{"id":17914,"date":"2023-01-24T14:40:32","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T19:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=17914"},"modified":"2023-02-07T09:21:31","modified_gmt":"2023-02-07T14:21:31","slug":"innovating-for-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2023\/01\/innovating-for-beauty\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovating for Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Stylized<\/a>\n

The Black hair industry is flourishing, and wigs and hair extensions, which are fueling what The New York Times<\/em> called a \u201cfantasia of Black hair innovation,\u201d are a big part of the market. The global hair wig and extension market is valued at $5.8 billion and is expected to reach $13.3 billion by 2026, according to industry projections.<\/p>\n

But the technology to care for today\u2019s wigs and extensions hasn\u2019t evolved. Consumers have to wait as long as 24 hours for their hair to air dry after washing it because there is no convenient way to quickly dry detached hair pieces, also called \u201cbundles.\u201d Existing hair dryers, which were made for hair that grows naturally, are inefficient and take hours to dry wigs and weaves.<\/p>\n

Shawna Stepp-Jones MS \u201910 wants to change this. Stepp-Jones is the inventor of Spundle, a heat-free dryer for wigs and bundles that uses two centralized airflow channels to reduce drying time to 15 minutes, saving consumers hours.<\/p>\n

She encountered the bundle-drying issue firsthand in 2016, and knew that as a Black female engineer, she was uniquely prepared to devise a solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I could be that bridge to stylists in the Black community and beyond, and to the tech world to help revolutionize the industry,\u201d says Stepp-Jones, founder and CEO of Divaneering Lab, \u201cwhere engineering meets fab.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stepp-Jones grew up in West Baltimore and earned a BS in electrical engineering from Morgan State University. She was 23 and just starting in the Engineering for Professionals<\/a> (EP) graduate program at the Whiting School when Hopkins instructor Samuel J. Seymour said something that still inspires her: \u201cTo be a leader, you have to be a visionary, and you have to be polarizing and revolutionary,\u201d she recalls. \u201cThose were new concepts to me, and as soon as I heard them, I knew I wanted to emulate them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former patent examiner and mother to Sachi, 13, also seeks to encourage girls to pursue STEM careers. Stepp-Jones\u2019 Divaneering Lab has reached hundreds of K-12 girls with workshops that challenge them with engineering design tasks like building the strongest, lightest, tallest beehive hairdo.<\/p>\n

She has her first prototype and will be actively fundraising while bootstrapping Spundle using the revenue she generates from her STEM and innovation workshops. Stepp-Jones expects the dryer to be on the market in August 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no way I\u2019m going to be a girl from Baltimore who studied engineering at Morgan and Hopkins and has all this knowledge and not transfer it to the young ladies coming behind me so that they too can innovate and solve our problems,\u201d she says. \u201cNo one is solving our problems for us. We have to solve our own problems.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Black hair industry is flourishing, and wigs and hair extensions, which are fueling what The New York Times called a \u201cfantasia of Black hair innovation,\u201d are a big part of the market. The global hair wig and extension market is valued at $5.8 billion and is expected to reach $13.3 billion by 2026, according…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":18333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","issue-winter-2023"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nInnovating for Beauty - JHU Engineering Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2023\/01\/innovating-for-beauty\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Innovating for Beauty\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Shawna Stepp-Jones MS \u201910 is the inventor of Spundle, a heat-free dryer for wigs and bundles\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2023\/01\/innovating-for-beauty\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"JHU Engineering Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-01-24T19:40:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-02-07T14:21:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image_50388481.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1512\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"819\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Monica Leigh\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Innovating for Beauty\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Shawna Stepp-Jones MS \u201910 is the inventor of Spundle, a heat-free dryer for wigs and bundles\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image_50388481.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Monica Leigh\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2023\\\/01\\\/innovating-for-beauty\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2023\\\/01\\\/innovating-for-beauty\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Monica Leigh\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/acfe7b0b2b4e334734cec46640d4b37c\"},\"headline\":\"Innovating for Beauty\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-01-24T19:40:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-02-07T14:21:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2023\\\/01\\\/innovating-for-beauty\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":448,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2023\\\/01\\\/innovating-for-beauty\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2023\\\/01\\\/image_50388481.jpeg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Alumni\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2023\\\/01\\\/innovating-for-beauty\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2023\\\/01\\\/innovating-for-beauty\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/engineering.jhu.edu\\\/magazine-archive\\\/2023\\\/01\\\/innovating-for-beauty\\\/\",\"name\":\"Innovating for Beauty - 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