- 15 minutes ago
What does it take to build a brand that truly sees its customer? Join Black Girl Vitamins Executive Jennifer Juma and Bask and Lather founder for a candid conversation on creating products rooted in intention, community, and culture. From formulation to founding story, this panel pulls back the curtain on what it really means to build beauty brands for us, by us.
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00:03hello hello hello hi everyone how we doing today all right how we doing today i hope everyone had
00:13their coffee today all right my name is daisy reyes and i have the pleasure of being today's
00:21host thank you so much for being here our next panel is called building brands with purpose
00:28you know often we want to know um what does it take to build a brand that truly sees this
00:34customer
00:35and so today i want you to join me um joining us is black girl vitamins executive jennifer juma and
00:42bass and lather founder china founder uh she said we're gonna have a candid conversation on creating
00:49products rooted in intention community and culture from formulation to founding stories this panel
00:57pulls back uh the curtains on what it really means to build a brand for us by us so please
01:03a round of applause and let's uh welcome jennifer juma shana ranford and akili king to the stage thank you
01:25hello essence festival beauty con stage how are we let's get some energy looking good looking good
01:34not too tired from cardi b last night i am that was fun that was amazing how are we feeling
01:42today ladies
01:43good good i'm so good i love i'm just excited for this panel all about building beauty brands with purpose
01:52and i feel the two of you embody that so beautifully so i would love to get into it so
02:00starting off
02:03tell me about where each of you are from and how your upbringing shaped your individual approaches to
02:11beauty yes um so my name is shana rainford i'm the founder and ceo of baskin latico and i am
02:19born and raised in the bronx um i was a teen mom i have my 18 year old here in
02:25the crowd and um now i
02:27have one of the fastest growing companies in the country and it's all thanks to building something
02:34very intentional for people that look just like me and doing it with lots of passion and love and that
02:39really can be replicated absolutely i love it amazing and jennifer what about you yeah hi everyone i'm
02:47jennifer jima with black girl vitamins i actually was born and raised in nigeria but i moved to the
02:52u.s 20 years ago so i have that experience of coming here as a teenager to away from my
02:57family to start
02:58a new life in college so i think that definitely built that resilience in me and independence very
03:04early on and i have a background in business i worked in finance and consulting so i think all of
03:10those merged together coming also from a family that my mom works but she had multiple side hustles
03:16i think that helped that combination helped build sort of like who i am today um as a business
03:22professional yes absolutely beautiful and so shana your journey with baskin lather comes from a pretty
03:30personal place right with helping it started off with helping your sister grow her hair how does this
03:38personal story sort of shape the way you approach the brand in general and your customer relationship
03:46as well yes so baskin lather started because my younger sister alia lost all of her hair she had a
03:53really bad ringworm that initially just looked like dandruff on her scalp and my mom took her to
03:58doctors and they treated her with dandruff shampoos and by the time she got a proper diagnosis of ringworm
04:03her hair was falling out in chunks straight from the scalp just by touching it and she was completely
04:08bald and i remember she had to wear a cap to school my mom being so worried that kids would
04:13like tease
04:14her bother her when the infection cleared her hair still wouldn't it wasn't growing back and my mom
04:19took her to dermatologist and trichologist and they said they weren't sure that her hair would ever grow
04:24back so she became really desperate and did research about natural ingredients for hair growth and she
04:30whipped up a concoction which became our scalp stimulator oil and then she whipped up another
04:35concoction which became my hair elixir to make her hair thicker and retain length and alia's hair grew
04:40from bald all the way down the waist length yeah and then during the pandemic i was working as a
04:46nurse
04:46practitioner i acquired covid became so sick that i ended up in the back of an ambulance begging god to
04:52let me live and when i recovered my hair started to shed and break and nobody knew that covid hair
04:58was a
04:58thing at that time and i was like mom i really don't know what to do like i don't know
05:02protein is not
05:03working moisture is not working like you know i'm not sure what to do so i used the same two
05:07oils and
05:07my hair recovered better than ever and i actually went natural at that time i had a perm on my
05:12life
05:12and i lost so much hair it was like a natural big chop oh no and your hair is so
05:18gorgeous so that's an
05:19incredible story i actually didn't realize about covid hair loss either so that's really important
05:26just post-covid era health issues are so real and speaking of health gaps and health disparities
