Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / How To Build Community + A Cult Following with Julissa Prado, Founder of Rizos Curls

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How To Build Community + A Cult Following with Julissa Prado, Founder of Rizos Curls · QUESTION EVERYTHING

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The following podcast is a Dear Media production.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: I'm Anisharrama Krishna and I'm an Indian entrepreneur and TV
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: personality with big dick energy. You may know me from
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Bravo TV's Family Karma and of course social media. I
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: grew up in a very conservative Indian family, but I
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: have always forged my own path and live life on
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: my own terms. I recently left my successful career in
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: New York City and my long term relationship to pursue
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: my own fashion business. I'm single in my mid thirties
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: and I live with my parents. I'm currently cringing, and
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I know you are too. Join me as I still
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: the chai on my own cringeworthy personal life experiences every Thursday.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Anywhere you listen to podcasts.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and my guests and I
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: have conversations that put a.
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: New spin on pretty. This is pretty smart hair.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: They write songs about it. Its importance is chronicled in
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: the Bible. We often see our hair as a reflection
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: of our identity because it is both personal and public.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: Personal in that it can be tied to our self esteem.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: I can't be the only one who's cried over about
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: haircut right and public, because in many ways it has
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: become a signifier of religion, of gender, of race, of culture,
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: of style and personality, a reflection of who we are.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: In Ethiopia, women love using butter in their hair. In Denmark,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: a sleek, natural style conveys control and no fuss. They
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: often see a kaleidoscope of colored flowers and hair in India.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: In Brazil, some women cut their hair in line with
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: moon phases. More than any other beauty convention. Hair rituals
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: are passed down through generations. Today we're talking to a
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: woman whose hair has defined so much of her upbringing,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: her life, so much so she created a business out
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: of it. Julisa Prato is an influencer and founder of
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Riese's Curls. Julisa, tell me what you love about your hair?
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Oh? I love how.
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: Much of enough a surprise it is depending on its mood,
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: you know, it can be extra voluminous depending on the weather.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: It can be extra you know, frizzy or not or
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: voluminous or flood like. It's just you don't know what
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: you're gonna get.
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: It's like a whoa the Forest Gump quote.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Life is like a box of chocolate. Life is like
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: my hair.
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: Well, when you're a curly girl, that's how goes.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Depends on the temperature, the humidity, how you slept, like
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: there's a million things, and we're going to get into
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: all of that because you've kind of you've gotten it
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: down to a science. Yes, yes, you didn't always love
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: your hair. No, tell me tell me about that, because
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: when I look at your Instagram, one of the words
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: I think about is pride, and so I was shocked
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: to hear you didn't always feel that way.
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I think it's such a Whenever you talk
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: to curly girls, it sounds like they.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: We all have that in common.
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: Where we went through usually we all most of us
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: went through a phase where we try to.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Straighten our hair.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: We didn't know what to do with it, or we
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: didn't like it. So it's definitely been a journey to
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: get to this point.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: As I was researching, I heard you had a nickname
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: the Lemon Girl.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: So what was that from?
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: So?
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: I used to make my own concoctions in high school
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: and I used to carry them around ziploc bags and
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: one of my things that I used to use was
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: lemon to kind of like add shine and hold during
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: the day. So I would like literally pull out a
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: lemon from like my backpack and people would see me
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: and they would be like, you like citrus, and I'm like, yeah,
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: I just like refreshed my hair in the bathroom.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: You grew up as a Latina in Los Angeles, and
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: I was reading you said the standard of beauty for hair,
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: regardless of its original texture, was always for it to
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: be straight.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, So it's crazy when once you dive more into
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: it you even realize how deep it is. Like even
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: in cosmetologists, like in cosmetology school, they all they really
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: would teach about textured hair is how to straighten it.
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: So there would be like so many you know, licensed
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: cosmetologists that would get this like big head of curls
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: and they're like, okay, let's straighten it. You know, that
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: was like almost like their only option of what to
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: do with it. And even now there's you know, such
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: a huge knee for stylists that know how to work
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: with textured hair, especially with like shoots and all these
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: different things, and you know, so many of them say,
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: like very honestly that they were never taught any of
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: this in school.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: It's a learning curve for so many people.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Was there a moment that you decided you were gonna
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: love your hair or like, what was the switch for you?
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I guess for me, the switch was in high school.
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  Speaker 5: I was very lucky to go to a very progressive,
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: very good high school where I learned very early on
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  Speaker 5: like race theory and institutionalized racism and like all of
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: these concepts that you know, I didn't understand until that point,
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: and I learned them ninth grade. A lot of the
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: like founders and original activists from Black Lives Matter.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Actually would literally come to my school and teach us.
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  Speaker 5: Really yeah, so, like I was taught so much of
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: like race theory by like put Trees and the like.
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: All these people that Black Lives Matter would go to
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: Cleveland High School, my high school here in LA and
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  Speaker 5: they would like organize with the students, like so many
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: of the people of the team even currently, they were
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: people that went to my high school.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: That's crazy. Yeah, So I felt like the education of
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: the history.
