The kitchen isn’t just a place to cook meals. In fact, one woman turned her kitchen into an empire after spending several years trying to find the right products for herself.
Lisa Price, founder of multicultural beauty brand Carol’s Daughter, started her business in Brooklyn, New York.
“I started first with fragrance. After reading that one of my favourite artists, Prince, would blend fragrances and make his own concoctions every day, I said, 'well that’s what I have to do, that’s a great idea', and I started to blend oils and created my own unique scents."
Her constantly dry skin made it difficult for her to find the right product, so she started making her own as well. “I could never find anything to really moisturise my skin. I thought maybe I can make my own moisturisers and then I can scent them with my fragrances. So I started to make moisturisers in my kitchen.
SPEAKING POWER: Lisa Price spoke about her journey at the Curl Affair event held at Hyde Park. Picture: Simphiwe Mbokazi/African News Agency/ANA
"I wasn’t thinking about natural beauty or anything like that. I was just thinking, 'I’m in my kitchen in my apartment. I don’t want to blow up, so let me mix things that I can understand and know what I am doing and not cause any fires or anything'," she laughed as she reminisced.
She played around in her kitchen as a hobby for about three years, giving her friends and family the products to test and try out. It was her mother, Carol, who nudged her in the right direction.
“She said the church is having a fleamarket in two weeks and you should sell the butters. I asked her if she really thought people would buy them and she said they are good, try it and sell them at the market.”
And so she did, on May 25, 1993, a date she will never forget as it sowed the seeds of her now fruitful business.
She sold out her products, which came in baby food jars with handmade labels, at that first fleamarket, and continued to sell over and over again.
BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL: Price's journey led her to South Africa for the Curl Affair fashion show recently. Picture: Simphiwe Mbokazi/African News Agency/ANA
“One of the things I learnt in my journey as an entrepreneur is you don’t have to have a degree in business or all the money in the world.
"You don’t have to have professional experience. All you need is passion and love for what you do and faith that you'll always be protected and be taken to the next step."
She added that anyone who had an idea and wanted to start something but was afraid to take the risk should use her as an inspiration.
“I know zero about science other than high school chemistry, and didn’t do well in it, but I knew how to cook and I learnt how to cook products.
"Later on when scientists had to get involved (in the business),
I had to teach them what I was doing and then they taught me what they were doing to make my things even better,” she said.
Price's business grew organically, something she is proud of because it allowed her to learn every step of the way. “I got to experience everything. So I never take anything for granted.”
She made and sold products in her apartment until 1996, when she moved with her husband into a house and then started operating from there.
In 1999 she opened a store, and by 2002 she moved the business out of the house.
“It was like living in a fish bowl, with people coming to shop inside your house every day, so when I finally moved, my husband ran from the third floor of our house all the way down to the first floor with no clothes on,” she joked.
Her entrepreneurship journey meant she was working 24/7 for 365 days a year.
“You have to be nimble and willing to change. You have to compromise to get ahead but you don’t have to allow yourself to be compromised. There’s a difference - when you make the choice to compromise to make something better but you don’t allow yourself to be put in a position where you don’t belong.”
Price added that dreaming bigger is what allowed her to meet with people she never thought she would. In the year she moved out of her house she appeared on the Oprah Winfrey talk show.
Three years later she was partnering with celebrity investors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith, and later joined the Home Shopping Network, and by 2011 her products became the number one hair care brand .
CUT ABOVE: Models show off some sensational hairstyles during the Curl Affair fashion show. Picture: Simphiwe Mbokazi/African News Agency/ANA
“One of the things that I’m sure has contributed to me still being around is the fact I am a Taurus - a Taurean is committed to anything they embark on so we stay in it, and no matter how many times we get knocked down, we just get back up.
"I am not fed up yet and still like it. The team that I have around me has been one that thinks forward, and I learnt to listen.”
Her role with Carol’s Daughter has evolved over the years but the key thing for her is to ensure the DNA of the brand she built stays intact.
She joined forces with L'Oréal in 2014, and the journey led her to South Africa recently for the Curl Affair - a natural hair and lifestyle event for women with curls, coils, kinks and waves.
Price called her time in the country a blessing, and said that seeing her products in stores was amazing.
“I can’t even begin to describe it. It’s a testament to how much we have in common and how alike we all are.
"We are so far away from each other and have never met each other before, but there are so many things we have in common, like taking care of our hair.”
She said the natural-hair movement was all about acceptance.
“We have that in common too. Accepting what is naturally (ours) is good enough and it doesn’t need to be manipulated in any way that makes it unhealthy. Kinky is great, bushy is great, nappy is great, and I love that we can empower and express ourselves.”
The event itself was filled with live demonstrations, a hair and fashion show, informative blogger discussions, live entertainment, an educational science corner and interactive brand activations.
Price’s journey reads like a movie, and that is something she is working on achieving.
“I would like to tell my story in a different way through film.
"What I have done isn’t usually what people do, and the way I was brought up and the things I was being educated to do, I shouldn’t be here. But I figured it out and I am here.
"There are other people who feel the same way, so I need to let them know that they can do it, and there is a way to use my platform to get to that space, so maybe I’ll be back for a movie premiere that would be nice."
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