Uproxx: How The Brand Behind Pharrell’s Favorite Styling Secret Supports The Caribbean’s Female Farmers

 

The beauty industry generated over $625 billion in revenue for businesses in 2023, representing a 45% increase from 2022, and yet when Yve-Car Momperousse came up with the idea for Kreyòl Essence, it was because she noticed that something was lacking in the space. Faced with a series of haircare catastrophes, Yve-Car knew the one product that could save her natural hair from the heat damage she suffered was Haitian Black Castor Oil. There was only one problem: in 2009, Haitian Black Castor Oil was in short supply, and she was totally unable to find it at the specialty cosmetics stores in Philadelphia, where she was living at the time.

 

In that moment, the kernel of an idea that would grow into Kreyòl Essence was born.

 

After participating in a business incubator at Cornell, Kreyòl Essence was officially founded in 2014. That’s when the husband-and-wife team of Yve-Car and Stephane began building their beauty empire while ensuring that their success would benefit Haiti directly. To do so, they purchased their own farm, and as one of their first steps, they started employing local farmers both there and in surrounding cooperatives, offering them double the average pay.

 

Ensuring that all of their local partners have livable wages wasn’t a symbolic gesture, but rather, it was a necessary step for the company, which has employed over 300 artisans and more than 5,500 farmers to date. That commitment stems from Yve-Car’s longtime work in activism in the Haitian community. When founding Kreyòl Essence, her vision of agricultural sustainability and financial self-sufficiency was an absolute non-negotiable. 

 

 

Kreyòl Essence’s success definitely didn’t happen overnight. While 2014 saw them hit a modest $135,000 in sales, the business struggled in 2016 when that number dwindled down to $40,000 when they were focused on selling products in bulk and saw one of their key finance partners step away. That obstacle, however, presented an opportunity to the nascent business owners as they shifted their focus away from bulk sales and began targeting a direct-to-consumer model. The savvy decision paid off, with 2017 representing a major growth year where their sales shot up to $327,000. They then crossed the $1 million sales mark in 2018 and doubled that figure the following year after receiving a major deal with the American cosmetics industry’s largest retailer, Ulta Beauty.

 

The partnership with Ulta Beauty was a game-changer for Kreyòl Essence, allowing the brand to put its products in front of millions of consumers and feature them in over 1,200 stores across all 50 states. In 2023, they were recognized as one of the fastest-growing black-owned businesses in the country, with a revenue growth of 540% over the previous two years.

 

READ FULL ARTICLE