Cherice Williams is a natural-born leader with a vision so it comes as no surprise that she is also the founder and CEO of a successful hair brand.
BLAQ Luxury HairCare was formed after Williams experienced a shift in the texture of her hair.
“In 2018 I found out that I was diagnosed with PCOS, which is polycystic ovarian syndrome,” Williams recalled during an interview with BAUCE. “One of the effects that it had on me was that my hair was always brittle and it doesn’t retain moisture.”
While she knew it wasn’t the products that she was using on her hair at the time, Williams found a sort of relief when doctors discovered exactly what was causing her hair woes and luckily she had conjured up her own solution, which would soon become the aforementioned hair care line.
“I was in a hair support group at the time because there were a lot of women with the same concerns that I had and not necessarily as it pertains to PCOS, but they were just looking for healthier products and healthier solutions for their hair. I shared the product I had created for myself in the group and that ended up being my first consumer base.”
Two years before being diagnosed with PCOS, Williams had just migrated to the U.S. and her Jamaican roots have been infused into BLAQ Luxury products since the very beginning.
“I’m gonna bring you back to our first product, which is the mega hair serum. That is our best-selling hair oil and we’ve done more than 400,000 bottles,” she explained. “My roots are grounded in that product.”
“One of our primary ingredients is Jamaican Black Castor Oil,” Williams continued. “In Jamaica, we use Jamaican Black Castor Oil as a remedy when your hair is thinning or when you want to add volume to your hair, so that’s one of our primary ingredients. We have a lot of different herbs and oils that are infused into that bottle as well, which I took from my roots that my grandma used to use on us in Jamaica. Some of them are good for skin, some are good for hair and that’s how I formed that concoction.”
With the hair care market being a place that can be seen as saturated with a large variety of products, Williams’ main concern was bringing a part of who she is with her to America.
“I didn’t want it to just be like any other hair brand,” she shared. “Being someone from the Caribbean, I wanted to bring a part of my roots with me here in America. Even when I was working on my degree when I came here, my initial inspiration was to become an accountant, I couldn’t bring my roots there, I couldn’t bring, you know, like a part of me being a Caribbean person there. So I do this through all of my products. So BLAQ Luxury are products that are Jamaican Cherice, but also American Cherice.”
What’s more, with an extremely successful hairline, Williams attributes it all to God. “I have a firm belief in the Lord and I just allow him to lead me because sometimes I don’t know what the next move is gonna be and how to overcome a hurdle,” she explained. “ He has been carrying me through everything, like God is my support system. And everything is based on faith. I also realized that when I plan things, most times, they don’t go as planned. It goes the way that God wants you to go. So sometimes I try not to plan anything, but just to be led by faith.”
With the release of the latest line, the Papaya Paradise Collection, Williams continues to pay homage to her Jamaican heritage and says this product is a major disruptor in the best way.
“I always wanted to express myself, as mentioned before, I’m a very creative and innovative person. So I was like, I want to stand out and disrupt so I was like, ‘What can I come up with that another haircare brand doesn’t have?’ I wanted to give my customers an experience so that is where the paradise came from because Jamaica is also known as a paradise and the papaya is a very popular tropical fruit that’s in Jamaica. So that’s where the name for that collection evolved.
Geared toward coily kinky hair types, Williams’ reason for creating a collection centered around this texture was to fill a void in mass retail spaces when it comes to natural hair products.
And if you don’t know your hair type, Williams and Company has you covered. By simply scanning the QR code on the latest product and a few previous products, customers can quickly take a quiz that will help them uncover what products work best for their hair.