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: I just remember learning about European standards of beauty and
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: how like people of color internalize these standards of beauty
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: and what the links that they go. And I was like,
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: oh my god, that's me and so many so many
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: things that I was learning about. I felt called out,
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: and it kind of led me into this quest of
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: like what, like, I'm not assimilating. I am not going
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: to like hide, I'm not going to be small, I'm
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: not going to do any of that. I'm going to
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: show up authentically and proudly as you know, as how
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: I was brought into this world. So it led me
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: into a quest to like learn to embrace and stop
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: hating this part about me, stop hating this like this
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: connection I have with like my culture, you know what
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: I mean, Because I feel like, for hair so much
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: deeper than just hair for so many like people, and.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: It's a signal of identity for so many people exactly.
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: So for me, it kind of like I was ashamed
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: that I had been so ashamed of my own curly
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: hair for so long, to the point that like people
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: didn't even know I had curly hair back then because
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: I would straighten it so much and I would strain
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: it every single day and I hated it.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: And yeah, so I just was like, Okay, I.
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: Need to learn how to how to actually, uh wear
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: this in a way that makes me proud and I
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: feel beautiful.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: So you got into your kitchen, and I'm reading all
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: of the descriptions of like your story about how you
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: went into the kitchen and you started making your own things,
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: and I'm imagining it.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: Like how did like did you YouTube it? How did
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: you figure out.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: How to do this?
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: So something that's so embedded into Latino culture is like
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: a lot of these trends or things that you know,
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: people assume our new like farmed table organic, like holistic
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: medicine and holistic beauty and natural ingredients and all of that.
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: It's something very common and very normal in Latino culture
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: because like they didn't have anything else. So for example,
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: like my parents, they grew up in small towns in
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: Mexico where my grandma, like their nearest doctor was hours away.
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  Speaker 5: So my grandma on my mom's side, she was the
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: closest thing they had to a doctor, and she would
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: use plants and as medicine and so. And she was
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: also what we call the para, which is like the
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: person that would help all the women give birth. So
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: she like whenever somebody would get sick, they would come
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: to her, and she always would turn to the earth
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: and look at her herbs and her plants, and she
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: knew exactly what to mix and what concoction to make
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: up to help whoever it was that was going through
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  Speaker 5: something and so special.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: So I think for me growing up, it's always been
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: it was more normal for me to turn to the
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: earth whenever I have an issue, that something I need
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: to fix on myself or I have a need, instead
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: of like turning to medicine or turning to like go
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: buy something from a store. So that was always like
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: how my brain worked and how I was raised. If
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: my hands were dry, it was like, Okay, go get sugar,
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: Go get some lime, put it together, let's make a
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: scurb for your hands. Okay, let's add blah blah blah.
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: You know, Like that was always my scalp If my
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: my I used to have like really dry, like itchy scalp,
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: and my mom and grandma would be like, Okay, go
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: get some oli vera, let's scoop it up.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Let's make crush this, put it on your scalps in minutes.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: So it was just so cool.
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So I grew up with like all of these
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: teachings and so I just kind of applied that to
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: my hair as well.
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  Speaker 3: So part of your company that I really love is
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: that it's a community of people. Yeah, and people kind
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: of like talk about things they have questions about with
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: their hair, things that they're dealing with that they can't
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: find antwer there's two. Yeah, I feel like a lot
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: of girls and women probably still come to you dealing
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: with not liking or embracing their curls.
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: What do you say to women now?
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So it's really interesting because till this day is
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: still the majority of our customers are not people that
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: have been wearing their hair curly for so long.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Are literally women who have never worn their hair natural
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: until our products.
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: And it still like blows my mind and it it
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: makes me emotional whenever I think about it, because for me,
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: like learning to love my hair was the first step
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: towards learning to love myself. And I just feel so
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: honored to be play some kind of small role in
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: that journey for other women or men, you know, for anybody.
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: So a lot of what we do is education in
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: like Spanish and English especially. We are answering the most
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: you know, basic questions when it comes to curly hair.
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: Because it's a huge learning curve for us too, because
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: much like everything that most people know about hair only
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: pertains just straight hair. It doesn't pertain to curly hair,
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: like how it should be cut, wet or dry, how
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: often you should wash it, the kind of products that
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: you use, you use oil versus this, like all of
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: these different things that we were taught.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, that doesn't apply to your specific texture.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: I think one of the reasons I was drawn to
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: you was I actually have curly hair.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, no way, You're an undercover curly.
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: I'm an undercover curly girl.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: And I always joked with my parents and my parents
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: like to this day, my family will say if I'm
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: like dating somebody that they won't know or love the
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: real you until like they see the curls.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: Like that's until they see the real you.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I could tell you got really emotional when you
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: were talking about embracing your hair and then loving yourself. Yeah,
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: where was that coming from?
