- 10 hours 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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00:00All right, my name is Daisy Reyes, and I have the pleasure of being today's host.
00:05Thank you so much for being here.
00:07Our next panel is called Building Brands with Purpose.
00:12You know, often we want to know, what does it take to build a brand that truly sees this
00:18customer?
00:19And so today, I want you to join me.
00:22Joining us is Black Girl Vitamins Executive, Jennifer Juma, and Bass and Lather Founder,
00:28Shaina, founder of, she's like, we're going to have a candid conversation on creating
00:33products rooted in intention, community, and culture.
00:36From formulation to founding stories, this panel pulls back the curtains on what it really
00:43means to build a brand for us, by us.
00:46So please, a round of applause, and let's welcome Jennifer Juma, Shaina Rainford, and
00:53Akili King to the stage.
01:09Hello, Essence Festival, BeautyCon stage.
01:13How are we?
01:15Let's get some energy.
01:16Looking good, looking good.
01:18Not too tired from Cardi B last night.
01:22I am.
01:23That was fun.
01:24That was amazing.
01:25How are we feeling today, ladies?
01:27Good, good.
01:28I'm so good.
01:30I love, I'm just excited for this panel, all about building beauty brands with purpose.
01:36And I feel the two of you embody that so beautifully.
01:40So I would love to get into it.
01:43So, starting off, tell me about where each of you are from and how your upbringing shaped
01:52your individual approaches to beauty.
01:55Yes.
01:56So my name is Shaina Rainford.
01:58I'm the founder and CEO of Baskin Latico.
02:00And I am born and raised in the Bronx.
02:05I was a teen mom.
02:06I have my 18-year-old here in the crowd.
02:10And now I have one of the fastest growing companies in the country.
02:14And it's all thanks to building something very intentional for people that look just like
02:20me and doing it with lots of passion and love.
02:23And that really can be replicated.
02:24Absolutely.
02:25I love it.
02:27Amazing.
02:28And Jennifer, what about you?
02:29Yeah.
02:30Hi, everyone.
02:30I'm Jennifer Juma with Black Girl Vitamins.
02:32I actually was born and raised in Nigeria, but I moved to the U.S. 20 years ago.
02:36So, I have that experience of coming here as a teenager away from my family to start a new
02:42life in college.
02:44So, I think that definitely built that resilience in me and independence very early on.
02:49And I have a background in business.
02:51I worked in finance and consulting.
02:53So, I think all of those merged together coming also from a family that my mom works, but she
02:59had multiple side hustles.
03:00I think that helped, that combination helped build sort of like who I am today as a business
03:06professional.
03:06Yes, absolutely.
03:08Beautiful.
03:09And so, Shana, your journey with Baskin Lather comes from a pretty personal place, right?
03:16With helping, it started off with helping your sister grow her hair.
03:21How does this personal story sort of shape the way you approach the brand in general and your
03:29customer relationship as well?
03:31Yes.
03:31So, Baskin Lather started because my younger sister, Aaliyah, lost all of her hair.
03:36She had a really bad ringworm that initially just looked like dandruff on her scalp.
03:40And my mom took her to doctors and they treated her with dandruff shampoos.
03:44And by the time she got a proper diagnosis of ringworm, her hair was falling out in chunks
03:49straight from the scalp just by touching it.
03:51And she was completely bald.
03:53And I remember she had to wear a cap to school, my mom being so worried that kids would like
03:57tease her or bother her.
03:59When the infection cleared, her hair still wasn't growing back.
04:03And my mom took her to a dermatologist and a trichologist.
04:06And they said they weren't sure that her hair would ever grow back.
04:08So, she became really desperate and did research about natural ingredients for hair growth.
04:13And she whipped up a concoction, which became our scalp stimulator oil.
04:17And then she whipped up another concoction, which became our hair elixir to make her hair
04:21thicker and retain length.
04:22And Aaliyah's hair grew from bald all the way down the waist length.
04:25Wow.
04:26Yeah.
04:27And then during the pandemic, I was working as a nurse practitioner.
04:30I acquired COVID, became so sick that I ended up in the back of an ambulance begging
04:36God to let me live.
04:37And when I recovered, my hair started to shed and break.
04:40And nobody knew that COVID hair was a thing at that time.
04:43And I was like, mom, I really don't know what to do.
04:45Like, I don't know.
04:46Protein is not working.
04:47Moisture is not working.
04:48Like, you know, I'm not sure what to do.
04:50So, I used the same two oils and my hair recovered better than ever.
04:53And I actually went natural at that time.
04:55I had a perm on my life and I lost so much hair.
04:57It was like a natural big chop.
04:59Oh, no.
05:00And your hair is so gorgeous.
