An Aldi worker has created a £90,000 business from her home after creating her own hair care brand when she grew frustrated the options on the high street.
Kadian Pow, 41, was working in Aldi and teaching part-time to fund her way through a PhD when she stumbled upon a beauty idea that changed her life.
After becoming frustrated with the time it would take for her to wash and detangle her hair, Kadian took to YouTube to find out ways to make her own products.
She was so pleased with the results that she bottled some of her creation and gave it to family and friends, who all said she needed to sell it far and wide.
And so Bourn Beautiful Naturals was born, so named after the brook that runs behind her home in Bournville, Birmingham.
Converting her garage into a studio, Kadian and her partner Gillian began making more and more products as they found retailers across the world wanting to stock their items.
“I didn’t intend to have a business, I hadn’t really planned on that," Kadian told BirminghamLive.
“I started a part-time PhD in sociology and black studies in 2014 and was working three jobs to fund myself. I was working 20 to 30 hours a week in Aldi on the checkout and stocking shelves. I was also a writing and seminar tutor at the University of Birmingham.
“So I was busy and I was looking for a conditioner that would make my wash day easier by making detangling faster and leaving my hair better nourished."
“I then fell down a rabbit hole of cosmetic chemistry, testing and experimenting with everything I could find!
“After seven or eight tries, I’d made a smoothing conditioner that reduced my wash and detangling time to just half an hour rather than the two hours it had taken me before."
Combining coconut milk, aloe vera, mango butter, hemp seed oil, silk and goji berry extracts, Kadian created a 'whipped curling custard' to moisturise kinks and curls and set them in place for twist outs, braid outs or to wash and go.
She enjoyed a £90,000 turnover last year - double her previous year, and, in October 2020, was named as one of Harper’s Bazaar’s ‘five black-owned wellness brands to put on your radar’.
And yet, all of the products are still made by Kadian and Gillian at their Bournville home. Kadian even completed her PhD last year and is now a sociology lecturer too.
As their business continues to flourish, Kadian and Gillian are now approaching manufacturers to make their formulas for them.
“We’re still making all the products ourselves at the moment, my partner is very patient, it has taken over various rooms in our house," she said.
“We converted the garage into a studio for all the equipment, we have a unit at a business park that stores things for us and another room that’s full of boxes and containers.
"We’re bursting out of our house now and getting to the point where it’s hard to keep up with making it all ourselves.
“We hope that by the start of next summer, we’ll have manufacturers in place.”
