With the natural hair movement growing rapidly across the globe, more and more women are taking extra care of their hair.
Women of colour are now celebrating their coily, coarse and curly hair with pride. One of the most prominent naturalists, Lisa Price, the founder of Carol’s Daughter shares her success story with us, explaining how she became one of the most trusted natural hair brands for 25 years.
Carol’s Daughter is a hair brand specialising in strictly ethnic hair, which was founded in 1993 in Brooklyn, New York.
The new Green Supreme by Carol's Daughter. Picture: Instagram.
The brand, which started in a kitchen as a hobby, has become one of the most loved brands in South Africa since its launch in 2014.
“I started working in my kitchen as a hobby and prior to that, I made moisturisers for the body. Before moisturisers, I made fragrances because I’ve always loved beautiful scents,” says Price.
“I would give the moisturisers to friends and family and also use it on myself because I had really dry skin. And then in May of 1993, my mom suggested that I sell at a church flea market and that was the first time I sold products to anyone and got money from it,” she says.
From there, Price kept on making more products from her home and selling at street fairs and festivals until 1999, when she opened her very first store. As the business grew, more people started to notice Carol’s Daughter and, as a result, she was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show and that still remains the biggest highlight of her career because those are the moments her mother saw before she died.
“My mom was alive when I started the company and she saw some of the success like the first store that I opened. And when I went on Oprah for the first time in 2002, she was very happy because she got special treatment at the doctor’s office, as people always talked about how they saw me on Oprah.”
To keep her mother’s legacy going, Price is proud that she named her brand after her mom, although it wasn’t such an easy task.
Carol's Daughter proudly celebrates ethnic hair. Picture: Instagram.
“I used to work with a gentleman. I was his secretary and when he was naming a project, he would make a list of goals for the project and a list of things that would happen within the project. From all of those words, he would come up with a name. I liked what he did and decided to do the same with my brand. I don’t remember what I had on the list of things I wanted to become but on the list of things I was, I was Carol’s daughter, Robert’s daughter, Gordon’s girlfriend and Hank’s secretary.
“When you’re brainstorming, you write everything that comes to your head and I didn’t want to use Gordon’s girlfriend because I didn’t want to stay his girlfriend, and I didn’t because we got married. Hank’s secretary was definitely not going to be it and just when I said ‘Carol’s daughter’, I got butterflies in my stomach and I knew that was the name,” Price says.
Today, Carol’s Daughter is a brand partner with L’Oréal and is expanding to African countries with products available in South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya.
“Carol’s Daughter is going to continue to be what is and continue to grow. It will always be relevant and, now that I have celebrated 25 years, I feel permanent,” says Price.
Stay connected with the brand on Instagram @carolsdaughter.