With over 25 years behind the chair and a client roster that has included Mariah Carey, Jameela Jamil, and Steven Tyler, Stephanie Allyn Pohl has built a career at the highest levels of the industry. Then she became a mother — and channeled everything she knew about hair into something closer to home. REIGN was created for her daughter Sovereign. It exists for every curly-haired child who deserves to grow up loving their crown of curls.
Every curl is a crown.
Teach them that before the world tells them otherwise.
I have stood behind the chairs of some of the most beautiful, celebrated, famous people on earth, and I can tell you this with absolute certainty: almost every single one of them wanted someone else's hair.
That is not vanity. That is the quiet, relentless work of a world that has spent centuries telling us what beauty is supposed to look like. And for too long, curly hair, coily hair, kinky hair, textured hair in all its glorious forms, has not been at the center of that story.
Then I had my daughter.
Her name is Sovereign. We call her Reign. And from the moment she arrived with her crown of beautiful, long, lush curls, I made her a promise: she would grow up knowing that what grows from her head is extraordinary. Not despite what the world says, before it ever gets the chance to say anything at all.
That promise became a problem I needed to solve.
As a stylist, I had access to high-end products that could truly care for her curls, clean, effective, formulated with integrity. But I knew that most parents didn't have that access. And the clean children's lines that were available? They were made for straight hair. Not enough moisture. Not the right ingredients. Not made with a curly child's needs in mind.
So I built what didn't exist.
REIGN is the first fully clean hair care line designed specifically for children with curly hair, from soft waves to tight coils. Free of sulfates, parabens, silicones, fragrances, phthalates, and mineral oils. Created by a stylist who has spent decades understanding what hair needs, and a mother who refused to accept that her daughter's hair was an afterthought.
But REIGN has always been about more than products.
I want to speak directly to the mothers, especially the mothers with straight hair raising curly-haired children. I know you love your child fiercely. I know you are doing everything right. But I want to tell you something that took me a lifetime in this industry to fully understand:
The window to instill self-love is earlier than you think. It starts before your child can articulate insecurity. It lives in the images you put in front of them, the words you use when you touch their hair, the stories you read at bedtime, the faces they see celebrated in the world around them.
Curly hair is more loved now than it has ever been. And still, it is not the norm that fills our screens and our shelves and our runways. Which means the work of raising a child who genuinely, deeply loves their curls is intentional work. Beautiful work. But work that must begin now.
Start talking to your child about their gorgeous curls before you think it's time. Be conscious of the first media they see, make sure children who look like them are reflected back. Let hair washing be a celebration, not a battle. Let the ritual of caring for their curls be a message: this hair is worth tending to. This hair is worthy of the very best.
At REIGN, we give you the products to nourish those curls and the knowledge to care for them, because every curly-haired child deserves to grow up knowing that their crown is not a complication. It is their inheritance. It is their power. It is their REIGN.
— Stephanie Allyn Pohl, Founder, REIGN Clean Products For Curly Crowns