Cherisse Moe

Want strong, healthy, shiny, man­age­able hair that can with­stand even the most ex­treme weath­er? What woman doesn't? Well, there's a prod­uct that has tak­en the world by storm that claims to do it all. It's name? Mo­roc­canoil. Mau­reen Mal­ka, brand man­ag­er at Cana­di­an-based com­pa­ny, Mo­roc­canoil, says the rev­o­lu­tion­ary line of styling, fin­ish­ing and con­di­tion­ing prod­ucts, which they call "the best hair-care prod­ucts in the world" is a must-have. Said to con­trol frizz, add shine and pre­vent hair break­age, the oil, sold in coun­tries the world over, in­clud­ing Aus­tralia, Cana­da, Eng­land, Chile, Italy, Ger­many and the US, is now avail­able in Trinidad–the first Caribbean is­land to launch the prod­uct-line. Said to be a big hit with Hol­ly­wood's finest, such as ac­tress Salma Hayek and coun­try singing sen­sa­tion Tay­lor Swift, Mo­roc­canoil is al­so be­ing dubbed the fastest grow­ing brand in the hair-care in­dus­try by renowned styl­ists and their clients.

Se­cret in­gre­di­ent

Speak­ing to scores of lo­cal hair-styl­ists and in­vit­ed guests dur­ing the prod­uct's launch at Au­ra Restau­rant, Port-of-Spain, on Mon­day af­ter­noon, Mal­ka said its se­cret in­gre­di­ent is Ar­gan oil, an in­dige­nous oil of South­west Mo­roc­co. "The Ar­gan oil in Mo­roc­can oil prod­ucts is a pow­er­ful an­ti-ox­i­dant and is for every hair type. It's light-weight and has more vi­t­a­mins A and E than all oth­er oils in the world. It al­so pro­vides UV pro­tec­tion and pen­e­trates the hair, in­creas­ing its elas­tic­i­ty." De­scrib­ing the prod­uct as a "lux­u­ry" sa­lon-ex­clu­sive line, Mal­ka says it will be re­tailed by In­ter Caribbean Mar­ket­ing, to be sold in se­lect­ed sa­lons across the coun­try. "The longevi­ty makes it 100 per cent worth the price," she as­sured.

Trinidad – the per­fect mar­ket

Cana­di­an hair­styl­ist and make-up artist, Steven Turpin agrees. He says Trinidad was cho­sen to launch the prod­uct since it was the per­fect mar­ket as it rep­re­sent­ed "about four to five dif­fer­ent hair types." Turpin, who's been in the hair in­dus­try for the past sev­en years, not­ed that for women of colour, the most im­por­tant rule of thumb is us­ing good qual­i­ty prod­ucts. "I re­alise that a lot of women's hair is chem­i­cal­ly processed. It's very im­por­tant to use prop­er prod­ucts that will mois­turise and add shine to dam­aged hair. This oil treat­ment is per­fect to re­store over-processed hair," he says. "What's al­so great about this prod­uct is that you don't have to use it every day to get beau­ti­ful re­sults."

Turpin says four oth­er prod­uct lines, in­clud­ing the In­tense Curl Cream and the Hy­drat­ing Styling Cream, are now al­so avail­able in Trinidad. The hair­styl­ist al­so worked his mag­ic on four mod­els, each with dif­fer­ent hair tex­tures, us­ing the Mo­roc­can oil. Walk­ing around the room, the mod­els then gave cu­ri­ous on­look­ers the op­por­tu­ni­ty to feel their hair and ask ques­tions about their be­fore and af­ter looks.