05:33black women face so many daily as we know and for you jennifer working in the wellness space
05:40you know why was that important for you to even start black girl vitamins especially with that
05:46context as well yeah so the team started blacker vitamins because um one of our founders had a vitamin d
05:53deficiency and realized majority of black women are vitamin d deficient as well and it was impacting
05:58our energy levels our stress levels even hair loss too um can be um happened as a result of vitamin
06:05d
06:06deficiency and so that sort of was the genesis of it all and then realizing there were so many other
06:11gaps that existed whether it came to like being three times more likely to be anemic right that's an iron
06:16deficiency how menopause affects black women more severely and for longer so there were so many of those
06:22gaps that could be addressed through supplements and vitamins and so that's sort of like what drove
06:27us to start the brand but also keep formulating products that are addressing new issues this year
06:32alone we've launched 10 new products so we're very bullish on making sure every issue and concern
06:37that exists for black women we are able to help bridge that gap through the vitamins and supplements
06:43that we formulate and launch to market and also some of our other initiatives including the fact
06:49that we have three black women physicians on our medical advisory team to support not only our
06:54formulations and the products we make but also our social media content they do webinars every month
07:00for different topics from fibroids to pcos to hair loss to aging to make sure that at every stage of
07:07black women's lives blacker vitamins is not just providing vitamins but we are providing health education
07:13and resources that helps empower black women when they're in the doctor's office when they're navigating
07:18the medical system and it's helping sort of close some of the inequity gaps um or the inequities that
07:24exist yeah absolutely wonderful and for both of you you know we always hear marketing terms and
07:32things like for us by us which we love but beyond marketing why is it so important for each of
07:39you to
07:39build brands that truly sees the customer and not just spewing marketing jargon towards them what does that
07:47mean to you and why is that important yeah i think for me it's important because a lot of like
07:55basketball was not started because i you know i had a great career as a nurse practitioner i was
07:59very happy and satisfied and i'd always dreamed of going into healthcare and i did just that
08:04um so for me it wasn't oh i want to start a company and you know make a whole bunch
08:08of money it was
08:10honestly there's no amount of money you could pay me for my own jd because it's it's crazy it's a
08:15lot of
08:15weight to carry but you know there's companies where you sell things to people and then there's
08:20companies where you make and sell things for people and there's a lot of passion that goes into every
08:26single product every single decision we make every day and honestly there's a lot of times we make
08:31all the time really where we make decisions that's really for the customer even it's like it's customers
08:36before profit and margin we're only going to put the best for our community to the market even if no
08:41one
08:43else will so for us we actually partner with our customers and our audience when we are formulating
08:49products and how do we do this it's not just like what the research tells us the inequities are but
08:55we survey our customers every quarter i'm creating a survey for thousands of women to fill out and tell
09:00us what their pain points are and the problems they have and then we've brought people throughout the
09:04years of our brand to our office or before we had our office rent a space to talk to them
09:11and have
09:12focus groups to really understand what their issues are we've even had taste testing as well for people
09:18to taste the different formulations to give their input and so we are partnering with our customers
09:23throughout the process to make sure we are actually meeting their needs we're not just marketing to them
09:28but we are creating a product that is what they want and what they need and what works for them
09:34for us
09:36amazing and yes and staying with you here jennifer i'm curious what challenges did you face in the
09:44formulation process and how did you overcome those challenges yeah so with formulation because black women
09:52we realize we have unique issues right that affects us i now give an example with iron we're
09:58three times more likely to be anemic and part of it is because some of the conventional iron
10:03supplements in the market we don't absorb very well so when we're formulating we have to think about
10:08what are the highest quality ingredients that absorb very well that black women can absorb because of
10:13what our different uniqueness right and so that is a challenge in making sure we are not just creating
10:19an iron supplement or creating supplements but we're getting the highest quality versions of those
10:25ingredients that are efficacious and work very well for us and so that's one challenge and we've really
10:32tried to overcome that absolutely i love it and shayna you've managed to scale such an incredible brand
