Actor Mike Colter and His Wife, Iva, Have a Kids Hair Care Line You Must Try (Exclusive)

Mike Colter has wowed fans as a superhero in Luke Cage. This multi-dimensional actor also starred in films like Girls Trip, and Million Dollar Baby, and television shows like Evil. Most recently the seasoned actor has teamed up with his wife Iva Colter to launch the hair care line Niles +Chaz. As the parents of two young daughters, Mike and his wife struggled to find safe products to provide healthy treatment and keep their hair tamed, especially as children with mixed hair. 

After research and trial and error, the two created a clean hair care line that is infused with fruits and vegetables specifically for children. The couple recently talked to PopCulture about the process of creating the hairline and how they keep their children involved in the family business, Iva shared her personal experience as a mother of biracial children and the steps she took to take care of their hair.

PopCulture: How did the idea for a haircare line come about?

MC: I think my oldest daughter was around one. We took her out of the country. As a baby, babies have hair that is so nice and refined when they’re first born. As they grow, you don’t know what to do with it because it seems perfect as is. And then time passes, and it starts to develop texture and nuance, and you realize you do need some product for it to enhance it, to make it more of what it naturally is. But when you’re not prepared for that, you don’t know what to put on it. So, we left the country, and we were in Europe, and I remember looking at my oldest and I looked at my wife and I went, ‘Wow, her hair is a hot mess.’ 

It was a cotton ball. It was just all over the place. We were sitting in a restaurant. I was looking at it. I was looking at it and I was kind of embarrassed because we didn’t have anything to put on it. Her hair was just screaming for moisture and it was like, ‘Put something on me.’ It looked uncared for. It looked untamed. It looked dry. We looked at stuff, but it was nothing in Europe, so we started a quest of just looking for products. And we tried so many over the years. And as they’ve gotten older, their texture and the hair developed. It has matured. It’s starting to change on its own and it’s becoming different grades. They both don’t have the same hair. Specifically, I think my daughter was talking to my wife and I wasn’t there at the time, but she mentioned to her, ‘Why don’t we make something, mom?’ And that’s kind of the idea. The products just were not there.

IC: The product line came out of frustration. I’ve tried everything under the sun. I tried every product on the market, and I just kept getting frustrated. The products were not as clean and it was not what I would ideally like to put on my kids’ hair. We live a very clean lifestyle. We believe in sustainability, and all our products are packaged in plastic. And a lot of the ingredients we looked at, we didn’t recognize, and they were not meant for kids. And so that was kind of the impetus, with us just realizing there’s nothing on the market that works. There wasn’t anything that was clean and sustainable. So, when I had this conversation with my daughter and I was expressing my frustration she just said, ‘Well, mom, go ahead and do it yourself.’ And I was like, ‘Well, you know what? This is a great idea, we should.’

And Mike is right, the same struggle applies when we travel outside of the U.S. And I would say that’s even multiplied. I expected going to Paris and London, we would have no problem finding products. But that’s not the case. And so, this demographic is just such a rise. It’s domestically grown by 270% in the last decade alone. And certainly, globally, that number is even higher. So, we felt like this was the right opportunity. The market is ripe for something that’s super clean, sustainable, and healthy. The products are infused with vitamins that come from veggies and fruits. We as parents struggle to get veggies and fruits for our kids. So we felt this was a great way to go through their scalp and into their body. Why don’t we make it as healthy and as clean as it possibly can be? And so that’s kind of how things came together.

But being a mixed-race couple, what challenges did you face with trying to figure out your daughter’s hair textures, and trying to keep it tamed to your liking? Or what was at least socially acceptable?

MC: We received some crazy faces from people.

IC: It’s a great question. And I’ll be fully transparent and humble when it comes to this. But, as a white woman, working on my kid’s hair in the early phase, it was humbling. I didn’t really know what to do. I struggled to find a way to care for it. It’s a very different texture than mine. Initially, I asked my family, and my sisters-in-law gave me some early tips and I just committed to trying and learning. And it’s a journey that I’m still on it and will always be on it. It’s not something that you just crack and you’re good for life. Texture changes, and like Mike said, both of our daughters have very different textures. It’s not like you have one texture, oftentimes you have multiple. So, it’s an evolving and continuous journey that I hope inspires other families where it’s not always what people feel comfortable talking about.

And when you have children, whose texture is not the same as your own. I just want to take that taboo off the table. I hope to build a community around this idea. You just learn and try. And the first step is developing a line for our kids. But I feel it’s going to inspire other families like ours to get on this journey, too, and learn how to care for hair in the healthiest of ways.

What went into the research aspect of it? When you were talking with different manufacturers and companies to come up with the formula, and realizing fruits and vegetables that were necessary to keep the hair healthy, what else did you learn?

IC: In the early phase, I spent months just learning. I’m not the type of person who would just jump into things without doing my due diligence and research. So, I spent months just researching different manufacturers, and different contract manufacturers, just to really learn who specializes in vegan, organic, and clean manufacturing. And you’ll be surprised there’s not a whole lot of places in the country that really highlight that as one of their kind of focal points. I found a place that I felt was very well aligned with what we were looking for. And then I partnered with someone, who specializes in sort of assisting indie brands grow and scale. 