05:02So, that's an incredible story.
05:04I actually didn't realize about COVID hair loss either.
05:08So, that's really important.
05:09And just post-COVID era health issues are so real.
05:13And speaking of health gaps and health disparities, Black women face so many daily, as we know.
05:20And for you, Jennifer, working in the wellness space, you know, why was that important for
05:27you to even start Black Girl Vitamins, especially with that context as well?
05:31Yeah.
05:32So, the team started Black Girl Vitamins because one of our founders had a vitamin D deficiency
05:37and realized majority of Black women are vitamin D deficient as well.
05:41And it was impacting our energy levels, our stress levels, even hair loss, too, can happen as a result of
05:49vitamin D deficiency.
05:50And so, that sort of was the genesis of it all.
05:53And then realizing there were so many other gaps that existed, whether it came to, like, being three times more
05:58likely to be anemic, right?
05:59That's an iron deficiency, how menopause affects Black women more severely and for longer.
06:04So, there were so many of those gaps that could be addressed through supplements and vitamins.
06:08And so, that's sort of, like, what drove us to start the brand, but also keep formulating products that are
06:14addressing new issues.
06:15This year alone, we've launched 10 new products.
06:17So, we're very bullish on making sure every issue and concern that exists for Black women, we are able to
06:23help bridge that gap
06:24through the vitamins and supplements that we formulate and launch to market, and also some of our other initiatives,
06:32including the fact that we have three Black women physicians on our medical advisory team to support not only our
06:38formulations
06:38and the products we make, but also our social media content.
06:42They do webinars every month for different topics from fibroids to PCOS to hair loss to aging to make sure
06:49that at every stage of Black women's lives,
06:51Blacker Vitamins is not just providing vitamins, but we are providing health education and resources that helps empower Black women
06:59when they're in the doctor's office, when they're navigating the medical system, and it's helping sort of close some of
07:05the inequity gaps
07:06or the inequities that exist.
07:10Absolutely. Wonderful.
07:11And for both of you, you know, we always hear marketing terms and things like, for us, by us, which
07:18we love.
07:19But beyond marketing, why is it so important for each of you to build brands that truly sees the customer
07:26and not just spewing marketing jargon towards them?
07:30What does that mean to you and why is that important?
07:33I think for me, it's important because a lot of, like, Baskin Lada was not started because, you know,
07:40I had a great career as a nurse practitioner.
07:42I was very happy and satisfied, and I'd always dreamed of going into health care, and I did just that.
07:48So for me, it wasn't, oh, I want to start a company and, you know, make a whole bunch of
07:52money.
07:53It was, honestly, there's no amount of money you could pay me for my own JD because it's crazy.
07:58It's a lot of weight to carry.
08:00But, you know, there's companies where you sell things to people, and then there's companies where you make and sell
08:05things for people.
08:07And there's a lot of passion that goes into every single product, every single decision we make every day.
08:13And, honestly, there's a lot of times we make, all the time, really, where we make decisions that's really for
08:17the customer.
08:18Even, it's like it's customers before profit and margin.
08:21We're only going to put the best for our community to the market, even if no one else will.
08:27So, for us, we actually partner with our customers and our audience when we are formulating products.
08:33And how do we do this?
08:34It's not just, like, what the research tells us the inequities are, but we survey our customers every quarter.
08:40I'm creating a survey for thousands of women to fill out and tell us what their pain points are and
08:45the problems they have.
08:46And then we've brought people throughout the years of our brand to our office, or before we had an office,
08:53rent a space, to talk to them and have focus groups to really understand what their issues are.
08:59We've even had taste testing as well for people to taste the different formulations to give their input.
09:04And so we are partnering with our customers throughout the process to make sure we are actually meeting their needs.
09:10We're not just marketing to them, but we are creating a product that is what they want and what they
09:15need and what works for them, for us.
09:20Amazing.
09:21And, yes, and staying with you here, Jennifer, I'm curious what challenges did you face in the formulation process, and
09:29how did you overcome those challenges?
09:32Yeah.
09:32So, with formulation, because black women, we realize we have unique issues, right, that affect us.
09:40And I'll give an example.
09:41With iron, we're three times more likely to be anemic, and part of it is because some of the conventional
09:45iron supplements in the market, we don't absorb very well.
09:49So when we're formulating, we have to think about what are the highest quality ingredients that absorb very well, that
09:56black women can absorb because of our different uniqueness, right?
09:59And so that is a challenge in making sure we are not just creating an iron supplement or creating supplements,
10:05but we're getting the highest quality versions of those ingredients that are efficacious and work very well for us.
10:13And so that's one challenge, and we've really tried to overcome that.
10:18Absolutely.