10:40how have you sort of balanced the integrity of scaling but also staying true to your ethos and your
10:48original formulas and things like that what does that balance look like for you
10:52yes so um one of the things that i knew very learned very early on in business right beyond our
11:00first
11:01two products as i develop more and more is that you as if there's any entrepreneurs out here make sure
11:08you own your formulas okay you can use manufacturers and co-manufacturers to produce you should own your
11:16formulas you create them you get with a formulator you decide everything that goes into it what you don't want
11:21in it and then you can do technology transfers to manufacturers to produce for you that's one of
11:26the main ways we maintain integrity is we own every single formula i have smelt felt i can smell a
11:36product
11:36from six feet away and i know exactly which one it is i could dip my finger in it and
11:40know the exact
11:41viscosity right and all ingredients are not created equal right even if it has the same name so really
11:48really just monitoring the integrity of your products and making sure that you own your own formulas
11:52yes absolutely and similar to what i asked jennifer i'm curious what were some challenges
11:59you'd face along your i'm like oh what's going on over there parties um but what are some challenges you
12:07may
12:07have faced during your journey and how did you overcome those as well supply chain so from 2024 to
12:162025 we grew 5x and then from 2024 to this year we've grown 1400 percent and we quickly had to
12:24pivot
12:25and expand our supply chain again while maintaining the integrity of the product but one of the blessings
12:30of growing and scaling is that now you use your business and the size of it as leverage and while
12:36you're scaling you reduce your cost while still maintaining the integrity of the products but
12:40supply chain definitely was one of the biggest things yes absolutely and then the beauty and wellness
12:47industries have a history of treating black consumers as an afterthought how do you sort of break this
12:53industry norm through your brands and what you stand for and why is this important as well
13:01so we're literally called black girl vitamins so in our industry we are the wellness vitamin supplement
13:09brand that is putting black women first at the forefront at the center everything starts with
13:14our demographic black women and so that's how we are sort of being the standout in the industry that's
13:21basically putting us first right um a lot of other brands maybe see us as afterthought because they
13:26think oh black women are just 13 14 of the population they're so small why would anyone be thinking
13:32about black women but for us we're called black girl vitamins so that is where it starts i love that
13:39and for us our products are made with knowing again who our customer is what does the hair look like
13:46what
13:46are the problems that we have right because we have a tighter coil pack coil or curl pattern um you
13:52know when we
13:53need protein when we need moisture like all those things are in mind with formulation and it's because
13:58we are the target consumer we're able to produce things knowing those pain points and how to solve them
14:03absolutely yes and then you know i think of you both as incredible founders but what's something maybe
14:11not so glamorous that people don't understand about a founder journey that you think budding entrepreneurs
14:19should take into consideration things that people don't understand about a founder's journey so
14:27again if there's any entrepreneurs out in the crowd um i'm just like this year we have this big
14:33beautiful luxe black and gold booth um that was also made with lots of love but two years ago two
14:41and a
14:41half three years ago we were at events with a six-foot table and a six-foot tablecloth and we
14:47all pray to grow and
14:48scale and there will truly be times when you miss those times those are the good old days when you
14:53get to make mistakes and you know it's not a big mistake you get to have fun and be scrappy
14:59work side
15:00by side with people that truly care and love and treat your brand like it's their own um so truly
15:06enjoy the
15:06journey take in the moments and don't always look to what's next enjoy what you have now because one day
15:12you'll miss it like high school definitely yes stay present yeah and what about for you yeah from the
15:20point of view of a leader at their brand is being able to wear multiple hats right so right after
15:26this
15:27i'm gonna wear our uniform and be a pos giving out samples doing that we'll probably take off products
15:33from boxes and put them on the shelf right go back to the office surveying customers doing research
15:39right so it's being able to be scrappy and wear multiple hats right and figuring out also when
15:44to delegate and ask for help accordingly as well but i think that sometimes people think the journey
15:50of building a brand is just like one-dimensional but there are multiple aspects to it and being able
15:55to flex all that is required and then know when to ask for help but be humble enough too that
16:01even
16:02as the brand is growing bigger to be able to also do the quote unquote like less glamorous things in
