just did what you had to do.
So I eventually moved to Portobello Road. But even that…as soon as they saw I was Black, they were like, No, oh, you can't have it. The shop's not available anymore. I had to have a white friend call them for me, and that's when they said, Oh, the shop's available.
And I'm like, Wow.
Tamu McPherson:
And that's how you secured your space.
Charlotte Mensah:
You know, I'm probably the only one who's been on that road for the last 20 years, cuz everyone comes in four, five years, they can't do it, they move. But we got to that corner and it's like a pillar in a community. Even though our clientele's grown so much and sometimes we're literally so busy - it's like people hanging out outside across the road waiting - I still feel like that's just the place. This energy, this essence is right here. It's in this corner, it's in this community. And yeah, it's crazy the amount of challenges and the turbulence along the way. But again, that patience and having that spirit and that faith and, like I said from the beginning, the foundations that was instilled in me to still believe because your steps are ordained anyway… why are you worried about what they think? You know, it's not about them. It's gonna happen, even if it takes a different route. And yeah, most of the time it's been a different route!
Tamu McPherson:
Your influence is undeniable in the industry. And so even before 2020, when a lot of these conversations came to a broader consciousness, you were already contributing to these magazines, you were already influencing how models of color should be treated, how their hair should look. Did you realize how important it was to show up as a voice within those rooms, and within those spaces?
Charlotte Mensah:
I was doing some writing for Black hair magazines, and I told the editor: Look, there's a big movement in America. Everyone's talking about natural hair, but we're not doing that over here. And I've got so many clients coming in, they want to return to their natural texture. They want to go back to their God-given texture. We really need to do something in the magazine. And so she gave me five pages in the magazine. Every issue, I had five pages to write about natural hair and what products to use, how to treat the hair, how to maintain it.
And this experience gave me the confidence to do big hair competitions, like Afro Stylist of the Year in 2010. Everything I saw, all the previous winners, I always thought, this is not what Black beauty is. Where's the natural hair? Why has everyone got wigs? Everything was very hard and quite aggressive.
I would use photos of my grandmother and my mom as inspirations to create what I think the next Afro hairstyles are. Because we all draw from the past. Everything we have is from what we've seen. And then you put your own signature on it.
The first competition, I got through to the finals, but I didn't win. And then, the second one I won, the third one I won, and then I won the fourth one. Then in 2017, I was the first Black woman to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Can you imagine? The competition had existed for over 30 years, and the only people that were in the Hall of Fame were white women that had won it for Afro hair.
Even if I think back to my mom's early days in the U.K., there would've been women in the house doing each other's hair with all these years of working in the salon. How is it that a white person somewhere in Scotland who probably hardly does any Afro hair would win that award, when there are so many salons in London who are working their socks off doing so many styles and they're not getting the acknowledgement. So I think I came in with a message: we know our hair, we know our story more than anybody, and this is what Afro hair is.
And also just working with the dark skinned girls, because nobody else would give them a chance. So I would pick the dark skinned girl with the shortest hair, with the flattest nose, who's BEAUTIFUL. And I'd be like, this is the look, this is what I think is coming in, this is the trend. And people would be like, Wow, I never have thought of that, but you've done it so well. Erykah Badu got in touch. I worked with Janelle Monnae, Joy Bryant, so many amazing celebrities from America would get in touch with me and say, I'm gonna be in London. I’d love to work with you. The L'Oreal campaigns opened the doors even more. And the clientele just grew that way.
Tamu McPherson:
What do you think needs to be done in the beauty industry to continue developing positive, luxurious images of what Black beauty can look like?
Charlotte Mensah:
After George Floyd was killed, so many people were reaching out to work together. At least 70% of that has diminished. The only way brands can really collaborate with Black businesses is hire on a much higher level, because we are all down here in the middle and lower levels trying to come together. But at the top it's still very segregated. We need to have more Black people on the very top level of businesses for it to work. And until that happens, we're gonna have this problem over and over again.
Two years ago, it seemed very promising. Two years ago it seemed like it could happen. But right now, to me, I feel like we still have a long way to go. Once it's the boardroom it’s different, it would trickle down. But until then… I'm still praying hard.
Tamu McPherson:
Me too.
You can find Charlotte's book, Good Hair, here, and her eponymous product line here.
