The holiday season is here, and brands large and small are clamoring to showcase their best-selling products and gift sets for your holiday shopping. If you’ve never heard of the holiday “Small Businesses Saturday”, it is a one-day event dedicated to celebrating small businesses across the United States by encouraging people to buy from them. This year, the holiday falls on November 25, shortly after Thanksgiving, and as part of the natural hair community, it provides a great opportunity to discover and learn about upcoming brands. Whether they have just launched into retail or are exclusive only, every small business starts somewhere, and the community helps propel their growth to new heights.
Here are 12 natural hair brands with fantastic products and tools you can support on Small Business Saturday.
1. BOMB ASS FRO
The brand was founded by Sydni Raymond, who wanted to simplify the steps (such as the liquid-oil-cream/liquid-cream-oil method) involved in providing hydration to natural curls. As a result of this, she created the Bomb Ass Fro Curl Defining Jelly, a hair jelly that contains humidity-fighting properties and helps to combat frizz. One thing that attracts customers to the brand is that hair jelly conditions curly strands on dry days and has a looser consistency (than many hair gels), allowing easy detangling.
Another important quality is the composition of the jelly: it doesn’t contain harsh ingredients as most of its ingredients are naturally derived and include water, glycerin, and fruit extracts mix, among others. As the brand continues to enjoy more patronage from naturals, Sydni has stated that they’ll be expanding their product line soon to offer a deep conditioner and possibly a shampoo.
2. ACT + ACRE
This next business might interest you if you’re dealing with scalp and/or hair conditions. Founded by celebrity trichologist Helen Reavey, this brand offers plant-based products to help combat scalp and hair problems like oily, dry, and itchy scalp and thinning hair. Fusing her passion for clean hair care with her expertise, Helen was able to create the world’s first cold-processed hair wellness brand.
The brand includes a wide range of products, from scalp serums to detoxes to shampoos and conditioners to detangling brushes to towels, as well as many others. They’re running discount sales, so you might want to check out their website.
3. SWELLA
Looking for a quality braiding service to provide you with a worthwhile braiding experience this holiday? Introducing Swella, a braid bar founded by Brooke Hill and Zanbria Asante to deliver an elevated, convenient, and stress-free braiding experience for its customers. This Drybar serves clients and provides braiders with all the required resources to make their jobs easier. So far, Swella has been enjoying patronage from its growing clientele, as you can easily schedule your appointments via its website. They’re only open in Atlanta, Georgia, but plans are underway to bring them to more cities.
4. BASK & BLOOM
A Caribbean-inspired brand founded by a mother of three, Candera Thompson, Bask and Bloom aims to help naturalistas achieve stronger and healthier curls. The idea that birthed the brand was Candera’s postpartum hair experience. She’d suffered severe shedding and hair loss after the birth of each child. As such, she became inspired to create a 4-n-1 solution that caters to hair and scalp problems, resulting in healthier hair. The brand’s products include shampoos, conditioners, leave-in moisturizers, and refreshers, and cater to all hair types, including natural, relaxed, transitioning hair, and locs.
5. BOTANIKA BEAUTY
Botanika Beauty is another haircare brand that tailors its services to cater to the hair needs of the Latinx community. Realizing there was an underrepresentation of Latinx women’s haircare in the market, its CEO, Aisha Ceballos-Crump ventured into creating products that provided hair remedies for common problems within the community. Although Aisha had an educational background in Chemical Engineering, she was passionate about beauty and spent 16 years working in the hair and skincare industry.
Botanika Beauty offers various products, including but not limited to shampoos, curl creams, mousse, volumizer spray, protein treatments, and conditioning masks. On its website, the brand states that each product made by Botanika Beauty includes healing herbs that not only enhance mental wellness but also physical wellness.
6. RICHUALIST
Richualist is a brand that created a heat styling tool, The Mint, to help naturals detangle and improve product distribution into their hair strands. Specifically designed for women with kinky, coily, curly, and wavy hair types, the founder, Dawn Myers, stated that The Mint is a new tech for textured hair to make styling faster, easier, and more convenient so that naturals can feel more confident in their appearance. The Mint offers amazing features that include reducing shrinkage, quick detangling, even product distribution, a high level of moisture retention, and an ultra-compact design for traveling, among others. While it may be pricey, its benefits make it worth the buy.
7. OMO SILK
Omo Silk is a small business that caters to adults and children alike by offering high-quality silk fabrics to protect textured hair. The founder, Dr. Omoye Phillips, shares that the brand was born to help her younger kids struggling with hair loss. As such, she began to create products that would protect their hair. The brand’s products include headbands, pillowcases, and crib sleeves, among others, made out of mulberry silk, allowing hair to grow and thrive. They are also breathable and highly recommended by dermatologists for all hair and skin types.
8. PARDON MY FRO
This next business does haircare along with other lifestyle products and services such as home decor, towels, bags, and perfumes. CEO Dana Bly shared that she decided to venture into hair care because of her personal experience of feeling that all the products she used for her 4c hair never moisturized it well enough.
Working with a chemist, Dana created a range of hair care products to provide natural hair with all the hydration it needs. The products were well received in the market, so much so that one of their products, the Edge Boss, won the Pop Sugar Beauty Award for Best Edge Control of the Year. Other products included in the brand’s hair care line are detanglers, leave-ins, mousse, hair milk, growth oil, and conditioner.
9. RIZOS CURLS
Rizos Curls is a Latina-owned hair care line for coils, curls, and waves. Its CEO, Julissa Prado, achieved a huge feat with this brand by becoming the first Latina-owned curly hair care brand to be available at all 300 stores at Ulta Beauty. Initially, the brand offered only two products, The Apple Cider Vinegar Scalp & Hair Rinse and The Beach Waves Texturizing Salt Spray, which helped provide the hair with moisture and retain its shine, respectively. However, the brand has expanded its collection to include deep conditioners, curl-defining creams, and hair kits. Currently, the brand is running discount sales for its shoppers.
10. REVAIR
If you’ve been searching for a better hair dryer replacement, you should consider RevAir. An innovative dryer that uses reverse air technology, RevAir draws air into the Wand to reduce styling time while maintaining your hair’s strength, elasticity, and shine. CEO and founder Scott Thomas shared that the idea for the tool was born out of a struggle for one dad to manage his daughters’ hair. Over many trials and errors, Scott and his team created RevAir, which helps save time and prevent damage and frustration that comes with caring for one’s hair. The brand also offers cleansing and hydrating products, hair accessories, and hair dryer parts.
11. FRIZZ + CO.
Frizz + Co. is the debut brand of Daphné Eastmond, who, out of the frustration of not being able to get products to help her manage her textured hair effectively, decided to create her hair care line. Daphné researched and worked with chemists to develop biodegradable ingredients that also had a light scent that she could use to create a repairing hair mask. These ingredients include vegetable proteins, ama-leaf, baobab fruit, tobacco, and algae, among others. Many Frizz + Co. customers have attested to the repairing hair mask’s ability to replenish their hair with moisture, restore shine, and eliminate frizz.
12. TRESS OBSESSED
Tress Obsessed is a vending machine company offering customers travel-size hair care supplies. An innovation in the hair care line, its founder and CEO, Maxine Pittman, shared that she wanted women to fit hair care products of different familiar brands in their purses or travel bags without worrying about space. As such, she researched what sizes of hair products could be dispensed from a vending machine, and she figured it out. Tress Obsessed also offers compact sizes of various hair care brands like Cantu, Carol’s Daughter, Creme of Nature, ApHogee, among others, on their online store.
Which brand are you interested in supporting this season? Let us know who your favorites are for Small Business Saturday in the comments!