16:08the
16:08business yes absolutely wearing many hats definitely so key and then jennifer as well i in my opinion i
16:17feel like the fact that black women have had a long mistrust with the medical system is understandable
16:26but curious through your wellness brand how are you sort of working to dismantle that or bridge the
16:33gap really between wellness health and the system and black women yes so some of our initiatives um
16:41as a brand one is our scholarship program so we have a hundred thousand dollar fund we committed
16:46about a year and a half that goes to black women in medical fields right we're actually awarding two
16:53checks today later at our booth shameless plug um so that's one way is we want to build the next
16:59generation and build that pipeline or black female medical providers so that it can help increase that
17:05trust if there are more of us in hospitals and more of us in um in the healthcare space i
17:11think that
17:11will help improve trust right i mentioned we have medical advisors as well also at our booth uh shameless
17:18plug ask dr bgv they're also helping doing that with the webinars with the education with the resources
17:24they're providing on our newsletter on our social media platforms as well those are some of the ways
17:30and we also bring them on the road with us where we can so our customers are able to have
17:35that
17:35interaction and some of the feedback we've received is even on webinars somebody would comment and say
17:41i've never been able to have this amount of face time with a black female doctor where i live and
17:47so
17:47we're very proud that as a brand we're able to do that again we're not just the vitamin brand we
17:52are a
17:53health and wellness brand that's bridging the gap by helping by giving people access to black female
17:58practitioners but also building the pipeline for future black medical practitioners as well i love
18:05it incredible yes giving back to the next generation wonderful and then for both of you obviously we're
18:13here at essence fest which is you know this big celebration of black joy even economic power etc and a
18:22great time to just reflect on what legacy you want to leave with your brands so with that what would
18:29you like each of your brand legacies to be that you would want to share with us today yes um
18:36i think that
18:37one of the very unique and and special and important things about baskin ladder is we yes we have good
18:45products we have great products great consumer base but we've scaled our company well beyond a point where
18:51many people can without we have no investors and we're a debt-free company and you know that means
18:57that all of the equity of the brand is black black ownership um i'm the sole owner and that is
19:05up until
19:05last year like i wouldn't even i always stayed in the background never would get on a panel or speak
19:10but
19:10i think it's so important for people to know that a black girl that comes from the bronx raised by
19:15a single
19:15mom that was a teen mom herself can reach these heights and so can they yes absolutely very proud
19:22of you too look at you now on the stage amazing and what about you jennifer yeah for us the
19:29legacy of
19:30black girl vitamins is rooted in our mission which is improving health outcomes for black women and so
19:35we want to be a brand that help make black women healthier right um i'm even thinking about essence
19:42because you mentioned essence fest our booth from this year to last year has tripled in size but the
19:47lines tripled as well and so it's not about the business growing for me i view it about more people
19:53want to learn about vitamins they want to learn about supplements they want to get health advice they want to
19:58be healthier and so i think that's the legacy we want to leave as a brand that we weren't just
20:03a
20:03business that was successful but we actually helped black women become healthier more productive um overall
20:11so wonderful you both do an incredible job yes clap it up amazing and you both do such a wonderful
20:20job
20:20of pouring into your communities but that makes me want to turn it back to you two how do you
20:28pour into
20:28yourselves or what are some non-negotiables that keep you fueled and going and grounded especially with
20:36your busy schedules what does that look like i would like to sit up here and tell you uh balance
20:43and oh no there's none um i have a one-year-old the eight-year-old the 18 year old
20:49super busy um
20:51you know travel the one thing i will not do is miss a meal and that i'm fine with that
20:57that's good that's very important
21:01um for me how i stay not working 24 7 i have a garden a community garden plot so i
21:07grow veggie
21:08vegetables so it's a fun outlet for me for my mental health but i also get to grow fresh vegetables
21:14and i take my vitamins i take my collagen for my knees so i can you know get gardening no
21:21those are all
21:21great things don't skip a meal tend to your garden literally and metaphorically but you two are so
21:31lovely i could talk here all day just have learned so much from both of you and thank you both
21:36for
21:36your time so much and thank you everyone for tuning in thank you so much for having us continue to
21:43enjoy
21:43essence fest
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