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I think I'm sure you two like with that. It's
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: almost like you have like a secret, you know what
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I mean. Like that's kind of like how I felt.
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: It was like this like dirty secret that I didn't
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: like and so it was I think it just reminds
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: me of like that process of not just embracing that
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: like little secret, but embracing like everything that I didn't
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: like about myself and and going that journey from going
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: from like not liking these things to like being so
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: proud of them and like being the things that I
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: love most about myself.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: So I think that that's growth, you know, like when
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: when humans are when you're able to to.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: Get to the point of like that amount of like
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: self love and self acceptance.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: It's just it's such something that.
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: I'm so grateful to have now, and it makes me
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: like almost emotional, and from like I hear people that
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: don't have it, I'm like, oh, you know, how happier
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: you would be if you could just truly love like
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: every part of you.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: There's like a freedom to it.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's liberating for sure.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: By the way, you're not, like we're gonna get to
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: your point.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: I'll talk to him about my curls at the bottom
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: of the interview, what jobs did you work as a teen?
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: Because I was looking at your Instagram and I feel
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: like this can't be the first business that you Yeah, well,
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: and it owned.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: Secondly, so when I something that's like really big with
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: that detals, I'm sure you know it is a na right. Yeah,
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: So a kN snetta takes a lot of money. So
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: my dad was the sweetest man the whole. Like I'm
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: obsessed with my dad. By the way, he was like
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: had saved money because he wanted to have me have
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: a cancingetta for me, and like it came to the
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: point that you know, it's time to do that. And
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: his dream was always to have his own restaurant. And
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: oh my god, my dad always talk about my dog
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: makes me emotional because I'm just like so obsessed with him.
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: I get it. But and they have such an like.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: He's so so precious. So my dad, like you know,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: he started his first.
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: Job, like he came to this country at fifteen, was
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: a field worker picking oranges, worked his way to become
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: a dishwasher. From there, worked his way to becoming a
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: chef et cetera. And his you know, his dream was
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: to have his own restaurant. That that's his passion is food.
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: Like his relationship with food is so beautiful, Like he
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: can taste anything and he'll tell you, like all the
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: ingredients that were in there, and you know, and both
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: my parents have never gone to school. You know, he
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: didn't know English, he didn't help, he didn't know any
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: of this, but he had us and this amazing culinary,
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: you know, skills. So I was like, no, let's not.
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: I don't want to have the King sang Yeta like
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: you should have your restaurant.
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: You know at fifteen you said that, Well, I wasn't
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: fifteen yet.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: This was when I was around like thirteen.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: That's amazing that you said that.
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, that's like you know, so we kind of
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: did it together. So La Maria Restaurant was his little
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: like baby hole in the wall. He kind of like
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: just you know, took over the food side, and then
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: I kind of did the I did the rest and
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: it was just such a beautiful thing that we did together.
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: And I think that, like literally, the restaurant industry is
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: so hard.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: So I have so.
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: Much respect all like the waiters, cooks, like you know,
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: a hostess is like anyone who works in the restaurant industry.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: I just have so much respect for them because it's
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: taught me, like every life skill imaginable, I learned it
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: in the restaurant.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: I think it should be required of at least for
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: a period of time for everybody to work in.
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: The goals and deal learn how to deal with human
• 15:29
  Speaker 5: beings and all of their needs when they're hungry, when
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: they're hungry on top of all that. So that's where
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: I feel like I learned so much that I apply
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: not just to my business but to my life. Was
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: working there starting at fourteen years old, and I went
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: to UCLA for undergrad when I was I went to
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: Wake Forest for grad school. While I was at grad school,
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: I was working for Pepsi Coo and then I worked
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: for Nestle, like pretty much up until Nestle, Like anytime
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: I was back home, I was like working at the
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: restaurant on the side.
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: Wow, is that how you save money for your company?
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: So I saved money from working in the restaurant too,
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: And I had scholarships, So like when I was at UCLA.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: I had a scholarships.
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: At wake Forest, I won a fellowship from PepsiCo and
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: I had a full ride and I had an.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Internship with them.
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: So I was really lucky that I worked my ass
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: off in school, like my whole life, everyone knew me
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: as like that girl like I was like, like.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: You know that movie of what is it?
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: Like Reese Witherspoon's in and she's like, oh, class president
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: and that girl that's like so annoying and they're.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: In every single club. Like that was me because I
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: was like, I have.
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: Dreams and goals and I don't have a trust fund
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: to go to college, Like I need these scholarships and.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: No, boy, nobody's going to distract me from that. Like
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I was like that kid.
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: So but it worked out because I was able to
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: you know, pay and for college and you know, go
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: through with all the education that I wanted to.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: That's incredible. Would you go to grad school business?
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: So master's in business management?
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: Wow?
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Wake Forest in North Carolina.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: So I read you saved fifty thousand dollars, I'd just
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: start Recess curls.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: I mean a lot of it came for after once
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: I graduated from grad school.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I worked for Nesli.