10:18I love it.
10:19And Shana, you've managed to scale such an incredible brand.
10:24How have you sort of balanced the integrity of scaling but also staying true to your ethos and your original
10:32formulas and things like that?
10:34What does that balance look like for you?
10:36Yes, so one of the things that I learned very early on in business, right, beyond our first two products
10:45as I developed more and more, is that you, if there's any entrepreneurs out here, make sure you own your
10:53formulas, okay?
10:55You can use manufacturers and co-manufacturers to produce.
10:58You should own your formulas.
11:00You create them, you get with a formulator, you decide everything that goes into it, what you don't want in
11:05it, and then you can do technology transfers, two manufacturers to produce for you.
11:10That's one of the main ways we maintain integrity is we own every single formula.
11:15I have smelt, felt, I can smell a product from six feet away and I know exactly which one it
11:22is.
11:22I could dip my finger in it and know the exact viscosity, right?
11:26And all ingredients are not created equal, right, even if it has the same name.
11:30So really, really just monitoring the integrity of your products and making sure that you own your own formulas.
11:36Yes, absolutely.
11:38And similar to what I asked Jennifer, I'm curious, what were some challenges you'd face along your, I'm like, oh,
11:46what's going on over there?
11:47Parties.
11:48But what are some challenges you may have faced during your journey and how did you overcome those as well?
11:56Supply chain.
11:57So from 2024 to 2025, we grew 5x.
12:02And then from 2024 to this year, we've grown 1,400%.
12:06And we quickly had to pivot and expand our supply chain again while maintaining the integrity of the products.
12:13But one of the blessings of growing and scaling is that now you use your business and the size of
12:18it as leverage.
12:19And while you're scaling, you reduce your cost while still maintaining the integrity of the products.
12:24But supply chain definitely was one of the biggest things.
12:27Yes, absolutely.
12:29And then the beauty and wellness industries have a history of treating black consumers as an afterthought.
12:35How do you sort of break this industry norm through your brands and what you stand for and why is
12:42this important as well?
12:44So we're literally called Black Girl Vitamins.
12:48So in our industry, we are the wellness vitamin supplement brand that is putting black women first at the forefront,
12:56at the center.
12:56Everything starts with our demographic black women.
13:00And so that's how we are sort of being the standout in the industry that's basically putting us first, right?
13:07A lot of other brands maybe see us as an afterthought because they think, oh, black women are just 13%,
13:1214% of the population.
13:13They're so small.
13:14Why would anyone be thinking about black women?
13:16But for us, we're called Black Girl Vitamins.
13:19So that is where it starts.
13:21I love that.
13:23And for us, our products are made with knowing, again, who our customer is, what does their hair look like,
13:30what are the problems that we have, right?
13:31Because we have a tighter coil or curl pattern.
13:35You know, when we need protein, when we need moisture, like all of those things are in mind with formulation.
13:41And it's because we are the target consumer.
13:43We're able to produce things knowing those pain points and how to solve them.
13:47Absolutely.
13:48Yes.
13:48And then, you know, I think of you both as incredible founders.
13:53But what's something maybe not so glamorous that people don't understand about a founder journey that you think budding entrepreneurs
14:03should take into consideration?
14:06Things that people don't understand about a founder's journey.
14:09So, again, if there's any entrepreneurs out in the crowd, I'm just like, this year we have this big, beautiful,
14:18luxe, black and gold booth that was also made with lots of love.
14:23But two years ago, two and a half, three years ago, we were at events with a six-foot table
14:28and a six-foot tablecloth.
14:30And we all pray to grow and scale, and there will truly be times when you miss those times.
14:35Those are the good old days when you get to make mistakes and, you know, it's not a big mistake.
14:40You get to have fun and be scrappy, work side by side with people that truly care and love and
14:46treat your brand like it's their own.
14:48So, truly enjoy the journey, take in the moments, and don't always look to what's next.
14:55Enjoy what you have now, because one day you'll miss it, like high school.
14:57Right, definitely.
14:59Yes, stay present.
15:00Yeah.
15:01And what about for you?
15:03Yeah, from the point of view of a leader at their brand is being able to wear multiple hats, right?
15:09So, right after this, I'm going to wear a uniform and be a POS, giving out samples, doing that.
15:14We'll probably take off products from boxes and put them on the shelf, right?
15:20Go back to the office, surveying customers, doing research, right?
15:23So, it's being able to be scrappy and wear multiple hats, right?
15:27And figuring out also when to delegate and ask for help accordingly as well.
15:31But I think that sometimes people think the journey of building a brand is just, like, one-dimensional,
15:36but there are multiple aspects to it, and being able to flex all that is required and then know
15:42when to ask for help, but be humble enough, too, that even as the brand is growing bigger,
15:47to be able to also do the, quote-unquote, like, less glamorous things in the business.
