And while Pitts wants to be a female first for Mesop, another woman is making her name in the very competitive business of hair care.
She's a bold entrepreneur from Placencia who has created her own line of products geared at styling and caring for Curly and Coily hair.
And, Jolie Pollard may be riding the swells of a popular trend at just the right time. One look around any public space in Belize lately will tell you that women and girls have embraced their natural hair.
Cherisse Halsall spoke to Pollard about her own hair journey and how she came to create and market a natural solution for natural hair.
The standard of beauty for so long having been regulated by undertones of racism means that for many women making the transition to natural hair is also a journey of self-acceptance. I sat down with Jolie Pollard to talk about her product, IKOOMA, and how her own hair journey lead to its creation.
Jolie Pollard, Entepreneur, IKOOMA
"So I really grew up just being very self conscious of my hair, I didn't like it, I didn't know how to deal with it. It was dry and damaged. The products that were available at the time didn't cater to our hair."
"So I struggled and when I was thirteen my mom decided to relax my hair and it was more to help me and unfortunately my mom left right after that she moved she left me in Belize city and so I was just living with my dad so I didn't have any real female guidance around me and so highschool was a disaster."
"I had no idea what to do I would just wake up, put on my SCA uniform and my lee hair look rough."
Cut to a few years later, and after returning from studying abroad Jolie was trying to re-adjust her hair care to Belize's climate when she happened upon IKOOMA's vital ingredient.
Jolie Pollard, Entepreneur, IKOOMA
"And I couldn't find the right products for my hair. Most of the things I found had a lot of chemicals in them that were damaging my hair and so I started making my own stuff at home. I started off with just coconut oil and I just kind of evolved from there. And in 2015 I started making my own hair products, for myself. And then I would fool around with seaweed as well and I knew that there was something there that I just really liked and I had to explore further but I didn't add it."
"This year I finally decided to just add seaweed it was kind of a little piece that just happened to be around. I was like mek I add this so, I kind of played around with it and I really liked the way it worked out."
People with ethic hair know that the shampoo in their hotel room will not work for them and Jolie has had similar experiences telling me that she might never have created the product if not for her love of travel.
Jolie Pollard, Entreprenuer, IKOOMA
"A huge inspiration behind Ikooma has been my backpacking experience actually a lot of women with natural hair we struggle when we're going on these trips cause you have one small backpack, you don't have a lot of things, and you don't know what you'll find out there."
"I was at a Hostel in Tulum this year and I met a girl who tried it and she just loved it so much, this Nigerian German girl with thick black curls, s he just said you really should sell this and so finally one night you know I just decided I'm gonna do this and so here we are."
IKOOMA is a creolization of Euchema, which is the species of seaweed used to create the product.
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