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: I had a great job straight out of grad school,
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: and it just was awesome.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: And it was important for you to sell fund. You
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: didn't want to take out a loan, you wanted to
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: really do it.
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like I knew exactly what I wanted
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: and I knew that the industry and investors weren't ready
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: for that yet. I was like, there's no other business
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: that I can say is doing what I want in
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: the beauty industry right now, and not just prioritizing like
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: the profits and this side, but like what I call
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: it my three pillars, which is curls, community, culture, Like
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: they're not going to understand these other sides that I
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: value so much for my business and I feel like
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: are going to be very important. So I was like no,
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: and I feel like I knew my worth. I was like, no,
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: one's going to get me for cheap right now. Like
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: I know what I'm capable of, I know what you
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: know my community brings to the table. I know what
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: I bring to the table, and like I want to
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: do it my way.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: So you said something so interesting just now that you
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: think there's you're doing something that's completely missing from the
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: beauty industry. The beauty industry fascinates me because it's a
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: billion plus dollar a year industry.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: To me, it.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: Feels like so difficult to sift through because I don't
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: want to spend all this money on products, testing things
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: out all the time. That's where your community aspect comes in. Yeah,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: like what do you see that they're missing?
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: Well, Like as far as how to speak to them,
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: I think I think sometimes in life I see people
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: over complicate things that are so simple, Like you want
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: to make your customers happy, like talk to them, ask them.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Customer led innovation.
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: Our best selling product was our professional tangle spare that
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: literally came because the customers told us we want this exactly.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: They literally told it's exactly what they wanted.
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: I want to refreshed spray I wanted too, and one
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: I don't want it to be thin and watery like
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: these things out here. I wanted to be strong enough
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: for that. I wanted to tangle and to refresh. Like
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: they told me exactly what I wanted. I'm like, okay,
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: like you call the shop. Yeah, I went and did
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: it and gave it to them, and what happened our
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: best selling best seller and won all these awards, and
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: people were like, oh my god, I'm so smart, and
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: I'm like I literally just like read some DMS and
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: talked to like I let them decide. During the process,
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: I was like doing little like Instagram like little polls
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: and asking people like what they wanted, and yeah, just
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: like gave it to them. And whenever we would have
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: like events and stuff, I would be like, what do
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: you guys want me to do? The first event that
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: we was like, I get the home party and they
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: asked for it. They were like, we want you to
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: CET in New York.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Did I get them party?
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: I was like, all right, I did that. The next
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: one was like a small business summit. The next one
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: I had, you know.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: And how many people will show up to these events
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: because I think so many people start businesses and are like,
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: oh my, I got nobody's gonna come.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was shocked.
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: Like our small Business Summit, for example, was in February
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: twenty twenty, okay, so like had I waited a couple
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: of months, that would have never been able to happen,
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: And there was over three hundred small business owners that came.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: What to downtown LA.
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: To three hundred?
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And every single like workshop, every single thing that
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: we ever did has been crazy, Like even Beauty Conn.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Our BEAUTYCN booth was like the biggest popin booth ever
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: and we were right in between Target and Sally's.
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: And that's kind of like where I got Target's attention,
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: because they're like why is everyone like.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Having a party at this booth over here?
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: How many employees do you have?
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: We have a team of around ten.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: Can you do all this with ten people?
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: I mean we have a lot of like freelancers for example,
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: like our PR team is in New York and we
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: we have like you know, we outsource a lot for things.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: But yeah, like our day to days kind of around
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: ten people.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: When you hire people, is there a question that you
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: always ask or like, how do you know if they're
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: a fit?
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: I just talk to them, I think, I think more
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: than anything, I just want them to get the brand,
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: be somebody who can get along with everybody else, because
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: I'm really big on prioritizing fun, like with my team directly,
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: I'm like, if it's not fun, like.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: We're not gonna do it. Like we're not.
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: I don't want this to feel like work like that
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: that structure of like the corporate the typical corporate culture
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: where it's like first one in, the last one out,
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: hate your job, like put in the ground work, have
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: no work life balance like f that like oh have
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: to a certain way, dress.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: A certain way, talk a certain way.
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: Who cares as long as you're getting your shit done,
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: like I could care.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Less how you look.
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: I could care less if you're in pajamita, but I
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: don't care, Like how are we being reductive?
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: And like what's the quality of your work? You know?
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: So I was shocked to learn that you launched just
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen. There's a lot of growth for that
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: short amount of time. How did you get the word
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: out originally?
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: So remember when I said how I started making my
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: own concoctions in high school?
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: Right? Yeah?
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: Well I have always, my whole life been drawn to hair.
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: And it's very interesting that people always ask me like
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: why didn't you end up being cosmetologists? Like why didn't
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: you go into hair care? And I'm like, I have
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: no idea, because I would be the one during my
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: cousins skin snea, that's and all this. I would do
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: everybody's hair. I would literally you were that girl.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: I was that girl that.
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: Would do all the intricate like hairdd you remember that
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: hairdo that Selena one that was like a ponytail and
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: that had all these.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Buns and all these little rolls. Yes, I could do that.
