BALTIMORE As she raises two sons, there’s a time Jamyla Bennu and her husband, Pierre, like to keep sacred as a family: doing their hair.

The styling methods range from barber cuts to dreadlocks; as the boys aged, the background noise evolved from “The Backyardigans” to “Saturday Night Live” episodes. But they always do it together.

“One of my kids would be getting a haircut from dad and one was getting his hair twisted with mom, and we’d be watching a movie and stuff,” Bennu, 47, said. “That’s one thing I’m really happy is a part of our family culture: the fact that we do that grooming time together, and it’s part of our family together time.”

Bennu’s hair care isn’t limited to her home in Northeast Baltimore. She runs Oyin Handmade, an “artisanal manufacturer of moisture-rich personal care products especially formulated for highly textured hair and dry skin.” The products are available at Whole Foods stores throughout Maryland, at independent retailers throughout the country and online.

Founded by Bennu and her husband, Oyin Handmade is Black- and woman-owned. The company makes its products at its new 3,500-square-foot facility in Baltimore’s Greenmount West. Bennu has four employees and is looking to hire one more.

This year, Bennu is celebrating her company’s 20th anniversary. On top of that major milestone, the company’s products are now available to patients at all 11 hospitals in the University of Maryland Medical System.

DoRhonja Nichols is the director of critical care and behavioral health services at the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center. She said one of her colleagues told her about buzz within the health care community surrounding the availability of inclusive hair products for Black patients.

The university medical system’s new offerings puts it in league with other hospital systems in states like Iowa, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The systems drew inspiration from their patients to offer more inclusive products, such as wide-tooth combs, hair bonnets and moisturizers that use products like coconut oil and shea butter.

“I immediately thought this is something that would be very good to implement within the University of Maryland Medical System,” Nichols said. “I also thought it would be really cool if we could partner with a local minority-owned business to be able to provide the product to us.”

Nichols said that when she cared for Black patients as a nurse, she noticed the hair care products she had available didn’t meet their needs. She added that many patients don’t expect to be hospitalized and therefore aren’t able to plan ahead and bring their preferred products.

“Our patients are often in crisis, they really don’t feel themselves, they might not feel the best,” Nichols said. “I want them to know that they are really thought of and it’s so, it’s so incredibly important that we are looking through the lens of equity, diversity and inclusion in everything that we do regarding patient care.”

Honey wash shampoo, honey hemp conditioner and hair dew leave-in conditioner are all products available to patients in the University of Maryland hospitals, though Nichols said she wasn’t sure if all locations had rolled out the products yet. Patients also will be able to access wider tooth combs, hair picks and detangling brushes.

While Black patients make up 49% of the patients in the University of Maryland Medical System, the number varies by hospital. Because hospitals will order by need and only recently began making the products available, estimates for how much will be spent were not available.

With Bennu’s sons now in junior high and high school, she sees a drastically different attitude towards natural hair than she experienced.

“When I was growing up [in the Mid-Hudson Valley, New York], you wore your hair naturally when you were a kid and then eventually you would relax it or begin to straighten it because that was kind of like what grown up women did,” Bennu said. “Even though my home had an emphasis on natural hair and understanding the beauty, like there was no cultural support for the idea of wearing my hair in its natural state.”

Bennu said she started straightening her hair in high school because she was tired of being “mocked and derided.” When she got to Spelman College in Atlanta, a historically Black women’s liberal arts college where she studied philosophy and sociology, she finally saw other Black women wearing natural hairstyles, which inspired her to start experimenting with her own hair.

Bennu then started making hair products for her own use, a hobby that evolved into Oyin Handmade. Bennu would experiment with her hair and share the results online. After researching ingredients, she would start with a cheap conditioner and add nutrients, such as olive oils, sweet almond oil and honey.

While options may have been limited, there were some brands offering products for natural hair decades ago such as SheaMoisture and Carol’s Daughter. Still, at the time Bennu started her company, natural hairstyles were often considered unprofessional and inappropriate, she said.

“It’s something that we are really proud of as a company, as well as me personally, to have been a part of that kind of cultural movement in its early stages because it is a cultural movement that has literally shifted industries,” Bennu said.

According to a 2022 report on Black hair care released by the research firm Mintel, the movement toward natural hairstyles also was motivated by the pandemic, which in its early days encouraged consumers to use less products as they spent more time at home. The “trend toward minimalism and efficiency” is expected to continue even as consumers return to their pre-pandemic lifestyles.

“The fact that we’re still here, the fact that we’re still able to do this, we’re still creating relationships through our products, and we’re still a part of people’s healthy hair journey — that in and of itself makes me feel so fulfilled,” Bennu said.