Carol's Daughter Founder: "Be Brave, Be Bold, Be Smart"

Anyone who’s indulged in a confection knows that homemade goodies triumph over store-bought when it comes to desserts, but hand-mixed beauty products rarely work out so well. The founder of Carol’s Daughter—and Carol’s actual daughter, of course—Lisa Price proved her cottage industry an exception 20 years ago when she transformed her hobby of mixing up fragrances and lotions in her Brooklyn kitchen into a veritable beauty empire. A former writer’s assistant for The Cosby Show, Price started experimenting with fragrance in her spare time. In the early ‘90s, she started selling her homemade beauty items at flea markets and demand skyrocketed. In 1994, she established Carol’s Daughter, the line of hair and body products that went on to count Jada Pinkett-Smith, Erykah Badu, and Halle Berry as loyal customers. Last month, L’Oreal USA acquired Carol’s Daughter to live alongside its big-time brands like Maybelline, Clarisonic, Urban Decay, and NYX. We caught up with the mom of three to find out what she’s learned along the way, from the first product she created to dating mishaps to what she’d tell her 20-something self now.

When I was in my 20s, the idea of having a mentor was not even a concept. Instead, you looked at people that you perhaps would like to emulate. You may have looked up to a supervisor but it would have been too familiar to refer to them as a mentor. I learned a lot from one of my supervisors when I worked for the City of New York, I didn’t like her at first, because she was tough, but her tough love paid off and made me a better worker; she pushed me to develop skill sets I didn’t know I had.

When I was at the age of internships, there were basically a handful of them available to an African-American. You would have to know someone who knew someone who knew someone who went to church with your parents. I was fortunate that I had an aunt who was the Executive Assistant to a CEO and she was able to get me a job for two summers. I was in my late teens at the time, and in my early twenties I did a few stints at the UN during the General Assembly as a messenger.

Working in TV production as an assistant to the writers of The Cosby Show was perfect training for an entrepreneurial life. There is nothing constant and steady about a career in TV and film. It taught me to be autonomous, to budget as if there might not be a check every week, to work long and hard hours and to always be on top of my game. The hours on The Cosby Show were long and slow—but I did love the work so much. It was amazing to create something every week. Not just churn out work, but to produce content, emotion, and laughter.

I married my first and only boyfriend at the age of 20 and we were separated within 10 months—bad idea all the way around. In my early 20’s, I thought success was about having a good job, being married, becoming a mom, owning a home, and going on family vacations. Now it is still all of that—and I am thankfully living that—but there is also the desire to do what I love so that it doesn’t feel like work and to be challenged to be better and always evolving.

My living space in my 20s was always creative, with art projects in process around me. It was very Bohemian. I may do that again when I am an empty nester. You have to have function in your home when you are a parent, but not when you are young and single living in a studio.

The first product I mixed up in my kitchen was a balm. The base of which is very similar to our Hair Balm that we sell today. It was a Body Balm, a blend of oils and butters to be used from head to toe. I have always loved perfume and still do—and I can’t resist lip-gloss! I just have more options for gloss now than when I was in my twenties.

I’d tell my 20-something self to stop doubting yourself so much: you are smarter than you think. I’ll tell my daughter when she’s in her 20s to be brave, be bold, be smart, and know that it will all work out if you pay attention. There are many things we feel need to be “perfect” when we are 20-something and when you get to be fifty, you pretty much feel like, “Girl, bye.” Taking the pressure off of yourself is so key to building more confidence. The earlier in life that one can learn, “You are enough,” the better.