Cynthia Bailey Shea Moisture Wig & Weave Haircare Collection

Cynthia Bailey loves her wigs, and she loves a new collection from a natural hair company that can keep fabulously fashioned units intact, even in the midst of a steamy bachelorette party.

The Real Housewife of Atlanta/model/reality star is the new brand ambassador for SheaMoisture’s Wig & Weave haircare collection alongside her daughter Noelle Robinson.

The mother-daughter team is starring in a campaign showcasing how the wig and weave line of products can be used for the installation, maintenance, and removal of wig and weave hair extensions.

The line that features products enriched with tea tree, borage seed oil, and aloe, is said to be gentle on edges and products include bonding glue & bond release spray, oil sheen spray, scalp soother, and wig & weave flyaway wrap mousse.

BOSSIP recently chatted with Cynthia about the collection, her affinity for switching up her look with wigs, and she gave us the real deal on what Black models have to endure behind the scenes when it comes to their hair.

The stunning star also spilled on which SheaMoisture products she’d recommend to secure edges throughout that steamy #RHOA #strippergate saga.

There are just so many different product lines, what about SheaMoisture’s wig and weave collection really stood out to you?

You know, what I really love about their collection is that it’s wig products but at the same time it’s all-natural. There’s no real alcohol-based stuff. so it doesn’t damage your real hair. And a lot of people don’t realize, you know, putting your wig down, gluing it down is not what messes up your hair. Taking it off is where you get jacked up, so they [SheaMoisture] have this amazing bond-removing glue shampoo and removing spray. It has no alcohol in it, so it doesn’t really affect your real hair underneath.

And that’s so important because I really feel like this pandemic 2020 just changed the game, OK? It really did change the game and it really gave everybody that had struggle edges a chance to grow their edges back. You’re at home you can braid it up, you can keep it oiled as best you can. You actually have time to massage your edges and stimulate that growth back. And I feel like wigs such a great protective option to wear on top of your natural hair and it really works together. SheaMoisture outside of the wig and weave products, they have great products for natural hair. Then they get the wig products, now they are great. And again, I can’t stress enough how much I love the fact that their wig products still are good for the hair as well. It just works together, it really does work together. And they were kind enough to just put everything you really need in one situation.

I feel like your daughter Noelle is lucky that she has you as a mom because you can teach her about protective styles and taking care of your edges. When I was in college, I had like six strands of hair because I didn’t know what I was doing. How long did it take you to really understand the importance of taking care of your hair underneath the wig? A lot of people don’t understand that. 

A lot of people still don’t actually know how to take care of their hair underneath and even understand how to properly put wigs on and take wigs off and how to take care of wigs because if you’re going to wear wigs, you have to take them if you want to get any real mileage out of your wigs. For me, it was like the investment part of a good wig. If I’m going to make an investment into a good wig, I’m trying to have that wig for some years. SheaMoisture’s wig and weave product line is great for just helping maintain the life of the wig. There’s levels, I wear mostly closures because then it is easier for me because I’m the kind of girl I want to take it off right when I get done working. As soon as I get done doing a scene for housewives, that wig is coming off on the drive home. A lot of women feel like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t take my wig off around my husband!’ Mike [Hill] helps me [take it off] He loves me one hundred percent natural. I don’t want to fight with a wig all day long, it’s like taking off your bra. It feels good, like taking off a mask. 

One thing that I’ve noticed is like wigs are just so much more acceptable these days. When did you personally see the narrative change around wigs? 

I remember when my girlfriends wouldn’t even want to own up that they had a weave, they didn’t even wanna talk about them three or four little tracks.  It was just like this whole stigma attached to it. You really didn’t want to own up to a wig. For me, when I came on housewives, I didn’t wear a ton of wigs as a model a lot things were natural but when I did do style, we did pop a wig on and take it off. So I learned very early in the game that wigs are my friend. If I’m trying o do like a burgundy color, I’m not trying to dye my real hair. That’s a wig, honey!  If I want a bob one day, I want my hair to my butt the next day; that is a wig! Ain’t nobody got time to sit and get a weave done.

