Dré Ferrer Is Redefining What It Means to Be Kulot

Dré Ferrer’s love for her natural curls bloomed when she was in college. 

But growing up, she wanted straight hair. She’d ask her mom for a rebonding or relaxing treatment at the salon, and her mom always refused—encouraging her to love her hair as it was. Still, with straight, frizz-free hair dominating ads, magazines, and salon offers around her, Ferrer felt that it was her only shot at having “beautiful hair.” 

She settled for waking up early on mornings to flat-iron her hair before school, only for her curls to spring back within hours, as if the heat never touched it.

“In hindsight, I think the lesson was to stop forcing my hair into a different pattern,” Ferrer shares in an interview with Allure Philippines. 

That lesson stuck with her in college, when she started wearing her hair down more often. Compliments from coursemates—including comparisons to New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde’s curls—along with a growing number of curly creators online, gave her the courage to stop fighting her texture. 

Kim Santos

While balancing college with freelance photography gigs, Ferrer started sewing her own satin headbands from retaso fabric—leftover scraps from her mother, a fashion designer. It was a practical fix: shoots often ran hot, and she needed her hair off her face but didn’t want to resort to a bun or ponytail.

These homemade satin headbands and scrunchies weren’t meant to go beyond her own use. But a friend saw them and eventually convinced her to sell. This, she says, was how Curlico started in 2019. What came next, the wave of messages and reviews from the curly community, was something Ferrer never planned for.

“I honestly didn’t expect Curlico to grow into what it is now,” shares Ferrer. “Little by little, I discovered a dream I didn’t even know I had—to help more Filipinos understand, embrace, and love their natural curls through the products and content we create.”

Curlico may have started from something she needed, but Ferrer realized that it was becoming much bigger than she was. 

Building Curlico: No perfect formula

When Ferrer first started wearing her curls down in 2016, the beauty market gave her almost nothing to work with. She relied on relatives abroad to ship her curl care products or scoured through the imported aisles of local grocery stores for anything labeled “curly” or “wavy” on the shelf, Googling reviews on the spot before committing to a purchase. 

Even then, a product she liked could vanish from Philippine shelves without warning—restocking wasn’t guaranteed. “So paano na ‘di ba? It wasn’t sustainable to keep buying products from abroad,” shares Ferrer. 

It was also partly why Filipino curly-hair communities online started collating their own resource lists, working with whatever was locally available, even when they weren’t formulated with kulot hair in mind. 

Before Curlico launched its first hair care product in 2023, she realized that this big gap in the market required formulating products that fit the Philippine climate. 

Heat, humidity, sudden rain, and commutes spent moving between jeepneys and motorcycle taxis, air-conditioned rooms, and open air—all of it works against styling products that need to hold curls through a full day or more. 

Kim Santos

“The challenge is really about finding the right balance,” Ferrer explains, describing the need for products that hold and define curls without turning stiff, sticky, or heavy once the heat and humidity set in. Curlico’s answer was to extend its testing timeline: results aren’t judged right after styling, but hours later, after a commute, sometimes days out.

This testing runs through what Ferrer affectionately calls the CurliCommunity—volunteer “CurliCo-Creators” who sit in during R&D for every product, numbering anywhere from four to 19 testers depending on the development stage. They’re selected across different hair patterns, porosities, and hair histories, from bleached strands to heat-styled routines. 

It’s a process built on a principle that Ferrer had to unlearn herself: no single formula works for everyone. “We want our products tested by our community and refine the formulas based on real routines, real results, and their feedback,” she says. 

The brand’s growth traces that same logic. Curlico started with satin night caps and headbands, and later expanded into other hair care accessories before launching its first hair care product—the Dream Curl Curl Defining Crème Gel—in 2023.

Ferrer chose to start there deliberately: a curl-defining product, she noticed, is usually the first thing Filipinos reach for when they begin a curl care routine. It was also a reflection of her experience as a consumer, and a starting point that doesn’t ask beginners to overhaul their entire routine at once.

The product formula reflects this intention: a lightweight, medium-hold cream-gel hybrid built to be beginner-friendly. “Then, once people become more comfortable building their routine, I feel like they might start adding more products,” she says. “Maybe they’ll switch out their shampoo and conditioner. They might also add leave-in conditioner, cream, mousse, hair oil, and so on.”

Today, Curlico has two products in its portfolio—the Dream Curl Curl Defining Crème Gel and the Moisture Magic Leave-in Conditioner. Later this year, they’re launching two new products: the Moisture Magic Shampoo and Moisture Magic Conditioner. 

It may have taken approximately three years for Curlico and its rotating pool of testers to land on its formulas, but that pace reflects how deliberately it builds its products: not chasing trends, and not launching just to expand the line. “We want every product to have a clear purpose, but we also want people to be able to mix and match depending on what they actually need,” she shares. “For me, it’s really about giving Filipinos more choices.” 

Kim Santos

Curlico: For the kulots

What sets Curlico apart from mainstream and imported brands isn’t just the formulas, but how intimately Filipino they are.

Campaigns are shot on location around the Philippines and models style their own hair using Curlico products on set, so the results reflect what’s actually achievable at home rather than a studio-only ideal. “For me, Filipino beauty isn’t just the people, it’s also our places and the way we actually live,” Ferrer says. 

The goal, as she puts it, is to capture hair existing in real conditions—sunny, gloomy weather, humidity, frizz, and all—rather than using the Philippines as a scenic backdrop.

That philosophy is also found in the brand’s tagline: “For strands that shine under the sun, stand strong in the rain, and thrive through it all.” It’s more from the heart than a slogan, with every formula built to hold up against the unglamorous realities of Filipino weather and daily life. 

When asked to sum up Curlico’s mission in one line, Ferrer is straightforward. “Our goal is to encourage, empower, and inspire Filipinos to love and understand their naturally kulot hair by providing quality, accessible hair care made for our hair.”

Kim Santos

Redefining the kulot: Curlico’s answer

For decades, “kulot salot” was the go-to insult for Filipinos with curly hair—shorthand for something that needed fixing, taming, or straightening before it could be called “maayos.” Curlico is working to redefine what “kulot” means. Not by replacing one standard with another, but by making room for it to mean something different for everyone who wears their crown.

For Ferrer, that starts with rejecting the idea of a single “right” way to be kulot—including within the curly-hair community itself. She doesn’t envision Curlico setting a new standard, where curly hair only counts if it’s juicy, defined, and frizz-free. 

“I want us to celebrate textured hair in all of its forms, and not just in hair care,” she shares. Wavy, curly, coily, kinky, voluminous, defined, styled or left alone, frizz included. The products, in her perspective, are meant to support that range, not to narrow it. “Our products can help care for and define your curls, but only you get to define what being kulot means for you.”

This principle shapes how Curlico presents itself. Ferrer says that its marketing isn’t built on making people feel insecure about their hair but on building confidence in embracing what they already have. “Mas gusto kong makatulong kami sa confidence nila, kesa gumamit ng insecurities just to sell our products.”

Looking five years out, Ferrer’s hope is less about her brand’s growth, but about representation. More curl care options lining department store shelves. More stylists trained to cut and style textured hair, without bracing for “Ayaw mo magpa-rebond?” comments. A generation that grows up with real representation—and more than that, a voice. 

“I want them to grow up with the products, education, representation, and stylists that let them decide for themselves, instead of feeling like straightening [their hair] is the only way to look “beautiful.”