How I Started My Natural Hair Care Line

Hey guys welcome back to my channel, it's jayla michelle and in today's video i'm going to be talking about how i started my natural hair care line or kind of like my story and journey of it or how to start one um, just my take on it And my experience because i get a lot of questions about like how to start um, how did you learn how to formulate things like that so i'll be discussing that in this video? So if you're not already subscribed to my channel, go ahead hit the subscribe button? Turn my post notifications, so you are aware when i post and let's get into it, okay, so um. If you guys didn't know, i do have a degree in business. So while i was in college um, i kind of knew like towards my last year that i wanted to do some sort of a hair care thing, because you guys know for years, i've been on youtube, just documenting my hair journey. I started off by showing that i had psoriasis i was losing. My hair was thinning and things like that and i really wanted to regrow my hair. You know hair can be kind of like a part of our confidence and stuff, and i just hated how short and thin my hair had gotten, because i used to have long thick hair. So it was one of those things where i was like yeah. I think i'm gon na take the natural hair route because for me at like 18 years old, i knew when i graduated high school, like either i'm going to shave my whole head off and shave. My whole hair off and wear wigs because of the psoriasis or i'm going to try this natural hair out and see what where it takes me and i decided to do the natural hair out and the rest was history because you guys know um but natural hair. I'M able to wet my hair, more scalp gets more moisture and stuff like that, because in high school my hair was always straight. I always had heat on it and heat dries out. Your scalp even more makes it worse. Anyways long story, short um. So that's my background on why i started natural hair care because i was into it already. I already had a passion for it. I already was documenting my hair growth journey. You know so um in that journey. I learned that i love natural ingredients. I love ingredients that actually do something for your hair. I don't like brands no shade, but like can't too, because that's what i started out using in my hair growth journey brands like that. Don'T really have any benefits for your hair and that's why they're so cheap and they're filled with chemicals and stuff like that, it doesn't really do too much for you. So i always loved brands like shea moisture allocate naturals because they were natural brands with good ingredients that actually did something for your hair, so anyways, i knew in college for sure. The first product i wanted to do was some type of hair growth, oil. I was always obsessed with hair growth oils. I'Ve used them all. Throughout my hair journey of growing my hair, i've used the main choice, allocate naturals all these different brands, hair growth oils, that's one of my favorite things and plus oiling. My scalp was always important to me, especially with scalp psoriasis, so yeah. I just knew. I wanted to start there like a hair foil, so i always had this idea in the back of my mind, like okay, a hair care line, and then, when i graduated college, i did nothing with it. I was still carrying on just creating hair care videos and i was a brand ambassador for so many different brands. I was a brand ambassador for shea moisture. All k, naturals taylor beauty, like so many brands, have sent me products. I'Ve worked with so many brands being an influencer, so i kind of lost sight of my vision to create my own products. You know i was so focused on being a full-time influencer, that i wasn't thinking about my own business anymore, but it was still kind of there in my mind, like i want to work for myself, i want to do something you know so anyways like i had A supervisor at my job, and he would always ask me like just stuff about what i wanted to do, and i remember mentioning to him like i want to have a haircare line. So when i mentioned that to him literally every time i turn around like every month, who would ask me like how's it going? Are you working on it? I just feel like and realizing like you're doing nothing to work towards this hair care line. You'Re you're literally just becoming one of those people that talk about they want to do something but you're not doing it, and i'm really not one of those kind of people. So i was like, let me be serious and just start the process. Starting is the hardest part for a lot of people, just starting starting to do the research starting to figure out what you want. So i didn't want to stress myself out too much. I knew i wanted the hair growth oil and i had a pretty good idea of what ingredients i wanted in it because, throughout my whole, five years or so, of trying different brands and trying different ingredients, i pretty much know what my hair likes and what helps My hair to grow so i was like okay, i'm going to concoct this hair growth, oil and start there and figure this whole thing out, so i had to figure out a name. I really didn't want lavish curls, as the name i still to this day. Can'T think of any other name, i would want for