And one of the things that I single-handedly did on housewives when I came on, I had to make sure the network knew very, very early in the game is; I change my looks. I remember having a conversation with them when I first came on the show. They were like really shook they were like, ‘Wait, like your hair keeps changing, I think it’s gonna confuse the audience!’ And I was like, ‘No, the audience needs to know that I changed my hair.’

When I first came on, I had my short-cropped hair, and I when would get bored with that, because you can only get so many looks with that I liked to pop a wig on. Once I started doing that, they like totally embraced it. My fans love it. And now like I’m like, you know, I’m known for changing my hair on the show people don’t expect me to keep the same hairstyles like they always want, you know, they’re excited to see what I’m gonna do. Like I was the first one on the show to wear a big afro, Andy [Cohen] lost his mind with that. That was a big deal. That’s a wig, girl, a wig from the beauty supply. That afro wig is probably $49.99 and t looks like a Jheri curl wig. But I was like, I figured it out. I bought it and I was like, Okay, I can invest in this and take it home. And I just started combing out the curls, and it turned into this big afro. It’s a whole different situation now. I love that women are able to be more transparent about the level of beauty that they want to do. Find what works for you and then get the products. And you know, I obviously recommend the Shea Moisture wig line to help you be able to do it effectively. To be able to take care of your wigs, to keep them clean, to be able to not only put them on properly with the right products but more importantly, to take them off because taking your wig off is way more important for keeping your edges intact.

Speaking of customizing your hair, I noticed that a lot of black women in Hollywood have talked about being on set and dealing with people who didn’t know how to style black hair so they did it themselves. Have you ever had any of those experiences on a set? 

Oh, absolutely, absolutely! Which is why, again, I feel like I kind of had an advantage over the other ladies when I came on the show, I’ve been dealing with glam since I was 18-years-old as a model. So I knew how to do my own makeup, you know, the girls, I came up with Tyra [Banks], all those girls, they know how to do their own makeup because we would get there and they wouldn’t necessarily have the right foundation shade so we always took a makeup bag with us and kind of touched up our makeup. And the same with hair. To be honest, the fashion industry is a predominantly white industry. Only a few of us that are in that industry that actually have success in that industry, especially, you know, I go back a little bit. So when I was coming up, it was even less of us. It’s evolved a lot since then. So now, you know you get there. They don’t know anything about like, how to deal with afro wigs. So I had to learn myself. You know, I had to be prepared to really work with them, work together with them to kind of achieve the looks that I wanted to achieve. So that meant I bring a hair bag, they don’t have no edge gel. Ain’t no white hairstylist got no edge gel to lay your edges down, or even know how to straighten out our kitchen in the back. I’m like; ‘But my kitchen nappy!’ They didn’t know what a kitchen was. I’ve been in the game a long time, just in terms of knowing how to do my own glam. And it’s been such an advantage to being on the show.

Speaking of the show, I’m gonna give you a scenario. I’m in Charleston, I’m at 50 Cynt’s bachelorette party and I’m nervous, it’s getting hot and heavy because Bolo “and his thaang” are there and I start sweating out my edges. What Shea Moisture products do you recommend to save my edges?  

I don’t know if any hair care product is gonna be able to help you at my bachelorette party. When Bolo pulled that thang out, everybody’s edges went out, everybody’s wigs lifted. But seriously even when you are in a heated situation like my bachelorette party, if you lay your wig down, with SheaMoisture’s Wig & Weave line hair glue, you’re gonna be good, because it really does stay in place. And the only way you will be able to take it off effectively is if use the bond remover spray and the shampoo. So even in a heated situation like that honey, your wig is good, child. You watched the episode and it was a hot and heavy episode but those lace fronts and wigs were still on our heads.

Get more info on SheaMoisture’s Wig & Weave haircare line HERE.