With more than 1 billion people on Instagram, freshman Ashton Hatch has managed to gain over 40,000 followers. But it’s not because of where she’s gone or what she’s done.

It’s because of her hair and the intricate hairstyles created by her mom.

“So Ashton was eight years old and there was this special mother-daughter activity at our church, so I just put that I wanted to do something cute with her hair and I just kind of went for it,” Ashton’s mom Cynthia Hatch said. “I never really did braids in her hair before, and I thought it was cute. And then I was sharing it with our family, cause we lived away from them, and so I decided to start an Instagram to share it with my family so they could see all the cute little styles. So I just thought it was fun to do, and then it just started going on up on us, like people started following and sharing it.”

For both Ashton and her mom, one of their favorite parts from the whole experience is spending time with each other. 

“My favorite moments are probably just when I get free clothes and free hair stuff cause that’s really great and they’re often really cute,” Ashton said. “Also just doing it with my mom. That’s fun cause there’s not much else to do with your parents cause you have school and other things so that was kinda a thing we did in the morning to be with each other and have a little mother-daughter bonding time.”

“We have a lot of fun,” Cynthia said. “We went ahead and did a lot of hair competitions and won a lot of those, and she modeled a lot of clothing and things like that. She was highlighted by a lot of really big ones [companies] that have millions and millions of followers and that was kind of fun to be spotlighted, but really it was just about us being together and doing something fun. So it’s something we did for a few years that we just hooked up the last three years and then we took a break and she said hey let’s do hair again.”

This story was originally published on Wingspan on October 22, 2020.