15:52Yes, absolutely.
15:54Wearing many hats, definitely.
15:56So key.
15:57And then, Jennifer, as well, I, in my opinion, I feel like the fact that black women have had
16:04a long mistrust with the medical system is understandable, but curious through your wellness brand,
16:12how are you sort of working to dismantle that, or bridge the gap, really, between wellness,
16:19health, and the system, and black women?
16:22Yes.
16:22So some of our initiatives as a brand, one is our scholarship program.
16:26So we have a $100,000 fund we committed about a year and a half that goes to black women
16:33in medical fields, right?
16:35We're actually awarding two checks today, later at our booth, shameless plug.
16:40So that's one way, is we want to build the next generation and build that pipeline of black
16:45female medical providers so that it can help increase that trust.
16:49If there are more of us in hospitals and more of us in the healthcare space, I think that
16:55will help improve trust, right?
16:57I mentioned we have medical advisors as well, also at our booth, shameless plug, Ask Dr.
17:03BGV.
17:04They're also helping doing that with the webinars, with the education, with the resources they're
17:08providing on our newsletter, on our social media platforms as well.
17:12Those are some of the ways.
17:13And we also bring them on the road with us where we can so our customers are able to
17:18have that interaction.
17:19And some of the feedback we've received is even on webinars, somebody would comment and
17:24say, I've never been able to have this amount of face time with a black female doctor where
17:30I live.
17:31And so we're very proud that as a brand, we're able to do that.
17:34Again, we're not just a vitamin brand.
17:36We are a health and wellness brand that's bridging the gap on helping by giving people access
17:41to black female practitioners, but also building the pipeline for future black medical practitioners
17:47as well.
17:48I love it.
17:49Incredible.
17:50Yes.
17:50Giving back to the next generation.
17:53Wonderful.
17:54And then for both of you, obviously we're here at Essence Fest, which is, you know, this
18:00big celebration of black joy, even economic power, et cetera.
18:04And a great time to just reflect on what legacy you want to leave with your brands.
18:11So with that, what would you like each of your brand legacies to be that you would want
18:17to share with us today?
18:18Yes.
18:20I think that one of the very unique and special and important things about Baskin Ladder is
18:27we, yes, we have good products.
18:29We have great products, great consumer base.
18:31But we've scaled our company well beyond a point where many people can without, we have
18:36no investors and we're a debt-free company.
18:39And, you know, that means that all of the equity of the brand is black, black ownership.
18:46I'm the sole owner.
18:47And that is up until last year, like I wouldn't even, I always stayed in the background, never
18:52would get on a panel or speak.
18:54But I think it's so important for people to know that a black girl that comes from the
18:58Bronx, raised by a single mom that was a teen mom herself can reach these heights and so
19:03can they.
19:04Yes, absolutely.
19:05Very proud of you too.
19:07Look at you now on the stage.
19:09Amazing.
19:10And what about you, Jennifer?
19:12Yeah.
19:12For us, the legacy of black girl vitamins is rooted in our mission, which is improving
19:17health outcomes for black women.
19:18And so we want to be a brand that helps make black women healthier, right?
19:24I'm even thinking about Essence because you mentioned Essence Fest.
19:27Our booth from this year to last year has tripled in size, but the line's tripled as well.
19:32And so it's not about the business growing.
19:34For me, I view it about more people want to learn about vitamins.
19:38They want to learn about supplements.
19:39They want to get health advice.
19:41They want to be healthier.
19:43And so I think that's the legacy we want to leave as a brand, that we weren't just a
19:46business that was successful, but we actually helped black women become healthier, more
19:52productive overall.
19:55So wonderful.
19:57You both do an incredible job.
19:59Yes.
20:00Clap it up.
20:01Amazing.
20:02And you both do such a wonderful job of pouring into your communities.
20:06But that makes me want to turn it back to you two.
20:11How do you pour into yourselves or what are some non-negotiables that keep you fueled and
20:17going and grounded, especially with your busy schedules?
20:21What does that look like?
20:23I would like to sit up here and tell you balance and there's none.
20:30I have a one-year-old, an eight-year-old, an 18-year-old, super busy, you know, travel.
20:36The one thing I will not do is miss a meal, and I'm fine with that.
20:41That's good.
20:42That's very important.
20:45For me, how I stay not working 24-7, I have a garden, a community garden plot, so I grow
20:51vegetables.
20:53So it's a fun outlet for me for my mental health, but I also get to grow fresh vegetables.
20:58And I take my vitamins.
20:59I take my collagen for my knees so I can, you know, get gardening.
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