L’Oréal USA recently announced the sale of Carol’s Daughter, a pioneering brand in textured haircare, to new ownership. The textured hair segment is projected to generate $1.9 billion in consumer spend this year, per Mintel.
Carol’s Daughter
For more than thirty years, Carol’s Daughter has championed the textured hair movement and served as a trusted brand for the Black community. The haircare brand, which has been sold to entrepreneur Joe Wong, will now begin a new chapter under the leadership of its founder and new President, Lisa Price.
Carol’s Daughter’s founder, Lisa Price, who launched the brand in Brooklyn 1993, sold it to Loreal in 2014— an initiative illustrating that Black-founded beauty brands had commercial potential. Price, in a Facebook video said the deal would “take what I built and solidify its place in history and beauty.”
Now, she will assume the role of President in the new structure and has an equity stake in the partnership. This transition reflects L’Oréal’s belief in her leadership and the new partner’s ability to honour the brand’s heritage, values, and commitment to its loyal customers. Joe Wong will work closely with Lisa Price to establish relevance in a market that is saturated with entrants from celebrities like Beyoncé and indie brands like Sienna Naturals and Adwoa Beauty.
“We are proud of Carol’s Daughter’s long legacy and the transformative impact it has had on the beauty industry,” said David Greenberg, CEO, L’Oréal USA. “At the heart of this legacy is Lisa Price, an entrepreneur who has always been ahead of her time and has built Carol’s Daughter into a beloved brand that has honored and celebrated women of color for decades. We are confident that, with Lisa Price as President and the support of its new partner, Carol’s Daughter will continue to thrive for years to come.”
Carol’s Daughter
Carol’s Daughter began in Price’s Brooklyn kitchen. With a career in TV production, mixing up fragrances, perfume sprays, and creams served as a creative outlet. In 1993, Price began to sell her products. With $100 in cash and a cramped kitchen, she crafted a collection that would become the foundation of a beauty empire. Selling her homespun concoctions at flea markets, and later out of her living room, favourable word-of-mouth began to spread for early iterations of Almond Cookie, Hair Milk, and Black Vanilla Hair Smoothie—all of which retain their cult status today.
Since its inception in 1993, Carol’s Daughter is committed to bringing high quality products to the consumer. “In 1993, encouraged by my mother, Carol, I began creating hair and body products made with love, in my Brooklyn kitchen. Family and friends instantly fell in love. To name my company, I listed everything I was and wanted to be, and realised the most special thing that I am is Lisa, Carol’s daughter,” founder Lisa Price explains on the official website.
From carefully selected ingredients to innovative formulas, the brand launched products that their community loves and that they know perform. In April 2014, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with the Manhattan bankruptcy court. Six months later, in October 2014, Carol’s Daughter was acquired by L’Oréal USA.
Carol’s Daughter widened its extensive footprint, selling its hair, body, and skincare solutions nationwide at key retailers. During the Obama administration, Price was appointed to the National Women’s Business Council, an independent source of advice and policy recommendations to the President, Congress, and the U.S. Small Business Administration, on economic issues that face female business owners.
She is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Black MBA Association’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2000), the Working Woman Magazine’s Entrepreneurial Excellence Award (2001), and a Cosmetic Executive Women Achiever Award (2010). And, the author of “Success Never Smelled So Sweet,” a memoir that chronicles her transformation from a young Black woman deep in debt to president of a paradigm-changing business.
In April 2021, Carol’s Daughter partnered with Latham Thomas’s foundation, The Mama Glow Foundation to launch ‘Love Delivered’, an initiative focused on raising awareness of the Black Maternal Health Crisis in the United States. Price is also a part of the Executive Committee at L’Oreal USA giving her perspective on Black culture, diversity equality and inclusion and organisational topics.
Jasmeen Dugal is Associate Editor at FashionABC, contributing her insights on fashion, technology, and sustainability. She brings with herself more than two decades of editorial experience, working for national newspapers and luxury magazines in India.
Jasmeen Dugal has worked with exchange4media as a senior writer contributing articles on the country’s advertising and marketing movements, and then with Condenast India as Net Editor where she helmed Vogue India’s official website in terms of design, layout and daily content. Besides this, she is also an entrepreneur running her own luxury portal, Explosivefashion, which highlights the latest in luxury fashion and hospitality.