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: I literally would roll the hair and put the steak,
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: the bobby pin or whatever the in there and put
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: the hairspray and lay down the baby hairs like that
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: was me, and I would do straight. I would do
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: whatever it was. Like, I've always just been very good
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: at doing hair. And I literally have over fifty first
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: cousins just in La on my dad's side. My dad
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: is one of thirteen and my mom is one of eleven.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Brothers and sisters.
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and they're like the youngest. So my cousins from
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: like their oldest sibling. Their kids are like my eight.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: So your family members could buy your product and you're good.
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: That's literally how I got comfortable with the idea.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: I was like, it's fine.
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: I literally have like hundreds of family that I would
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: be solving their need and you know my needs with that.
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: But so I was always doing hair, and when I
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: started wearing my hair natural, I was meeting all of
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: these different undercover curlyes in the bathrooms and in all
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: these different situations they went through college and all this,
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: all these different instances where I would do their hair.
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: They would whisper to me like, oh, actually, my hair's curly,
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: Like how do you get your hair like that? And
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: I would do their hair and they would see their
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: hair for the first time, and they're like, oh my god.
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: And I would teach them and then they would start
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: wearing their natural. So for so many years I was
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: doing hair, like just helping women with their hair. So
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: by the time I launched, I just kind of like
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: I didn't have any more market I didn't have any money.
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: I didn't have marketing money because I had spent it
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: all on inventory, and you know, I went through four
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: years of formulas, two different labs. It was so expensive
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: and so time consuming. I didn't have any marketing money.
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: I just kind of like opened up these social pages.
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: But all those people like it ended up being hundreds
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: of people that I had helped over the years, they
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: all became my first customers.
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: So day one of limns spread exactly day one of launching.
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: I was receiving all of these orders with comments like,
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: I don't know if you remember me, but at the
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: UC student conference, you did my hair. I met you
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: in the elevator. I'm still wearing my hair natural because
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: of you. Of course I'm buying your product.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It was just DC.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like that's amazing.
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's crazy how life will give you hints of
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: your future, or will give you hints of your path
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: and then there's like these moments where it feels like,
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: I mean the right place at the right time, like
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: this is where life wants me to be.
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: That is crazy.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: I love the idea too, that you were of service
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: to all these people, like when you didn't have to
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: be Yeah, and it came back around.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah crazy, talk about crazy. This was crazy.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: You launched shortly after Hurricane Maria, Yes, which devastated Puerto Rico.
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: And it was a turning point in your business.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: So something that people don't realize about a lot of
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: these really, you know, like turning points in history, whether
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: it was Hurricane Maria with the pandemic. It's like a
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: lot of these things have other side effects. So for example,
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: after Hurricane Maria, people don't realize it's like the entire
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: island was out of power in Puerto Rico.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: For so long.
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: It literally forced an island of women and people to
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: go natural.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: You know, they had no choice but.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: To where were they going to plug their straightactly?
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Exactly?
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: They were literally four to wear their hair naturally. So
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: I remember like this phenomenon. I was like, so back
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: then we had like all of our social media pages
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: was kind of on and I was like offering like
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: curly advice, etc. And it was almost like overnight on
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: Facebook specifically because that.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: We were mostly doing Spanish content on there.
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: It was hundreds and hundreds of messages from these Puerto
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: Rican women in Spanish and or voice notes in so
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: many different ways like I don't know what to do.
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: I've never had my hair like this, what do I do?
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: And so I kind of had to go back to
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: my original learnings from my grandma and what I was
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: doing before I had the product of like okay, what's
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: around you?
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Do you have this?
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: Like this is what you can do in the meantime,
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: this is okay blah blah blah whatever. So yeah, and
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: even during the pandemic too, so many women went natural ye,
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: so many people and again we felt that like flood
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: of messages of people like almost like in Spanish, I
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: said this esperala where it's like I don't know what
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: to you know, you're almost like anxious, like I don't
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: know what to do. I have to come to face
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: with this part of myself that I was rejecting and
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: didn't like for so long. And now we're face to
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: face and it's not leaving me alone.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: Less than two years after you launched, you sold a
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: million dollars of products directly to fans. Yeah, direct to
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: consumer on all without outside funding.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: And then you mentioned Target. In twenty twenty, Target began
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: filling its shelves with resource curls.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: Mm hmmm. So I read your instagram.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: It said, when you see the resource Curls bottles on
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: the shelf at Target, know that it's a testament of
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: not just my hard work, but of my family, my community.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: Everyone played a role and we all made this happen together.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: Where I come from, this doesn't happen. Y'all still can't
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: believe it's real.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: I feel choked up when I read.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: That, because I really believe that any success or anything
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: we do is generations in the making.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: And so you did something so incredible for your family.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: What did it feel like to be financially secure and
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: stable and for your dad to walk into Target and
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: to see the product on the shelves.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Daniel, do good, tyri eye. I'm a piscy. I'm a
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: picy Daniel.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: I have no idea what that means.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: People can't be card around me because I will join them.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: I'm a Capricorn.