my brand, like it was going to be miss shayelle beauty, which was um, which is my middle name, but i'm so sorry. It sounded too much like niche beauty to me like i didn't want people getting our brands confused, so i was like i don't want to do this, and people already butcher my name so much like my first name middle name, everything my people always mess. My name up so i was like. I don't even want this tied to my name really. I was like. I want something very simple, very basic that people can say, and no so i was just like we're going to just do lavish curls, because i really wanted um this to be like an affordable luxury brand. Like i wanted people to feel luxurious using my products, i wanted it to be good quality, but at an affordable price. So i had to come up with my name and then also i started working on a logo just kind of drawing it out. First and kind of get an idea of what i wanted to look like and then i started researching fonts. I knew i wanted some type of cursive font, so i went on, i think dafont.com. I was just looking at different cursive fonts until i saw one that i really liked and i was playing around with it playing around with do. I want lavish curls, together or like up here and then curls down under you know. I just started playing around a lot of different things until i created a logo for it um and then also from there. I was just you know, playing around with the hair growth oil um. Originally it was supposed to be four ounces and then i was doing research and i there's people that do four ounce hair growth oils. But then i saw a lot of hair growth oils that were just two ounces. So i said: okay, i'm gon na just go with this two ounce bottle and then i was researching price points so, like where's, the average price point that people put this oil at and i saw twenty dollars. So i was like okay with the ingredients i'm using since it's going to be great amazing quality ingredients. Um i can put this who in the world is texting me. I can put this at twenty dollars because i know i'm using good quality stuff, i'm not using. No bs, so i'm gon na put this at twenty dollars and that's what it's gon na be okay, so a lot went into this guys, but having that like person at my job, always asking me like, are you working on this? Are you work like how's it going? The thing is when somebody keeps asking me how something's going you haven't done. I think you'll lowkey start to become embarrassed, but then, when he started to ask me like how's it going, i was excited like i've been working on this this that like, and then it became um fun to really work on my business because it's like once i Started i couldn't stop like i was like wait. You really love this. So then i started researching like what bottles i wanted. So at first i was gon na. Do my glass dropper bottles and then i changed my mind and went with plastic with the twist top and i regretted it, but i sold all 100 of those twist top bottles and switched to glass bottles, because this generation and people that's very aesthetically. Pleasing people love those glass droppers. So after i sold those 100 bottles, i switched to the glass droppers and i've been happy ever since, like it just fits the brand more and that luxury feel that i was going for so anyways um yeah. It just took a lot a lot of research and then also i remember being at my job, and the substitute teacher was talking to me because i worked with kids and stuff, so there was a sub at the job hold on. Sorry, if i was out of focus, there was a sub at the job. When we were talking - and i was telling her about it - like yeah - i'm going to start this haircare line and all this stuff um and i was telling her i'm just in the decision process of deciding. If i want to sell on etsy or if i want to sell on shopify because, like those were two kind of like big platforms, but i decided not to go with etsy because with etsy you're kind of in competition with everybody like it's, not your own set Website - and i was like you know what i can afford 29.99 a month, i'm gon na go with shopify and plus shopify gives you analytics. It gives you reports, it gives you everything that etsy cannot give you, because it's not like a legit website, where it's going to give you all this information that you need um in terms of your sales and email, email list and all this other stuff. So i went with shopify and i'm glad i did because that's what all the big brands use and everything so i was like you know what what lavish pros i'm going big or not at all, so i decided to go with shopify and i'm glad i did. I gave myself like a few days to create the website. I did it so fast and stressed myself out, but i'm one of those people i'll just push myself like everything - does not have to be perfect right away. But if you keep waiting and waiting and waiting, you'll notice years will go by and you've done nothing. You said you were going to do so, i'm like always happy. I had that um supervisor asking me like how's, your brain going. You know um. He would be surprised to know now, like i do this full time this. This is full-time my job, um selling, products and stuff. It'S amazing and i've been in business for a little over a year now so shocking, because