Shaina Rainford is caring, strong-willed, and determined, which is why it comes as no surprise that she has managed to build a million-dollar hair brand from scratch.
Once a registered nurse (RN), Rainford felt compelled to launch Bask & Lather after experiencing a shift in her hair texture following a COVID-19 diagnosis in 2020.
“I was a registered nurse and I did emergency room nursing and general medical surgical floor nursing while I was in school getting my master’s degree to become a family nurse practitioner,” Rainford told BAUCE. “In 2020, during the pandemic, I acquired COVID and I became very, very sick. Luckily, I recovered in about two and a half weeks, but a few weeks later, my hair texture became very brittle.”
When her crown began to shed and break out into clumps, Rainford was devastated, but quickly sprang into action, consistently using what is now known as the scalp stimulator and hair elixir for her brand to nurse her hair back to life.
“My hair reverted back to normal, it stopped shedding and the texture wasn’t as brittle. The breakage, everything, stopped in its tracks and I said, ‘Ma, we really have to share these products with people'”. Shaina went on to say, “You know, I’m young, I’m healthy so if I was suffering with hair loss, I knew firsthand how hurtful it was and how it also affected my confidence so imagine how many people around the world were suffering with the same types of issues, but long-term and just covering them up.”
Just a few months later, at the end of 2020, Rainford’s Bask & Lather hit the ground running and the rest is as they say… history. What’s more, she leaned on the critical thinking skills she’d developed throughout her career as a nurse and began to get to business, ultimately working alongside loved ones to bring the brand to the level of success it continues to soar to.
“It still blows my mind to this day when I look at everything that we’ve done in the past three years,” Rainford recalled. “When we first started, those first eight months, we were running the business out of my living room. I used to have all of my friends and family over during the weekend and everyone would be in my living room packing orders and peanuts and boxes would be everywhere.”
At one point she joked that the postal worker would back into her driveway, picking up truckloads of orders weekly. It was at this point that Rainford realized that she had truly jumped into life as an entrepreneur, noting that she then got a warehouse that they’ve since outgrown as well as a legit working staff on payroll.
Early on it clicked for her that she could not do it all alone, which she revealed was one of the biggest lessons that she learned as a business owner. From a chemist to folks to help with packaging and developing her brand, Bask & Lather’s staff grew at lightning speed with even Rainford’s son on the payroll.
“He manages our TikTok and it’s funny because earlier this year because up until earlier this year, for the first two years I was managing all of our social media on my own, responding to everyone’s comments, to every single DM and this year is the year where I said, ‘Look, if you want to go further, you have to stop doing everything on your own.’”
Her son, who is 15, even has his own clothing brand and is a pro when it comes to going viral on TikTok so naturally within three months he helped to grow Bask & Lather’s TikTok to more than 200,000 followers and the brand is averaging multiple six figures a month with no ad spending via the app.
For anyone currently on the grind with aspirations to become an entrepreneur, Rainford has one word of advice: “Just start.”
“Also, understanding that customers are more so looking for what the product is going to do for them than anything else,” she expressed. “Secondly, I would say, regarding leaving your job… never just quit unless you have a sustainable business that has great potential and is already at least making some revenue, that way you have something to sustain you while you grow your business.”
To end, the successful entrepreneur encourages those with a brilliant idea or concept to never give up and to not let fear prevent them from putting themselves out there.