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: I think, oh my gosh, so whoa damn you're good.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: No, I really like I feel so connected to your story.
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: No.
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, if you can see Danielle right now, like she
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: is just like the way that she stares into your eyes,
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: like I feel it in my soul.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Sweat. She's good. So yeah, I think it was a
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: very special moment.
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: Also because I think from before then, my parents, my
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: families didn't really get it. They were kind of like,
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: you know, they didn't really understand the Internet. Like my
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: mom kind of thought I was like almost like an
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: avon lady, like she swore like was selling it out
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: of my trunk, Like she didn't understand where these people
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: were coming from.
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: She would like it's amazing.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: Like she would like go bake speeches at her church
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: and she would be like, I'm busting my ass over
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: here for you, like I'm you get all this products
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: and I'm making speeches at the church to to and
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: she was like literally.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Like like she was the avon lady, like she would
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: like take Product'm like, Mom, you don't have to do that.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: It's fine. There's like the Internet. Yeah, and she's like
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: selling directly people and I'm.
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: Like a lot of big things have started in churches though, yeah, to.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Her credit, to her credit, right, yeah, but.
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: I think to before then, she didn't she didn't understand
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: the concept of like the Internet and like on social
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: media and the reach.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: That it has.
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but that was when that was like their moment
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: where they they were like what in the world, Like
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: our kid really started something real, you know. And I
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: think that that was a moment that they felt like
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: it was it became real to them, and for me
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: it was it was just so special because I grew
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: up like I saw, you know, like I remember, like
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: I grew up seeing this first time they ever got
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: like a textured hair care product. Like I remember when
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: they added the Founder bios in that aisle, Like I
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: remember when that little section became like a whole huge
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: section and like an aisle and it got like up
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: a little plaque at the top. Like I saw that
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: the textured haircare become an industry, like a category leader
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: in that and kind of like grow that whole category
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: in general for hair care. So for me to be
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: on that end now, and I remember I had this
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: picture where I when they had the Founder bios, I
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: took a picture of it. I remember drawing myself in
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: that founder bid. It was way before resols, and I
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: remember showing it to my brother and being like, Tony,
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: you're gonna help me with this one day, we're gonna
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: do this together and it's gonna happen.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Watch, Like I don't know how I knew and mine you.
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: My brother's always been He's my right hand man since
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: the beginning. Like I he used to work at Juicy coutore,
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: like like finance, and he's so brilliant and I literally
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: convinced him to come to me, and like now he's
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: like my freaking everything cool. But to be able to
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: do this and to do it with him, to do
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: it with my family with all of their support, is
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: like it means.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: The world to me.
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: It must have been an incredible moment.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what's the first thing you did when you had
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: a little bit of fun money?
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: I spend my money on.
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: My whole life though, food and like experiences and activity too.
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: Like I am that person and that is like kind
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: of like low maintenance. I don't like care about a
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: lot of things, but then it's like, oh I want
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: everything on that menu or or when I travel, I'm like,
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: I want to go here, I want to go do that.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Let's go.
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, let' let's go through gone, that's a little island
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: next door and just go ham like that is me.
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: I love that. That's the important stuff in life. Okay.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Hair care is a nearly two hundred billion dollar industry
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: in America. I didn't know that because beauty is like
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: one hundred billion. Hair care is bigger. Yeah, which is
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: crazy crazy. There are so many brands. The amount of
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: gels that I have been through that I like, use
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: once and throw away is unbelievable. What are the top
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: three things that you attribute to Riso's Curl's success.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: That the products actually freaking work.
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: So I think my own frustration when I was dealing
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: with my own hair was there was always something I
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: didn't like.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: I felt like, is the Goldilogs with three bears? Yeah?
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I felt like her.
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: I was like this is too strong, too much moisture
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: always my hair too much, it's too light, it's too
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: lonat whatever. I felt like that, or like when I
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: would find something, I would look at the ingredients. I'm like,
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: this has silicones, it has these ingredients that.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Dimfic I want a medica ah, I don't know, like
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: I don't want any of this in my hair, I
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: don't want it on my scalp. And I want what.
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: I wanted out of hair care products. I didn't want
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: something just to make my hair look beautiful. I wanted
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: it to make my hair look healthier.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: With every use. Because the way that I look.
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: At hair care and clean ingredients is kind of like
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: I compare it to, for example, like eating healthy. You
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: know what I mean, Like, yeah, you can make a
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: really delicious, I don't know, unhealthy mac and cheese with
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: like so much butter and all these ingredients can tastes amazing.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: The vegan version might not be.
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: Like that at that moment or like the healthy juice
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: or whatever it is, but.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: In the long run, it's going to make.
• 34:03
  Speaker 5: Sure that you are healthier, stronger. In the long run,
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: the other one is going to give you all of
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: these other problems that you don't know where they come from.