i launched lavish curls february 2020 during a pandemic, basically a month before it so yeah a lot goes into it. A lot of researching just hours of deciding where you can get the most affordable products - sourcing ingredients. I watch so many entrepreneur live videos. I follow so many entrepreneurs because it keeps me motivated. It keeps me focused. I know what's going on currently um and just able to get an idea of like where to get stuff affordable, like you, can go on youtube and type in like where to get ingredients for my brand and videos come up and there's people that share like their Wholesale supplies list. I don't like to do that because when too many people know it's harder to get your stuff, so a lot of people do ask me like: where do you get ingredients and stuff? I don't answer those questions, because once too many people know um it's harder to get that stuff like it sells out faster and it makes it harder for your business, because if you notice the big brands, they don't disclose that information, but small business owners. I know we tend to want to help each other a lot, but some information we got ta keep quiet or you cannot find that stuff as easy anymore, so um yeah it just took a lot of research. I had to make sure i got the most pure ingredients for the brand um, so i had to go through researching different websites comparing price points, because at the end of the day i want to make a profit. But i had to also make sure i was putting in the quality that i wanted for the brand and then um so yeah. I figured out. I wanted shopify, so much went on in this time, because i was just launching the hair growth oil um. What else happened? A week after i launched lavish curls, i did go, get my llc because then i started getting scared. I was like. I don't want nobody to steal my brand or anything. So i did get a llc um, because all natural hair brands like well not all, but the mass majority are llc's, because you know our customers are putting ingredients in their hair and all this crazy stuff you just want to be protected. So i researched what um kind of company all the natural hair brands are like the big ones and stuff like that, and they are llc's to be protected. And i even saw a lot of those other small business owners that had llc's as well for their um natural hair care lines and stuff. So i was like okay, let me get the llc and just do that. So i did that, like a week after launch got approved for in like three days um. So i did that and then also to make sure that on my like website domain um, i did go on godaddy.com. I have a video on that. I only paid 99 cents for my domain just to make sure i have lavish curls beauty. Like that's my website, nobody else can use lavish curlsbeauty.com. So i did that because um shopify will give you like a standard domain and it does not look professional at all. So i wanted once again to go with the professional route for my business, and so i made sure i got a domain before i launched the actual website, so that took research as well. Also um researching what was it um? The virtual business address, because when i ship out words, i did not want my real address showing, and i get always a million million questions on that video. It just depends on the type of business that you're running. I run a business where i don't need it to say my address. I just need basically a fake address, which is a virtual address. It'S a real address. You can go there, but i just need to pay for an address. That'S not mine and i only paid ten dollars a month for that virtual address and i can use it when i'm shipping out orders so that nobody's coming to my house or looking for me um and then also i get the question of like what happens. If packages are sent there, they will notify you ipostal.com will notify you and you can have it shipped to your real address, so you don't have to worry about any of that. Like i get that question a million times - and i was like i cannot answer this question a million times and that's when i tell people you need to do your own further research being a business owner. It'S a lot a lot of research over and over and over again, when you're working on your business when you're sourcing supplies, just everything just takes a lot of research, but i definitely recommend people to just dive in don't wait until everything's perfect, because you will really Be waiting for ever to start your business like i've heard some people say like i know, melon and hair care um whitney. She said she took like six years to launch her business, and i remember that discouraged me at first. I was like this is gon na. Take six years - and i was like i'm gon na - do my own research and figure this out and it didn't take me six years but um i was like you know what everybody's journey is different as well, and you just got ta dive in and figure out, Like what's gon na work best for you and just researching so yeah, i did that first product, which was the hair growth oil and from there i did the second product, which was the mango moisture, twisting growth butter. I did research on that went on youtube and basically just figured out how to make hair butter. I did not know at all. I just knew like kind of like basic