Akirashanti “Kira” Byrd is an author and the co-founder of Curl Centric, a website about curly, coily, kinky, and wavy hair care. A trained barber and hairstylist, she has taught textured hair care since 2008 and has written four children’s books about curly hair.
She goes by Kira. Bookstores list her books under her full name, Akirashanti Byrd.
Curl Centric’s work is cited by
Teaching textured hair care since
2008Children’s books about curly hair
4
Akirashanti “Kira” Byrd
Co-founder, Curl Centric
Kira learned textured hair care at home. When her daughter went natural, there was almost nowhere to learn how to care for her hair, so Kira taught herself. Then she stopped relaxing her own hair to show her daughter it could be done.
In 2008, Kira and her husband, Kenneth Byrd, started teaching what she had learned. They first published as Natural Hair Community. The site has been Curl Centric since 2013, and it now has more than 950 guides on hair typing, porosity, protective styling, and wash day.
Starts teaching textured hair care with Kenneth, publishing as Natural Hair Community.
The site takes the name Curl Centric.
Publishes Curly Kids Coloring Book.
Publishes Boys Are Curly Too with Kenneth.
Writes and illustrates The Loosey Goosey Tooth.
A paper in the International Journal of Women’s Dermatology lists Curl Centric’s hair typing system as its first reference.
Curl Centric launches Curl Science, a podcast about the research behind hair care. Kira and Kenneth publish The Big Curly Kids Coloring and Activity Book.
“We all have a choice to decide what we accept as truth. I have decided that all hair, regardless of its texture and curl pattern, is good hair.”
All four are for kids. Kira wrote them because a child decides how she feels about her hair long before she learns how to care for it.
64 coloring pages and 45 activities for kids ages 4 to 8, starring girls and boys with curly, coily, kinky, and wavy hair. It brings the coloring pages from the two earlier books together with new mazes, word searches, and wash day cards.
Coloring pages from Curly Kids Coloring Book, Kira’s first book.
The topics Kira has written about most on Curl Centric.
Kira spent most of her career in accounting before Curl Centric became her full-time work. She finished as a chief accountant in local government, where she led a team of fifteen.
She is also a certified fraud examiner. That credential requires evidence before giving any opinion, and Curl Centric holds its hair guides to the same rule. Its editorial guidelines spell that out.
Interviews and features about Kira and her work.
Stories that quote Kira on hair care and money, hair first.
Journals, magazines, and hair care brands link to the work Kira and Kenneth publish.
Akirashanti “Kira” Byrd is an author and the co-founder of Curl Centric, a website about curly, coily, kinky, and wavy hair care. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, moved to Birmingham, Alabama, as a small child, and lives in Alabama with her husband, Kenneth Byrd.
Yes. Akirashanti is her full name, and it is the name on her books. She goes by Kira.
Yes. Kira trained as a barber and a hairstylist. Today she teaches through the guides she writes for Curl Centric.
Curly Kids Coloring Book (2014), Boys Are Curly Too (2015, with Kenneth Byrd), The Loosey Goosey Tooth (2016), and The Big Curly Kids Coloring and Activity Book (2026, with Kenneth Byrd).
Kira and Kenneth Byrd started teaching natural hair care in 2008, after Kira learned to care for her daughter’s natural hair. They published as Natural Hair Community at first, and the site became Curl Centric in 2013.
Email her at kira@curlcentric.com.