And so, in partnership with her, we’ve explored a ton of ingredients just through conversation and research. We knew that what we wanted to accomplish, for example, the detangler, was really based on the problem we were trying to solve, which is how do you create enough slip to get through textured hair? So it’s not pulling kids’ hair so there are no tears. So, it’s just a smooth and kind of effortless process. And so, in that discovery process, we were visiting with my family. My kids love okra, as I was looking at okra, we’re kind of in that exploratory phase and asking ourselves what veggies and fruits could really get us that, efficacy. I immediately felt that okra is slippery so let’s really research. It can work well for hair. And turns out it works incredibly well in hair. So that’s one example of how that easily translated. Then of course, working with people that have been in the industry for many, many years, there’s a lot of advice that came automatically, sort of from my beauty consultant as well.

As for the contract manufacturer who has obviously a ton of deep experience and was able to generate suggestions, it was tweaking, and trial and error. We would try certain things a lot. It was really in that kind of trial and error and deep research role that we’ve come up with the formulations that we have, which we’ve tweaked multiple times. I’m a perfectionist, and I really wanted to nail the key elements that we were trying to accomplish, which are control, and moisture retention. and really kind of effortless when it comes to detangling.

Michael, how has this been a learning curve for you? As a girl dad, this is probably not something that you were used to dealing with as far as dealing with their hair. But if Iva was not around, I’m assuming you can at least do a ponytail.

MC: I am Mr. Ponytail, Mr. Pigtails, Mr. Bun. If you don’t like that, then I don’t know what to tell you. You know what I love about our haircare, and I think it was demonstrated when we did our launch, is that if you just apply the detangler and the curl razor, and when I just put those things in it, the hair can just do what it does naturally. And I could work it well with just my fingers. I can sort of just bring my fingers and kind of apply them to the product and work it through with my fingers. And I can pretty much get really great results without using a brush or detangling comb, or anything of that nature. And it comes out well. 

So for people who don’t know much about haircare, they will bring out the best result just by applying the product. And if you don’t know how to do a style, the hair will still look great.

How have your girls been involved in this? 

MC: They have been very instrumental in terms of what the brand is for children. They have been involved in the colors, the packaging, the artwork –  the things that – the hair bonnet – they really have an opinion about a lot of things. They have a very good sense of style and fashion. So, it’s a very collaborative effort. 

IC: Our oldest daughter, she really loves graffiti art. And so, she said, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we incorporated some graffiti print into our design?’ And so, we were working with a pattern maker and so she was working with her directly. I left it completely up to her. So, she came up with the designs rounded by Niles, and we showed it to Chaz. We were like, ‘What do you guys think?’ And of course, little did they know, that in some ways they’re bringing the 90s back without not even knowing what that means. But it just came together nicely. And as Mike said, even the T-shirt designs that we prepared for the launch were three portraits that Niles did. One of which was her own self-portrait, which shows a picture of herself with natural hair, and kind of an inspirational quote, that she came up with. And then she drew Bob Marley and I kind of wanted to highlight important figures that come from mixed backgrounds that she gravitates towards or just likes. Those kinds of icons are so very much integral to the process.

When we designed the bottles and the shrink wrap, first trial we had a dark blue color on the bottom. And one of my daughter’s walked up to me and said, ‘Mom, you know, this doesn’t really pop. It’s too dark. Let’s lighten it up and go with teal.’ We ran the bottle names by them, and the names. And we would get honest and direct feedback. And our goal is for the kids also to go through the process and let them know it’s a product that appeals to kids. What that means is they have a lot of opinions. I want to be involved in a lot of different things. And so, our goal is kind of bringing their point of view into the process. They love autonomy and that represents building this line, and it has really inspired them to do their hair on their own, which I love to observe and watch. They do it on each other. They do my hair now. So, it really kind of brought a sense of autonomy and then resourcefulness, which I really like.

Now, with Mike having such a busy schedule with production and everything like that, has this been a great bonding experience for you guys as a family? Because it is such a family effort.

MC: Yeah, I think it has really. It has sort of brought something for us to all sort of dial in on and just sort of focus in on and do things together and sort of make it a little more, family-oriented. I think it’s good because we’re not really into exposing our girls in terms of social media platforms. They’re very young and they don’t understand it, but they have been gracious because they really want to get involved in what’s happening with the brand. But as a family, we sort of came up with this moment to get together and to do these things for the brand. And it helps have a bit of fun and also just connect a bit. So it is fun even when I’m not in town, we’re still all connected because of this.

IC: What I like and they like they like they can work and help. So, when we were preparing for the launch, we really bootstrapped this launch, because we self-funded this operation. And so it was a lot of work involved. And right before the launch, I needed them to help stuff the box. So, they created this assembly line, they put the bottles on the floor, got the box, and they divided up the labor. And I just love that they stuffed a good 80 bags on their own. They were putting the little postcards in the boxes, and just really loved it. They kept asking, ‘Can we stuff more bags?’ And to me, that’s the best family moments, when you can create and when kids get involved and learn and appreciate that nothing in life comes easy. You must work for it. And learning kind of how to appreciate labor, frankly, is what I was hoping they would get out of this, because, obviously seeing their dad doing well and being successful. We both come from really kind of humble beginnings. So we really wanted to instill similar values with which we grew up, which is, that you have to fight for what you get in life. You have to work hard. And I’m glad that they get a chance to sort of display these values by helping us out when they can.

Right now the products are just available online, correct?

IC: It is. We are in the process of within a couple of weeks, I would say probably 1 to 2 weeks will be on Amazon, which is exciting, and then are in the process of exploring the retail opportunities.