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: And with hair care, that's why, like to me, clean
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: beauty and clean ingredients is so important. It's because the
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: whole idea where that like you have to use so
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: much of a product in't orderf your hair look beautiful,
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: and as says you don't. Your hair is going to
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: be dull and flat and like and just have all
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: of these issues. That's because you're becoming dependent on these
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: artificial ingredients like silicones.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: For example. It's like coating your hair with.
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: A plastic So of course it's gonna look shiny and
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: soft at that moment because it's an illusion. It's an
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: illusion of softness and illusion because it's pretty much covering
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: from the root to the end.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: It's like a layer of plastic.
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: And what happens when there's like a coat and it
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: can't breathe, that follicle is going to die. That follicle
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: cannot absorb, It can't absorb nutrients.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: You know, it can't breathe.
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: So of course you're gonna be addicted to this thing
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: that keeps adding this like layer that makes it gives
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: the illusion of soft and shiny.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: But but what true good.
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: Products are going to You're going to need less of
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: them the more you use them. So the more you
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: use them, it's not going to make you more dependent
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: on that product. You're going to be like, wow, my
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: hair with every use.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: It actually needs less of this product.
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: You can get to the point that you're using like
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: half of what you started off with, and that was
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: my goal with it. And I think that a lot
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: of these products they're not prioritizing these things that for me,
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: because I am the consumer, they were important to me
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: and other people. And when I tell you the behind
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: the scenes, whenever I'm trying to come up with formulas
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: and making something, it makes me so upset when I
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: see how much cheaper it is to go the harsh
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: chemical route and how much more expensive it is to
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: give people instead of using a silicone give them ingredients
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: certain like butters or oils that are natural and are
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: going to not only make their hair look beautiful, but
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: then also give it deep nourishment and also going to
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: repair protect it from like environmental damage, Like do all
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: of these different things that are great for your scalp
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: and hair. So yeah, I can like talk about this
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: forever because I am really passionate about ingredients and clean beauty.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: Well I was, I am as well, and I've like
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: it's taken a lot of time and money for me
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: to shift over everything. And I one of the things
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: I loved about your brand is you don't even just
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: say we're a clean product.
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: You list out all of your ingredients totally.
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: We're very transparent, Like on our website, we have an
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: ingredient glossary and we explain every single ingredient, why we
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: use it, the rating that it has, like everything, because
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: to us, it's just it's very important to me, and
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: so you know, I pass it on.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: So one of my I call her like my fairy godmother.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: Her name's Karen. She does a ton of work with
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: the Environmental Working Group. Yeah, the EWG, and oh yeah,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: we have the EG ratings, which is very difficult to get.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: When I saw that, I was like, whoa stamp of approval?
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: It was very cool. Kailan, he's a big fan. Yeah,
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: I'm obsessed with Kaylan.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: I'm same.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: Did you freak out when she bought share?
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: We like girl.
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: Every time that we have like these people that I
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: look up to and admire and just you don't think
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: they're so cool and they're they use my products, I'm like, oh,
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: oh my, Like I literally fan girl.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Like at the office, we'll literally.
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: Yell like we had rock to a video the other
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: like he posted like a video where he was using
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: our products. And when I tell you, there was literally
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: screams at the office, like us and our whole marketing team.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: We're like, for.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: People that don't know, he's like a very very funny
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: YouTuber Instagram.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: So cool, Yeah, he's We're upsets.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: We're like, oh my god, Okay, So what are the
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: things I thought was cool because a lot of our
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: listeners messaged me about wanting to start their own businesses.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: And one of the things I read that I thought
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: was very interesting is the way you viewed social media.
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: So you said, what I lacked in marketing dollars, I
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: made up for in creativity.
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: What did you mean by that?
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: So?
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: I think that there's a big misconception that.
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: You need all this this money to be able to
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: compete with like the big brand fortune five hundred competitors
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: in whatever industry that you're trying to be in.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: And what people.
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: Don't realize is like the same rules that apply to
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: these fortune round of companies and their strategies does not
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: apply to your small business. You know, like you don't
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: need that kind of budget, that same opportunity for to
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: I don't know, give like five hundred samples of your
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: precious inventory to like a fancy awards show that you
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: know the big company is going to jump out and
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: do the most is maybe it's not a great opportunity
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: for your small business. Maybe there's like a better way
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: to use that funding that's going to give you a
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: quicker ROI. You know, so I think that I think
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: a lot of the time we get stuck in how
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: things were done, and we put a very high standard
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: on ourselves as like small business owners to try to
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: compete in these spaces when bro like that space is
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: kind of outdated.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: Okay, I have some curly myths. Hell yeah, curly myth
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: Number one. Regular washing will dry up curly hair, true
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: or fells.
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: Well, it just depends because you did definitely clean your scalp.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: But some people overwash.
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: Like there's people that wash their hair every single day
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: and I'm like, yeah, girl, like, don't do that. Or
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: they use shampoos with soul fates in them, and that's
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: a hard detergent you wouldn't put on your face.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Or your scalp. So it's belonging your hair.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: Either normal shampoos work on curly hair, not if they
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: have sulfates.
