When you think of a beauty supply store, many of us picture a small store packed with goods, usually owned by someone of asian descent. Most of the products cater to our community with brushes and other hair tools, mixed in with number of hair products for just about every hair type, ranging from natural hair to every kind of weave.
Beauty supply stores are like many other businesses in Black neighborhoods, they are not actually owned by us, which shortens the circulation of the Black dollar significantly.
But Nineteen-year-old Kayla Davis and her 21-year-old sister, Keonna, are changing that.
They are the proud owners of KD Haircare Supply at 24453 Sunnymead Blvd. in Moreno Valley, which is ranked one of the toughest cities in the country to find jobs. This makes them some of the youngest, if not the youngest African American girls to own a beauty supply store.
The sisters said their idea of opening the store was born out of frustration when the pair could not find jobs.
“Talking to my mom, she was like: ‘Stop stressing about it and begging these people for a job and create your own business,’” Kayla said.
“We talked about what we both like. We both like our hair and know that people spend a lot of time on their hair,” Keonna said.
They initially opened an online store and when that was going well, they opened the store using money saved from that business and their part-time jobs plus some cash matched by their parents.
The young entrepreneurs did their research before opening the store. They went to their competition, big box retailers, vendors and mom-and-pop stores to see what were the biggest sellers were and where they should aim for their price point.
Business has been good, and the entrepreneurs hope to grow their business into a chain.
That might happen faster than expected because their story has gone viral with praises coming in from…