Featuring: Rihanna

Summary

Rihanna shares her curly hair routine, the ingredients she avoids, and what she wants brands to create next: a truly hydrating leave-in conditioner with packaging that’s easy to grip—even with product-covered hands.

Meet Rihanna: Curly Hair, Naturally

Rihanna’s hair is naturally curly—and she keeps it that way.

“I don’t color my hair,” she says, adding that she gets it cut every six months. Her goal is to maintain healthy curls that feel soft, bouncy, and full of movement.

Rihanna’s Current Hair Care Routine

Rihanna keeps her routine straightforward, focusing on hydration and definition:

• Shampoo and conditioner
• Sometimes a leave-in conditioner
• Gel to style
• Diffusing to finish

This routine supports her curl pattern while helping her control volume and shape depending on her styling preference that day.

How She Likes Her Curls to Look and Feel

Rihanna describes her curls as typically:

She also mentions changing the outcome depending on whether she’s creating a “cast” (a firmer gel-set finish). When she doesn’t use a cast, her curls feel softer and more touchable. When she does, the hair can feel more rigid at first—but loosens up over time.

Pull quote: “Typically bouncy, fluffy.”

How She Shops for Products: Ingredient-Led Decisions

Rihanna shops across different retailers, but her choices come down to what’s inside the bottle.

She specifically looks to avoid ingredients that feel too drying for her curls, including:

• Sulfates
• Parabens and similar ingredients

She tends to lean towards more natural products, prioritising formulas that help her hair retain moisture and softness.

Pull quote: “I look at the ingredients. No sulfates… I can’t have anything that’s too drying.”

What She Wants Brands to Make Next

When asked what she’d create, Rihanna is clear: a really good hydrating leave-in conditioner.

She also has strong packaging preferences—practical details that matter in real routines:

• Easy to handle
• Not too slippery when hands are covered in product
• Not too bulky, especially for already crowded bathroom shelves

This highlights a recurring Street Talk insight: performance matters, but so does usability—particularly for textured-hair consumers using multiple products per routine.

Pull quote: “Something that’s easy to handle… not too slippery… not too bulky.”

Key Takeaways for Brands

• Hydration and softness define “healthy curls” for this consumer.
• Ingredient avoidance—especially sulfates and overly drying formulas—remains a key purchase driver.
• Packaging design is part of product performance: grip, usability and shelf footprint all matter.