Although you can easily bring up thousands of wigs to purchase with a quick Google search, it doesn’t mean you’ll find the one you actually want to wear. Finding brands you can trust that are trend-focused and don’t cost a million dollars can be a bit of a struggle. That’s why Mary Imevbore, Susana Hawken and Tiiso McGinty teamed up to launch Waeve. The lifestyle brand aims to empower Black girls to express themselves through wigs.

“The inspiration for Waeve came from me and my co-founders’ personal hair journeys!” says Imevbore, CEO and co-founder. “After going natural and living in a rural college town in Massachusetts, I struggled to find a wig brand that spoke to me or addressed any of the major pain points I was facing.” She found the whole wig shopping process “frustrating, time-consuming, expensive and nearly impossible.” There are more than 10 million vendors on the Internet, many with sketchy secret companies and so-so reviews.

After talking to many other Black women, I realized that I wasn’t alone in feeling neglected or not acknowledged by the beauty industry,” continues Imevbore. “For decades, Black women have been blatantly underrepresented in fashion and beauty spaces.” The Gen-Z trio created Waeve to “fill this gap in the industry that has long overlooked and undervalued Black consumers,” she says.

Waeve.

Imevbore sees the beauty industry changing, with more Black folks looking for natural-hair solutions than ever.  “The timing is perfect because we believe Waeve is an extension of the natural hair movement that, like me, so many other Black women have recently undergone,” she says. “In a way, it feels like we’ve all gone on this journey together and, as a result, there’s now a huge surge in demand for wigs as a great protective style.”

Waeve operates much like a fashion brand by dropping four collections of six trend-focused wigs per year. This way, when you feel inspired by an Instagram or TikTok trend, you can go to Waeve for the latest looks. Prices range from $72 to $398 with synthetic wigs on the lower end of the spectrum and human hair wigs on the higher end. Two percent of sales will go to an organization that uplifts Black girls. First up is Black Girls Code.

Waeve.

“The industry is changing. We’re now ushering in a new era of beauty and fashion that not only prioritizes but champions Black consumers,” continues Imevbore. “Waeve is excited to play a role in this important cultural reckoning by allowing Black women to reclaim their agency and express themselves through products that were made specifically for them, by women who understand.”

Try a new look and shop the first drop on the Waeve website.