Serena Page isn’t just bigger than the program. She is the program. The season 6 Love Island USA winner tilted the reality TV landscape on its axis the second she stepped onto the villa.
Her commanding disposition and declaring strut set the stage for her victory long before the final couples were even announced. With every well-crafted piece of advice she dished out and her magnetic display of unwavering self-respect, Page set a new standard for Black women on competition dating shows.
And as much as she was the epitome of standing on business about your respect, she was also an aesthetic titan, setting a new beauty standard for Black women on television. The bum-grazing knotless braids she wore in the villa broke new ground on the representation of Black women on reality TV. And best believe she put the time in for those historic braids. Page tells ESSENCE that the braids took her about ten hours to get and even longer to take down.
“I want to say it took me and Kordell, like two days to take them out,” says Page. As gorgeous as these braids were, rocking tiny extension braids can wreak unmitigated havoc on your scalp and hair, especially when you leave these braids in for an extended period of time. Thankfully, Page says, during her tenure in the villa, SheaMoisture had her back. Well, scalp, in this case. “I actually used the SheaMoisture strengthening hair and scalp oil,” says Page, explaining that the villa came ready with the SheaMoisture goodies.
Beyond being the most practical choice for a show that regularly requires you to submerge yourself in various gooey concoctions and milkish mixtures, Page also picked the style because she used to do hair college and would be able to touch up her braids in the villa. And now, a year after her historic Villa experience, Page is a brand ambassador for SheaMoisture’s “Yes, And” campaign, an initiative to celebrate the versatility of Black beauty.
“This campaign was a full circle moment for me,” says Page, who started her natural hair journey with the brand in high school. SheaMoisture was my tried and true choice from the beginning. So this campaign fits me and my personality so well,” says Page. She adds, “Yes, and” is a manifestation of her laissez-faire approach to hair. An oddity as relates to the collectives’ approach to Black hair. “I’m someone who loves to switch it up, whether it’s color, style, whatever. I love to switch it up,” she says.
With that, Page says hair has never been that “deep” for her. “Cut it off, dye it, shave it. It doesn’t matter,” she says. “My relationship with my hair is pretty good. It is what it is. It’s hair. It’ll grow back. And if not, I got a wig,” she laughs. Still, Page understands the importance of maintaining the health of her hair. An attitude she attributes to her mom, who stressed the importance of “health over length” from a young age.
“There’s no reason for your hair to be long and stringy— it’s gonna suck,” she says. Growing up, her mom took a vested interest in the health of Page’s hair, adding that even though braids were her style of choice in the villa, she didn’t wear them growing up due to the excessive tension they would place on her chemically treated hair.
“Because of the relaxer, my mom said the braids would pull out my hair and she obviously knew better than I did,” says Page, adding that she has always had “really fine hair.” “Even now, if I leave box braids in too long, it’ll still pull out my hair. And I’m natural. So she wasn’t lying,” says Page. Now, years later, the roles have switched between her and her mom.
“It’s kind of the opposite now. I’m helping teach her about natural hair and rocking it. Because she always had some kind of chemical in her hair. But now she’s team natural, and it’s so cute.”
To say that life outside of the villa looks different for Sereana would be the understatement of the century. She went from working as a media planner for children’s programming, with around 3,000 followers, to a reality supernova with almost 3 million followers on Instagram in the span of a year.
This whirlwind transformation playing out in front of the world surely had its hectic moments, but Page’s innate inclination for mutability has postured her to take it all in stride. That is to say, from her toes to the tip of her newly frosted tips (she went icy blonde for New York Fashion Week), Page is never afraid to make something shake.
“I have so many different personas. I love to be cutesy. I love to be sexy, and maybe sometimes a little grungy and alternative. I am the queen of versatility.”