BY: Natalia Peart

Marie Petigny, founder of Shea Moi Organics, has a passion for hair and is using an all-natural approach to revolutionize hair care.

Petigny first began loving hair as a young girl, and although she has always styled hair, it was only recently that she began creating 100 per cent organic hairdressing products that promote healthy tresses.

“It is my calling,” she says.

It was while working as a hairstylist that she first noticed that many of her clients were struggling with similar hair troubles, including dry scalps, hair loss and eczema.

“I felt like it was my responsibility to provide them with the right education about the ingredients [in mainstream products] and how they affect us,” she says.

She began researching different products and realized many of the products she was using on her clients contained by-products and additives that were harmful to hair. Since then, Petigny has been an advocate of natural products and hairstyling methods like braids and dreadlocks.

This year, Petigny officially launched her Shea Moi Organics products at the Farmers’ Market in Scarborough, where she says the response has been amazing.

Petigny makes all her products by hand in her home with the finest ingredients she can find. They are free of the chemicals found in mainstream products, including SLS (a synthetic foaming agent in shampoo).

She points out that hair care products are supposed to condition and moisturize the hair, a goal she achieves with vegetable oils like carrot and avocado.

“We’re getting the goods from nature,” she says. “I wanted to create something better for the environment and ourselves.”

And although it’s not the most traditional of career paths, she says she enjoys the flexibility she has to make products that help make hair and skin problems vanish.

“I’m fulfilling my purpose in life,” she says.

For more information, check out Shea Moi’s Facebook page here.