ingredients, but i didn't know how to actually make it, and i know a lot of people do the whole melting, the butters first and oil together and they freeze it and then they whip it. There'S so many different methods and i tried out different methods, and i tried out different formulas and stuff to figure out what worked best for me. Um there's a girl on youtube. Her name is yaya. I highly recommend her and then there's also girl. I believe her name is whole elise. I learned to formulate from them. I always get the question: how do you learn how to formulate youtube like everything is online? You can even like google, it and you'll just see different people formulating and teaching you how to preserve. Um, your ingredients and things like that, it's all on the internet, like you, do not need to be stressed out and taking forever to learn these things like it's on the internet. You get to visually, see these people creating and doing this stuff, and it's free just go on youtube um, because i get that question so much like how to formulate like there's so many um like hair butter, um videos on youtube and pretty much everybody uses the Same measurements, it's just different ingredients. So that's really how i learned how to formulate it's same measurements, pretty much different ingredients and then once you play around and add the green ingredients and that you want for your products, you will play around with measurements to see kind of like oh, do i want More of this oil or less of that oil, more butter, less butter, because with hair butter, if you don't want it too oily you're going to use less oils in it. But if you want like a more oily consistency, you're going to use less butter, i did too much oil in the beginning. I was like i don't like this consistency of my product. So then i started adding less oil more butter to get it to the consistency and texture that i wanted for my product. So it's gon na be a lot of trial and error and playing around with the recipes and stuff like that. But if you want basic formulations, just go on youtube search, what you're! Looking for and a lot of the girls too in these videos like open the description box, they will have it listed out like the ingredients, the measurements and stuff, and then you just play around with it so, like i know personally, if i'm making a hair butter, I'M going to do like a certain amount of butter, so probably like a cup of butter. Eight ounces, since i use eight ounce jars and then i'm going to add in the amount or ounces of each one of my oils i play around with it to get to a certain um. What is it like certain formula of what i want and it's the same with deep conditioner um? It'S the same with like my aloe and fenugreek leave-in growth spreads. There'S a million aloe and fenugreek grow spritz tutorials on youtube. That'S where i got the idea from. I saw allen fenugreek and i was like oh, this would make a great growth spray, but it does not have my growth ingredients in it. It has the basic formula of alum fenugreek, but it doesn't have my uh growth oil blend that i use. I didn't see anybody using my growth oil blend because that's a that's a blend that i created myself so i took that - and i was like this product would be even more amazing if it just had these blend. This blend same for, like every hair brand. I know like everybody, pretty much has a hair butter, but it's tweaked to their own personal liking. So, of course, once again, since it's in my hair growth collection, i tweak it and put my um blend of hair growth oils in it, and then also, i see a lot of people that will do usually just shea butter or just mango butter for their hair Butter mine has shea and mango butter in it, so you do it to. However you like it, you find the basic formula and then you create it to be your own. You know, so that's how i learned how to formulate um. I learned how to make deep, conditioner again from yaya um, what else african black soap as well. It basically has a basic formulation and then you just add in whatever oils you want. It'S like very, very simple: that's why a lot of people do do it yourself? Um, hair care and skin care there's a lot of people that don't even go buy, hair care products because, because they're like i can make this at home myself, you know it's not a difficult thing once you watch videos and learn how to preserve and everything like That so yeah pretty simple, it can get a little complicated because you do want to get that perfect texture and consistency. But overall it's pretty much fun. It feels like you're cooking, because that's what you're, using you're using pots and spoons and measurement cups. It feels like you're, cooking, honestly um, so it's pretty fun if you do like to cook so i have fun with it and then just launching product after product writing product descriptions. I did a lot of research um. I also like i forgot what it was called. I think it's called boss divas, you can go to boss divas on instagram, it's this woman and she creates like all these different business and marketing courses tailored to your needs. So you can go on there and look and see like what is it that you want to learn for business, buy one of her courses or something and she'll walk you