A Win for Us, Is a Win for All!
A win for Healthy Roots Dolls, means a win for our supportive community that has helped us get to where we are today. We thank our nationwide curlfriends for seeing the brand, loving our dolls, and believing in us. As a small women-owned business, we wanted to take a flash back to the past as we share and celebrate some of our historical wins!
Creating the FIRST Black Doll with Hair You Can Wash and Style
@healthyrootsdolls Are you not entertained? #healthyrootsdolls #toys #naturalhair #blackdolls #curlfriends #dolls ♬ original sound - Pope of the Wandaism Church ᗢ
Our Founder, Yelitsa Jean-Charles didn’t have a doll that looked like her growing up. When her parents gifted her a black doll at a young age she cried because it wasn’t the “pretty” doll.
In Yelitsa’s Junior year at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), she took a 3D illustration class where she had to reimagine a fairy tale character. She chose to depict Rapunzel as a little black girl with kinky curly hair to show all little black girls that “we can be princesses too.”
Little did she know that this would spearhead her passion to create the FIRST Black Doll with hair you can wash and style like your own. Here’s the best part, with REAL natural hair products.
Winning the Parent’s Best Toy Award in 2020
In 2020, not only did little girls all over cherish and love Zoe, but parents did too. Healthy Roots Dolls won Parent’s Best Toy Award in 2020 while also being nominated for other awards like the 2020 Toy of the Year Award.
Alongside winning Parents Best Toy Award, Healthy Roots Dolls stole the hearts and was named Popsugar's Hottest Toys of 2020, The Real Deal by Retail Me Not Hottest Holiday Toys of 2020, and the National Parenting Product Awards.
One of the first 100 black women to raise a million dollars
From the beginning, Healthy Roots Dolls set out to spread #curlpower! Our mission is to bring curl power to the toy aisle with products that reflect the diversity of our reality.
While little girls play with our dolls, we want them to learn how to love and style their natural hair while having a toy that looks just like them. This funding helped out expand and create new products to upgrade the curlfriend experience for little ones everywhere.
Launched two new curlfriends last year, Marisol and Gaïana!
@healthyrootsdolls Name a group of friends cuter than this 😍. We cant #healthyrootsdolls #dolls #blackdolls #toys #naturalhair #kidstoys ♬ original sound - Nile
Thanks to the love and support Zoe (our OG doll) got over the years, we were able to introduce two of her best curlfriends to the world, Marisol and Gaïana.
Similar to Zoe, Marisol and Gaïana have hair that you can wash and style just like your own. All three curlfriends have different facial features, skin tones and hair types that reflect that reality of our diversity.
What’s better than one curlfriend spreading curl power? THREE!
Now you can find all three curlfriends on www.healthyrootsdolls.com. We thank you so much for supporting us and loving our toys. As our journey continues, we want to bring you along with us because you’re family ❤️