Girls with natural hair finally have a doll who looks like them, and we’re all about it

It’s highly important for young girls to find representations of their likeness amongst their favorite things — be those things books, movies, bands, magazines, or (yep) dolls. But let me tell you something from experience: It is extremely difficult for little ladies with thick, wavy, curly hair to grow up with a single toy resembling our luscious locks. And that stinks. Why does that matter? Life is rough for girls who don’t have sleek, blonde, Barbie doll hair. Not only is our hair harder to maintain, but we can easily feel very isolated by the lack of people in the limelight — yes even fake doll-sized people! — that look like us. To be completely honest, it is not just in the “little lady” stage of my life that I have felt this way — where are are all the ladies in the spotlight with natural hair? Bring on the kinks, the curls, the frizz, and waves!

After hearing her daughter’s wish to resemble her blonde-haired dolls, Angelica Sweeting decided to do something positive for her little girl. So Sweeting went ahead and created “The Angelica Doll,” an adorable doll that has such gorgeously accurate natural hair, you can actually style it just as if it were your own.

Here she is, with beautiful natural hair, plus facial features more traditional of a woman of color.

Also, super fun, you can braid Angelica’s hair, wash it, dry it, bantu knot it, or leave it natural. Basically you can style it however you wish!

What’s more, the Angelica doll is more than just a physical role model, she’s a career-oriented little lady as well. Sweeting says of the doll, “The Angelica Doll is a courageous, bold entrepreneur full of self belief, natural beauty, and perseverance. For future dolls we will introduce careers such as engineering, journalism, software development, public relations, etc.” Ok, we kind of want to be Angelica now.

Thanks to a Kickstarter, Sweeting is making the Angelica Doll a reality for many, many little girls. Sweeting has already surpassed her initial $25,000 goal to create the dolls and with over 20 days left on her Kickstarter campaign, she is well on her way to the full line of Natural Dolls that she’s planning to create.

Already, the dolls are making an impact. Women have been tagging themselves on social media next to the doll with the hashtag #ImNaturallyPerfect:

Let’s be real for a second: Dolls are not just dolls, especially to young girls. Girls take care of their dolls, they make up lives for their dolls, and (in many cases) they aspire to be and look like their dolls. With that in mind, we are just thrilled that the Angelica Doll is giving so many girls a representation of beauty that looks more like they do! And that’s exactly how it should be.

“I’m creating Angelica to let girls know that they are beautiful. Our girls need to see a reflection of their own unique beauty,” Sweeting says on her Kickstarter page. That’s definitely a mission we are all about.

Featured image , Angelica doll image via.