After experimenting in her kitchen, La La Anthony launched her first hair care product. And the cure, rice water. Rice water in your hair promotes natural growth and reduces breakage; it comes from ancient China culture. Many YouTubers, beauty moguls, and influencers refer to the benefits for their turnarounds when it comes to hair.
Inala ($55) is a leave-in-hair-strengthening treatment, Anthony admits even her 14-year-old son Kiyan loves.
The pandemic allowed the Brooklyn native to learn her hair. She says that it stayed in braids, wigs, and weaves. Something the majority of females can relate to. However, she noticed how damaged her natural hair was and suffered from thinning edges and split ends.
“And I realized how damaged my natural hair was because I wasn’t taking care of or paying attention to it.”
She started researching and experimenting with rice water after finding a village in China where women’s hair was down to the floor. She took it to the kitchen!
“Growing up, every [treatment] you needed was in the kitchen: the avocado, the egg, the olive oil. My grandmother and mom [would say], ‘Go to the kitchen! Put this on your face! Put this in your hair!’ So, I was doing it myself – fermenting the rice at night, and the next day, putting the rice water in a bottle and spraying it in my hair, letting it sit it, rinsing it out, doing it again.”
Though she saw results, the “power potion” was exhausting and time-consuming to make. The treatment endured a long two-year process.
“We call it the power potion, it’s a 100% rice water complex that’s directly extracted from the rice grain. And we combined it with Biotin and [amino acid] Arginine.”
She admits the one thing she couldn’t go without in the potion, the rice water!
As for the product’s name, Anthony says that it was a spin on her real name. Born Alani Nicole, Alani spelled backward is Inala, meaning place of peace.
“And I was thinking, when you’re having a good hair day, you are at peace. Your day is better. You perform better at work. You perform better as a mom. You just perform better overall. It does give you peace of mind when you know, ‘My hair looks good. I feel good about myself.’ I like to say it’s self-care in a bottle.”
You can use the product of damp or dry hair, and it only adds a few seconds to the hair care routine. Maybe a haircare line is next in store for the new hair product maker.
