South Carolina Gamecocks guard Raven Johnson partners with Black hair care brand on new NIL deal

Raven Johnson is excited about a lot. The South Carolina Gamecocks guard is thrilled about her first beauty ambassadorship and the fact it’s with a Black beauty brand, Parfait.

“I’m so grateful that beauty brands are partnering with women athletes,” Johnson told Andscape. “I’m so excited, not just partnering with a beauty brand like Parfait but a brand that Black women own. That means a lot to me.”

Parfait co-founder and CEO Isoken Igbinedion is a huge fan of Johnson — she is all Igbinedion’s little sisters can talk about — but she’d been thinking about the inequities between the opportunities for male and female athletes. She wanted to set a precedent with a NIL partnership between Parfait and Johnson.

“We fundamentally believe brands have a responsibility to amplify these female voices in spaces where these inequities live and exist the most,” Igbinedion said. “That’s why this partnership agreement is so special to us. It marks a historic first in the hair industry to help us set a new standard for how female athletes should be treated and how they can maintain and express their personal style without compromise.”

One of the coolest things about the partnership is how organic it will be: Johnson will learn about the products as she uses them, and Parfait will be able to create products that fit Johnson’s lifestyle.

“You know how they say if you look good, you play good?” asked Johnson. “That is so true. I’m always in the mirror. My hair has to be slayed.” She said she loves wearing long hair on the court, especially once her wigs are in what she calls “sport mode.”

Johnson described her hair in sport mode: “There’s a thing on the wig that has a strap on the back, and it makes the wig tighter. And you have, like, this comb in the wig that you can put under the band that you tie and it makes it like tighter. It makes it secure so that the wig won’t go anywhere. It’s good for athletes.”

That’s her game-day beauty routine — lashes, lip gloss, wig in sport mode, and she’s ready to get on the court.

“I like to get fly. I think that’s the Atlanta in me,” Johnson said of her style. “You have to look good.” Johnson plans to wear her hair in Parfait pieces like the U-part curly wigs and half-up, half-down.

In July 2020, Igbinedion launched Parfait with her sister Ifueko Igbinedion. The line of wigs and extensions can be customized to customers’ head sizes based on their skin tone, using artificial intelligence. Isoken Igbinedion was inspired to make the connection between AI and Black women’s hair care after attending a panel at AfroTech in 2019.

“At AfroTech that year, there were a bunch of different panels from industry leaders, folks like Google, Meta, Twitter. It was just so interesting seeing how they were using their platforms and their positions of power to solve a lot of the inequities that they were seeing as they were building physical products,” Igbinedion said.

Inequities can arise from AI bias, such as the soap and water dispenser in the restroom not recognizing darker skin tones and failing to turn on when Black people put their hands under the sensor. Igbinedion and her sister wanted to be sure the Black community was a part of the revolution.

“That’s really where the genesis for Parfait was born, with this mission to create beauty experiences with technology that truly recognize and prioritize everybody,” Igbinedion said. “We ended up with wigs and hair extensions as the first category. We want to solve problems for women because of how difficult that experience can be and because of the lack of education that a lot of our communities have not had when it comes to how we care and protect our natural hair.”

The name Parfait resembles the build-as-you-go dessert, she said. “The actual dessert, a parfait, is a very layered experience,” Igbinedion said. “You can build a parfait any way with any toppings, and it’s special and unique for you so it’s similar to the hair experience.

“We already knew this as Black women, but Black women aren’t a monolith, right?” Igbinedion said. “We are all very different, we come from very different backgrounds. We have different preferences. We have different hair textures. We have different experiences.”

And there are so many different reasons to wear a wig. “It could be for a protective style because you just don’t have the time to manipulate your hair safely because of the beauty of day-to-day life,” Igbinedion said. “Or because you just had a baby and have postpartum shedding and for the first time you don’t know how to manage that experience for yourself, or you are just using it as a fashion accessory in between styles.”

Parfait creates custom pieces with the aid of a selfie. Customers take four selfies and allow the camera to scan the biometric information on their face. The selfies help the AI process understand the curvatures of the hairline and the circumference of the head. It also captures the color palettes of skin tones, and Parfait uses that information to fuel its production capabilities.

Once all the information is captured, Parfait custom-creates a cap unique to the head’s measurements. “And then we make sure the tone of the lace actually matches your skin tone and so we can continue to serve more consumers,” Igbinedion said. “We’re going to be able to learn more about the true depths and ranges of Black faces and skin tones that may not exist in the beauty industry so that we can continue to evolve and develop products that truly fit all of our unique profiles.”

But really, Igbinedion is excited about Johnson’s opportunity to build her brand and wealth. “[Parfait] is so excited to support her and give her opportunities that are not available to women. I know it’s starting to happen, but it’s not happening fast enough, and it’s not having at the speed it needs to. We’re excited to be one piece of this much larger movement.”