Carol’s Daughter on Life After L’Oréal

Lisa Price, founder of Carol’s Daughter, has always been a pioneer.

The beauty line she founded in 1993 offered body butters, fragrances and hair products, made from her Brooklyn kitchen long before Sol de Janeiro kicked off the body care craze or Mielle went viral for its hair oils. The brand also aimed at servicing the widely overlooked Black consumer. Nearly two decades later, when beauty giant L’Oréal acquired the business, it marked another watershed moment — proof that textured hair care had evolved into a market large enough to be supported by beauty’s biggest conglomerate.

This year, Price is charting a new path. In March, L’Oréal announced the sale of Carol’s Daughter to entrepreneur Joe Wong for an undisclosed sum. Wong will work closely with Price, who holds an equity stake in the line and will serve as president. The brand now faces the challenge of reclaiming relevance in a market that’s grown more saturated, with entrants from celebrities like Beyoncé and Tracee Ellis Ross, and fast-thinking indie brands like Sienna Naturals and Adwoa Beauty. It is also doing so with fewer resources.

This does not faze Price, who hopes that being “a bit more nimble” will position the brand as a leader in the textured hair care space once again.

“I didn’t even really have [going independent] on my bingo card. But [L’Oréal] was very amenable to coming up with a different working situation if it meant that the brand would, in the end, be better off,” said Price.

The move could signal a shift for the textured hair segment, which is projected to generate $1.9 billion in consumer spending this year, according to Mintel. Most brands in the space remain independent, and L’Oréal’s divestment amid rising anti-diversity sentiments could signal trouble ahead, especially as Black founders remain under-funded and over-mentored. Experts closely watching the segment view the sale as the beginning of a new lifecycle for textured hair brands — one in which returning to independent ownership may offer greater agility and cultural relevance than traditional corporate backing has allowed.

“We shouldn’t be thinking about this moment as L’Oréal selling, but from the perspective of Lisa buying,” said Courtney Rominiyi, multicultural consumer insights analyst at Mintel.

As Carol’s Daughter enters its next chapter, the brand is positioning itself to respond to consumers’ evolving demands through high-impact product launches and expansion into new categories.

Price understands that large conglomerates have protocols that need to be followed to ensure brands are operating efficiently, but “it makes it a bit more challenging for a smaller company within that machine to be what it has traditionally been for its consumer,” she said. “I have never really been a fan of the corporate structure of things.”

A New Era

Carol’s Daughter has historically benefitted from community support.

Early backers included flashy fans of the brand like musician Jay-Z and actors Will and Jada Pinkett Smith. The brand counted Target, Sephora and Ulta Beauty as stockists, and at its peak operated seven standalone stores. In the early 2010s, however, the brand began to struggle — sales were declining and Carol’s Daughter Stores LLC, the holding company that operated its stores, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, shuttering its retail locations in the process.

Reprieve for the company came in 2014 when L’Oréal acquired it — a move that signalled to investors and conglomerates that Black-founded beauty brands possessed both cultural relevance and commercial potential. Price, in a widely circulated Facebook video said the deal would “take what I built and solidify its place in history and beauty.” The news was met with fervent backlash from the brand’s shoppers who accused Price of selling out. Under L’Oréal’s umbrella, the brand struggled to generate the same buzz with its launches and lost out to social media-savvy upstarts.

Today, the brand faces stiff competition on shelves, from conglomerate-owned labels like Mielle Organics, private-equity-backed lines like Ceremonia and celebrity brands like Tracee Ellis Ross’ Pattern Beauty or Beyoncé’s Cécred. Legacy players including Tresemmé and Garnier have also recently expanded into the category, and benefit from vast existing distribution.

The brand aims to leverage its authority in this segment to connect with a new generation of consumers, particularly Gen-Z. Rather than mimic what’s already on the market, Carol’s Daughter is focused on product innovation that addresses untapped white space and hopes to position itself ahead of trends rather than play catch-up, said Price.

For Price, parting with L’Oréal was bittersweet. The partnership expanded the brand’s global reach and gave Price insight into international logistics and the science behind producing efficacious products — “another level of business,” she described, having once relied on producing products based on her home remedies.

But it was ultimately the bureaucracy of working within a large corporation — slower product launch timelines, a reduced ability to quickly respond to consumer needs and a strict focus on margins and profitability — that didn’t align with her approach to brand-building.

“When you’re smaller and independent, you have the opportunity to fail fast,” said Price. “You try something out. If it doesn’t work, you can change course.”

She’s found a fitting partner in Joe Wong, a finance industry veteran who now owns a portfolio of former L’Oréal brands, including grooming label Baxter of California and complexion collection Dermablend. Like Price, Wong is committed to ensuring the “health of the business and its relationship with consumers and not so much the doubling and tripling numbers,” Price added.

She’s also taking the brand back to its roots by reintroducing body care and fragrance — categories that were core to the brand’s early identity.

“It’s in our DNA,” said Price. Bringing categories back is easier when operations are scaled down, she added: “We just have to do it in a smart way and gauge if there is genuine consumer interest.”

The Bigger Picture

The sale of Carol’s Daughter could signal a new chapter for Black beauty brands — one not solely defined by a successful exit to a major conglomerate.

The brand has a unique opportunity to both chart a new post-acquisition path and potentially win back consumers it may have lost after the L’Oréal deal, said analyst Rominiyi. She noted that consumers often feel let down when brands are sold, especially if product formulations or community-driven marketing shift, creating the perception that the brand has “sold out.”

This was top of mind for Bread founder Maeva Heim when her company sought acquisition. Earlier this month, Bread announced it had been acquired by Cost of Doing Business, a holding company founded by Olamide Olowe and Sochi Mbadugha, founders of the skincare brand Topicals. Heim told Essence that selling to a Black-owned and operated company was critical for preserving her brand’s legacy and maintaining consumer trust.

These moves may be especially strategic for Black-owned brands in today’s political climate, where initiatives aimed at supporting underrepresented founders face mounting backlash.

“Historically, we don’t have a lot of history with founding brands, getting funding for brands, having our brands be acquired by large conglomerates,” said Price. “As more Black and brown people become business owners, we’re going to see different things happen.”

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