Zadie Smith and I don’t have much in common, but we both use our bookshelves as a second home for our errant beauty products (there’s currently a bottle of OSEA facial oil on mine, left behind from a recent skin care routine). We recently spotted a well-loved bottle of leave-in conditioner — Shea Moisture Coconut Leave-in — on her bookshelves in a profile in the Washington Post, which documented said shelves filled with ephemera from her 20s, which includes an Eminem poster from an article she wrote for Vibe in 2002 and piles of books from projects and endeavors she’s embarked on over the years.
It wasn’t at all surprising to me that Zadie uses Shea Moisture — it is the gateway drug for most new naturals and a staple for many thanks to its ubiquity. I personally used the Curl Enhancing Smoothie for years and have an off-and-on relationship with the Jamaican Black Castor Oil line. I also had a brief affair with the Shea Moisture Coconut Leave-in, during a time when I realized heavy creams were weighing my hair down and stopping me from achieving weightless definition. This lightweight leave-in conditioner, which has a milky consistency and offers moisture without the heaviness, became the solution and a go-to for about six months. It saw me through my early K18 days and was the perfect combination for weightless, defined curls. The main ingredients are coconut oil, but it also contains glycerin, a humectant that pulls water from the air into the hair, and a mix of other oils like sweet almond and soybean. My hair soaked this stuff up and felt more moisturized overall, which contributed to better styling results when I did twist-outs and wash and go’s. I also like it for refreshing my hair between washes, especially if I’m using a waxy edge control. One thing to note about this is that the smell is polarizing. Most of the one-star reviews have to do with its scent, which some people find overpowering and like a strong perfume. I don’t personally find it offensive or particularly strong, but as a child of the Pink Lotion-era, heavily scented hair products are the norm.
As for why Smith keeps her conditioner in her office, I like to imagine that it was a nod to the way the ordinariness of her daily routine spills into her writing life. That she often does her hair and feels called to write a sentence or dig into a random fact for her next novel (the French philosopher Simone Weil is apparently integral to her research), and leaves the bottle behind.
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