Reema Bakri grew up in Amman under pressure from her grandmother and other relatives to straighten her hair.
The marketing student had a mop of curls, like most of the 8,000 people who follow her on Instagram for tips and products to help them care for their locks.
“My grandmother always said ‘you have to cut your hair and you should look like your sister’,” says Reema, referring to her flaxen-haired sibling Rawan.
“I was jealous, wondering why she has straight, blonde hair. I was always like, ‘I am the one who looks weird’.”
“No one taught me me how to take care of it, how to love the thing I have,” she says, and the constant observations gave her “a lot of insecurity”.
But five years ago, at age 21, Reema realised her hair was nothing to be ashamed of.
She took to the internet to counter what she describes as stigma in Jordan, and in the wider Arab Middle East, associated with curly hair.
“In school I was bullied and in the street. It is in the culture,” she says.
She started as a blogger, “teaching boys and girls how to take care of their hair and understand that natural beauty is a part of your journey”.
The issue has made it on to the legislative agenda in Washington.
The US House of Representatives passed a draft law against hair discrimination on March 18, in response to lobbying, mostly by African Americans.
The Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (Crown) Act has yet to approved by the upper house.
In Jordan, Reema says the stigma is not a byproduct of racism.
“I don’t think that [racism] is the reason in the Middle East. We have a beauty standard that is weird,” she says.
She says the problem is mainly among older people, who tend not to accept “curl heads,” as people with curly hair are sometimes called.
“They have something in their mind that only straight hair is beautiful, and that if I have curly or big hair I cannot get married because I don’t look like the others,” she says.
Her Instagram page is called CurlHood. She describes it as “a community, a movement to change the perspective” in addition to being a commercial brand.
“If you have curly or big hair people [think] you don’t look elegant. This is the perspective they have. I want to change that,” she says.
“We are facing the old generation. The young generation love their hair. They have the self-love vibe but they have to struggle a bit.”
One of Reema’s customers, a model with a 5-year old daughter, told her straight-haired kids bullied the girl at kindergarten.
“I don’t believe in beauty standards. We have to break them,” says Reema, who is half-Lebanese.
Her dream is to set up a beauty salon in Dubai. She has already earned a diploma in natural hair care.
“You don’t have to change how you look, how you think just because of the society,” she says. “I love my hair now. It is part of my personality.”
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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SPECS
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Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Meatless Days
Sara Suleri, with an introduction by Kamila Shamsie
Penguin
Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
SPECS
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Basquiat in Abu Dhabi
One of Basquiat’s paintings, the vibrant Cabra (1981–82), now hangs in Louvre Abu Dhabi temporarily, on loan from the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
The latter museum is not open physically, but has assembled a collection and puts together a series of events called Talking Art, such as this discussion, moderated by writer Chaedria LaBouvier.
It's something of a Basquiat season in Abu Dhabi at the moment. Last week, The Radiant Child, a documentary on Basquiat was shown at Manarat Al Saadiyat, and tonight (April 18) the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is throwing the re-creation of a party tonight, of the legendary Canal Zone party thrown in 1979, which epitomised the collaborative scene of the time. It was at Canal Zone that Basquiat met prominent members of the art world and moved from unknown graffiti artist into someone in the spotlight.
“We’ve invited local resident arists, we’ll have spray cans at the ready,” says curator Maisa Al Qassemi of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi's Canal Zone Remix is at Manarat Al Saadiyat, Thursday April 18, from 8pm. Free entry to all. Basquiat's Cabra is on view at Louvre Abu Dhabi until October
Vidaamuyarchi
Director: Magizh Thirumeni
Stars: Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra
Rating: 4/5
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Most wanted allegations
- Benjamin Macann, 32: involvement in cocaine smuggling gang.
- Jack Mayle, 30: sold drugs from a phone line called the Flavour Quest.
- Callum Halpin, 27: over the 2018 murder of a rival drug dealer.
- Asim Naveed, 29: accused of being the leader of a gang that imported cocaine.
- Calvin Parris, 32: accused of buying cocaine from Naveed and selling it on.
- John James Jones, 31: allegedly stabbed two people causing serious injuries.
- Callum Michael Allan, 23: alleged drug dealing and assaulting an emergency worker.
- Dean Garforth, 29: part of a crime gang that sold drugs and guns.
- Joshua Dillon Hendry, 30: accused of trafficking heroin and crack cocain.
- Mark Francis Roberts, 28: grievous bodily harm after a bungled attempt to steal a £60,000 watch.
- James ‘Jamie’ Stevenson, 56: for arson and over the seizure of a tonne of cocaine.
- Nana Oppong, 41: shot a man eight times in a suspected gangland reprisal attack.
%20Ramez%20Gab%20Min%20El%20Akher
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The%20specs
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MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Bayern Munich v Real Madrid
When: April 25, 10.45pm kick-off (UAE)
Where: Allianz Arena, Munich
Live: BeIN Sports HD
Second leg: May 1, Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid
Motori Profile
Date started: March 2020
Co-founder/CEO: Ahmed Eissa
Based: UAE, Abu Dhabi
Sector: Insurance Sector
Size: 50 full-time employees (Inside and Outside UAE)
Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing
Investors: Safe City Group
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre V8
Power: 503hp at 6,000rpm
Torque: 685Nm at 2,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Price: from Dh850,000
On sale: now
