November marked BGLH Marketplace’s 10th year in business, and I couldn’t be more grateful. Owning this business has been the adventure of a lifetime, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
BGLH Marketplace was born at a unique time. The year was 2014. Obama was in his second term in office, The Shade Room had just launched, and #blackgirlmagic was trending on Twitter (or Tumblr if you were edgy…)
Black culture—particularly Black female culture—was breaking into the mainstream in big new ways. The natural hair movement was covered by outlets like The New York Times, and Issa Rae had just secured a deal to bring Insecure to HBO.
At the time, I was 29 years old, eight months pregnant with my second child, and felt I was invincible.
The cultural winds were at my back. I was a beauty blogger, and part of the active ‘beauty influencer to brand owner’ pipeline. I was among a handful of Black beauty influencers—including Kim Lewis, Whitney White, Chris-Tia Donaldson (RIP), Rochelle Graham, and Courtney Adeleye—turning their knowledge of natural skin and hair care into branded products.
Anyone who was anyone in the influencer scene was in Atlanta, New York, or L.A. So I packed my bags and moved from Chicago to Brooklyn, where I launched BGLH’s first physical location.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 65% of small businesses fail within their first 10 years. That statistic feels very believable to me based on my experience, because it wasn’t long before BGLH faced a series of challenges.
We launched with poor pricing (y’all, a 12 oz whipped butter used to sell for $16!!! What was I doing?!?), which made us heavily reliant on debt from the start. Then, in quick succession, we dealt with a pandemic, a government shutdown, a break-in at our storefront, the strain of New York City rent, and a sharp increase in material costs due to global shortages.
There was also the gauntlet of my personal life, as a sudden divorce launched me into single parenthood.
The broader culture also seemed to shift, going from showcasing diversity to a backlash against anything DEI. From easy access to capital to COVID-induced recession and inflation. Instagram went from a (relatively safe-ish) space where many minority-owned brands got their start, to a dystopian landscape full of bots, scammers and trolls.
I’ve watched many small Black- and woman-owned businesses in the beauty space fold—some run by women I considered friends. Other businesses are hanging on, but struggling under heavy debt and publicly seeking investment to stay afloat.
But BGLH Marketplace is still here. And we’re not just here—we’re actually thriving. We’ll be completely debt free by Spring 2025. Our Subscription Box (launched in 2022, and a game-changer in terms of stabilizing the business) alone brings in a quarter million in revenue every year. Our product offerings continue to grow, and while our branding is obviously very ‘blackgirlcore’ (lol), our customer base is diversifying rapidly, both in race and gender.
If there’s one thing the past 10 years has taught me, it’s that it’s not worth doing things for fame (real or imagined), money, competition or social media notoriety. As cliché as it sounds, the joy is in the journey—in the day-to-day process of learning a thing, mastering it, and offering it to someone in need.
And so we’ll continue to learn and master shea butter, cocoa butter, mango butter, essential oils, and any other natural ingredients we can get our hands on.
Our mission is simple: to provide you with pure, all-natural products that feel good, smell good, and do your body good. Here’s hoping we get to do that for another 10 years!
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Want to stay stocked up on our products? Try our Subscription Box! We just passed 600 subscribers.
The Subscription Box
1. Is up to 40% off retail price.
2. Allows for the purchase of individual 0.9 oz and 2.5 oz butters.
3. Is completely customizable. You choose what’s in it, or let us choose!
Here’s why you should consider a subscription. Sign up below or direct from any product page.
One Response
Do you know how I can get the Omutyuula oil and the fine powder to buy for my hair growth journey. I saw the rapunzel s of Namibia. I believe this can grow my hair waist length . Can you please help me. Sincerely Karen williams