Enhle Mbali’s Brand Partnership with Carlton Hair Takes a Knock Following K Word Video
TV personality and actress Enhle Mbali Mlotshwa’s partnership with haircare brand Carlton Hair as brand ambassador is in jeopardy. Over the past weekend, a now-viral video of the star caught the attention of the public, with people expressing their outrage on social media for the racial and pejorative comment Enhle made about hair belonging to Black people, using the taboo K-word to describe such hair. Owing to this, it is reported that Carlton Hair is contemplating making an about-face concerning keeping Enhle as the brand’s representative.
Carlton Hair announced the star as the new face of the brand on the 9th of September 2025, coupled with a promotional event in Hyde Park on the day to seal the deal of making the ground-breaking development known to the world. What sparked the torrent of the backlash was a segment of Mbali’s speech captured on video, in which she describes her hair as “K*ffir hare [hair]”.
“Listen, it’s the new South Africa, neh, and I’m allowed to say this. I got ‘k*ffir hare’,” she said at the event, to the laughter of the crowd.
Watch the segment from a TikTok of what happened:
The comment didn’t land well with the general public, who felt that Enhle had degraded Black hair and its naturalness just to play to the gallery. As a result, Carlton Hair, according several media outlets, is currently in the process of evaluating the partnership, with the hair beauty brand reportedly choosing to not align itself with Mbali’s views as well as opting to hang ten on rolling out more promotional content online featuring Mbali’s installation as brand ambassador.
“We extend our sincere regret to anyone offended or hurt by these words, particularly within the Black community whose natural beauty we proudly champion. To address this, we have immediately paused all related promotional content featuring the ambassador and are conducting a full review of our partnership guidelines to ensure alignment with our inclusivity standards,” said Carlton Hair Director Sascha Paine to IOL.
On Mlotshwa’s part, there has been an attempt at issuing an apology, although it was lacklustre.
On the 14th of September, she posted an apology on her Instagram Story, stating, “I guess I assumed with how comfortable we use the N word, it would be the same with the K word, (a great mistake on my part), thanks for understanding that it had no malicious intent.”