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: M okay, so no sulfates, that's a big Yeah.
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: It's just overly drying and it's literally a hartsatgent that
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: is used in like dishwashers and to wash dishes and stuff,
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: And it's like, why are you gonna put that on
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: your scalp?
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: Myth number three, it's okay to skip conditioner.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no no no.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: Never no, that's the curly hair.
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: No no, I would never entangle my hair without conditionering it.
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: Myth number four. Brushing curly hair regularly can lead to
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: straight or tresses.
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: What no, it'll lead to like split ends and like
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: breaking your hair that poor hair. Don't ever dry brush
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: your hair dry curlyes. Please don't ever do that. It's painful.
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: Your curly hair will never grow long.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: Oh no, I will definitely.
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: So healthy hair starts at the scalp, So the more
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: that you urize your scalp, you really wash it.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: So.
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: Another myth that people like have is the way that
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: they shampoo and wash their hair. I'm like, it's like
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: the equivalent of you know, when Taylor Swift said something
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: about like she doesn't like scrub her legs, She just
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: like love water runs down everything.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: That's what y'all are doing with your hair. Bro y'all
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: are just like putting a little bit of shampoo you're
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: not even getting in there with on your scalp.
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: You're not using like a scalp brush or something to
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: like really clean that surface.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: It's like the same thing. Everybody laughed when she said
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: that about her legs, but they're all doing that with
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: their hair.
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: Interesting. I never thought about that. There's a scalp brush
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: my nails, but scalp brush.
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: Your nails will work too, But the scalp brush gets
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: like really in there. It's kind of like a That's
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: what I use whenever I shampoo and clean my scalp,
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: and it allows you to just really get in there really,
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: like you know, trigger your hair follicles in there and.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Give them a good massage.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: I like that.
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: It makes a big difference, even when I see my
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: hair grow faster. When ever I really do that, I
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: give it a good five minutes in the shower.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: Okay, I have some wrap up questions. They're rapid fire,
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: but no rush. When do you feel the most beautiful.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: When I get my hair and eyebrows done?
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: Number one hair tip. I know it's hard to pick
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: one wash your scalp. Favorite product you've made so far
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: my curl cream. A product doesn't have to be hair
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: that you can't live without chopstick. You seem really positive
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: and full of life. How do you stay in that mindset?
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: How do you shake a bad day?
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: I read My biggest tip is try not to take
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: things personal. So yeah, I try to woo saw who
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: saw and not take other people's actions personal.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: Is there a right time to start a business?
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: It's always the right time.
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: I heard you say, yeah, right now. I think saw
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: on that end a business. This is a solution to
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: a problem. So if you have a solution, don't let
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: anything keep you from sharing it with other people.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: If you could go back to the beginning of your
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: career journey with the knowledge that you have now, what
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: advice would you give yourself.
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: Not to be scared, to be that it's going to
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: work out okay, and not not to be so nervous.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: Something you wish someone would have been honest with you
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: about when it came to starting your own business.
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: Oh man, that it is harder than having a regular job.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: A book that you think everybody should read, something that
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: really changed your life.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: A Return to Love by Mary Anne Wilson.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: You really loved it.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, you have to read it.
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: Okay, people really love that book.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: It is life changing.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: I do a pretty smart question. I have to pull
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: it up. We do them at random. What's your favorite scent?
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: I love love sense, I love hibiscus the like basic
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: girl and me loves vanilla me too.
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: Like any candle with vanilla. I always have to double take.
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: I'm like, I'm almost like a shamed but like I'm obsessed.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: It's smells so good.
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: Takes me back to like my bath and body works child.
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: Literally girl, I still like every time I walk my
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: bath and body I'm like, it's just like the best.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: Okay, last question, The smartest decision you've ever made.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Was to bet on myself.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: It's so interesting. I asked that. Every single week, I
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: would say half the people say.
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: That if it feels good, it feels good to prioritize
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: yourself as much as you would the person that.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: You love most.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: It's courageous too. It is because most signs usually point
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: to don't do it exactly.
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: You have to kind of block out the fear that
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: that's what my my pisce side is good at. I
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: always say, like, whatever your biggest weakness, you can turn
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: it into your biggest strength. And for mine was like aloofness.
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: I would always almost like not see the dark side
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: of things and almost go into things and like girl,
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: that could be dangerous or that could be a bad situation.
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: But my like Pisces, like Alice in Wonderland, like I'm
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: in my little daydream, sometimes shields me from a second
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: guessing myself.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: That's a gift.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you.
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: I really loved that interview. Thank you, no, thank you.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: If you had hair questions for Julisa or want to
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: join the curly hair community, you can hit her up
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: on Instagram actually Lisa Prato for resoscurls dot com or
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: check out the resoscurls Instagram.
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: All Right, today's a good day. To have a good day.
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: I'll see an next week.