through things, because a lot of stuff that i learned in college, i couldn't apply to my Business because a lot of stuff they teach you in college well for me, was outdated and the world is moving so fast with social media and technology and stuff. That stuff is changing so fast, like we're in the generation of brands, using influencers to promote a product before i used to be mostly focused on celebrities, but now people use you know tick, tockers and um influencers. That'S why a lot of people are shocked like why do influencers make money, because we're able to influence you to buy something and we bring in sales for that brand? So, like that's what i do personally and so now i do it with my brand. You know i look for influencers and people that are already in this niche, because they're going to bring me themselves, i don't have to go to the celebrity to do this promoting and then promotion is so free these days because of instagram you can your access to. So many people - you know you have access to so many people that you don't have to pay to promote anymore, really, um, there's still people that run facebook ads. But for me i barely paid any promotion for my stuff, like i think i paid last year. Like 20 um, because i did like that, the instagram ads boost, but other than that um, i haven't - even ran any facebook ads yet, and i already know once i once i learned like the facebook ads, the business is going to go to a whole nother level Because i can reach so many more people, but the point i'm at right now is already reaching people through just instagram but um so yeah. So i think i kind of covered everything and, like my story of how i started a brand, it really was just having that one person be like how's it going like all the time to me um that really just pushed me to be like okay, you need To get serious and start working on this business, like you say you want and then um just researching like finding where to buy wholesale oils ingredients all that stuff, because the website, the supplier you use at first won't always be the supplier you use, because you might Find a better one but try to do as much research as possible and just get started with your business. Just like just start make sure you do start an instagram business page for your instagram as well. I made sure i did that i started building it up. Like a month or two before even releasing lavish curls, i would just kind of post pictures of girls with their natural hair and just like hair advice, tips and stuff. And that's how i started building the page and then also promoting it on my youtube channel and letting people know um, i'm releasing a business sometime in 2020 and go follow. You know always promoting yourself. Don'T be scared to promote yourself if you're scared to promote yourself. You'Re not going to get anywhere so just promote your business, promote it everywhere. Let people know because somebody is watching, even if you feel like nobody's watching just because you didn't get likes or something people are definitely watching. You um, and they know you're serious about your business based off how much you post and tell people about it, but yeah guys. That was pretty much my story and from there i've just been continuously growing, lavish curls um, creating new products. I have a new product line. I want to launch next month by the time you guys see this. It probably will be april. So probably this month i have a collection of products i want to release, hopefully by the end of april. I am formulating and i am learning right now, i'm in the learning process, so um it's taking a little longer. This line is a little harder to formulate, but once i get it it's going to be bomb so yeah guys. I hope you all enjoy this video. I don't like long-winded videos, but this is a longer video because it's me telling my story, but i hope you guys all enjoyed this video, don't forget to like comment and subscribe. Don'T forget to start that business start researching the hardest part is to start. So just start and when you start keep going and once you notice that you keep going just know that you're passionate about it - and this is for you, because if you keep feeling like, if you keep stopping and taking these long breaks just know, there's no passion. There, but when you have passion, you're going to want to go and it's going to be non-stop, it's going to be something you can't control like you're going to want to continuously. Do it, do it do it? Do it like it's going to be hard to step away from it? It'S going to be hard to stop like you will be up late night, researching because you're so passionate about this and creating whatever it is that you want to create you're going to have so much passion that it keeps you going. But if you notice it's something that can't keep you going and you don't feel the urge to want to research and stuff, then it's probably not for you honestly, because passionate people you're going to feel a consistent urge a consistent urge to do what it is that You love it's the same thing for youtube for me like when people ask like how are you so consistent? It'S a passion, it's an urge to get on camera, create and do what i do. You know so yeah, i'm done talking bye, guys,