This Entrepreneur Created A Natural Beauty Brand Inspired By Her Bahamian Roots

As health and wellness become increasingly bigger markets within the U.S., more and more consumers are looking for beauty and hair products free of toxic chemicals that harm their hair. One Bahamian native used her natural journey to create her line of hair and beauty products inspired by her island culture.

Candera Thompson created Bask & Bloom Essentials after she found herself making her own products by looking up different DIY remedies online. “After experiencing postpartum shedding and researching ways to nurture my hair, I started sharing the results from my DIY recipes in various natural hair Facebook groups,” said Thompson in an email interview with BLACK ENTERPRISE.

“I noticed a lot of women were experiencing similar issues, and many of them were struggling to maintain moisture in their hair—which also leads to dryness and breakage. It inspired me to look further into creating a full line of products that would help solve these issues and maintain healthy, flourishing hair.”

Thompson used her Bahamian culture as an influence when it came to sourcing her ingredients for her products. “There’s a joke in the Caribbean community that if you have any type of illness, your parents will tell you to drink some tea and lay down. Tea is the answer for everything, and we aren’t strangers to bush medicine and other natural remedies stemming from plants,” Thompson said.

“The island I grew up on doesn’t have a major hospital, so it was common for my parents to use traditional recipes when my siblings and I were sick with common colds, etc. When I started using herbal tea rinses for my hair, I came across many of the ones that I drank as a kid and found they had multiple benefits. My goal was to find a way to include some of these herbs into hair product formulas, as there weren’t many on the market that catered to the specific issues I experienced.”