HINU Home Volume 22. Allie Cameron

Allie Cameron is the founder of HINU. A brand built on the idea that the body has rhythms and the work is learning to move with them rather than against them.

She spent the summer with her in-laws in New York. Deep into a pregnancy at the time and thinking a lot about change, patience, and what it means to tend to yourself when you are also growing something else.

What is your current relationship with your hair, and how has it evolved over time?

Really good! We're in sync and I know what it needs now, and more importantly I know when it's telling me something.

That took a long time. For years I read every change as a problem with a separate fix. A new product, a new supplement, a new rule. What actually shifted things was protecting my nervous system. Managing my stress, sleeping properly, stopping before I'm completely burnt out. If my internal world is good, it shows up in my hair. If it isn't, that shows up too.

What role does hair play in your cultural identity?

My nana told me once that my hair reminded her of her mother's hair. That has stayed with me ever since. I carry the hair of the women before me. So when I tend to it, I'm not really doing it for how it looks. I'm honouring something that came down to me. It's a thread that keeps us connected, and I want to hold it with pride.

Do you have any hair rituals?

These days I keep it very simple. I oil my ends every day, without fail. It helps keep the breakage and split ends away.

Every night I do a scalp massage with the HINU Scalp Massager. Sometimes with oil, sometimes without. I hold a huge amount of tension up there, from ponytails and from life, and the massage is the thing that releases it. It feels incredible, and it gets the blood moving where the hair actually grows.

How has pregnancy changed the way you care for yourself?

Everything is done with more intention now. I have to carve time out deliberately, so when I get it I make sure I'm actually present for it.

Repetition is what makes our family work. So rather than trying to find time for my rituals, I've built them into the daily routine and the family flows around them.

What does self-care mean to you, and how do you practice it?

Saying no earlier than I used to. I spent years treating rest as the reward at the end of the work, and the work is never finished, so the rest never came.

Work, family and time for myself now each have their place in the week. Slow mornings on the weekend are enough to fill my cup in this season. It isn't complicated. But it's the difference between a business I can keep showing up for and one that burns me out.

Can you share any hair care tips you've learned?

Find a rhythm you can actually keep every week, and don't overcomplicate it. Consistency does more than any single product will.

And breathe. Focus on your inner world as much as your outer one. They're far more connected than we're taught.

Where do you feel most yourself?

In my garden. In the sun. By the ocean. Anywhere in nature, really.

With friends, laughing, in nature. It doesn't get better than that.

I. Purea Nei - Anika Moa
II. E Kura - Ed Waaka
III. OM SO HUM - Meditative Mind
IV. Devi Prayer - Craig Pruess & Ananda
V. Omeñiso - Ignacio Maria Gomez
VI. I Love You Earth - Yoko Ono
VII. Story Of Rasha & Dhara - Bobby Callender
VIII. Orange Blossoms - GoldFord

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