7 minute read
A product line made with Black hair in mind
Lakisha Bullock, owner of SCB Naturals, makes her creations in her basement studio.
One-Woman Show
West Philly native creates soap and skin care line from her
basement lab by claire marie porter
Growing up in the ’90s, Lakisha Bullock was bullied for her appearance at her West Philly middle school. “I had big thick hair. My mom didn’t know what to do with it,” she says.
At the time there weren’t a lot of Black hair products that weren’t relaxers and straighteners, she says. So, in high school, she set out to find them for herself. She came across the brand Carol’s Daughter, launched by a Black Brooklynite named Lisa Price who started a business making hair care products in her kitchen.
“I was like … ‘I could do that,’” says Bullock. She began dreaming of starting her own product line. “I fell in love with the idea of fixing myself,” she says.
Over the years she learned to make her own skin and hair products, and manage her hair. She would do her sisters’ and neighborhood girls’ hair to make money to buy new clothes and shoes. In 2011, she went to cosmetology school. Skin care products were her side hustle while she became a mother and worked a variety of management jobs.
In 2015, Bullock was in a difficult relationship and struggling with her mental health — and her skin was suffering as well. She had serious eczema. She started making her own treatment, and it worked. She decided that the time had come to share her skills, and officially launched SCB (“She Creates Beauty”) Naturals.
Her business was on and off over the next few years, but by 2020 she had saved up enough from her job as an assistant director for a nonprofit to buy her own house. Now that she had her own space, she decided it was time to focus on her business. She turned her basement into a skin care “lab,” left her nonprofit job and began developing her wellness brand full time.
Her experience in retail and management made entrepreneurship natural.
“I’m a manager at heart,” she says.
As a one-woman business, she has to be. She says she is highly organized and uses Periodic Automatic Replenishment, or PAR — a method of inventory tracking often used in restaurants — to keep on top of things, like her handcrafted soaps, which take several weeks to complete. The higher the water content, the longer they take to cure.
“Soapmaking is fun. But it is dangerous,” she says. “I’m handling lye, so I need to suit up.”
Bullock also makes lotions, balms, serums, toners and masks. Her business is vegan and cruelty free, and she grows some ingredients for the products in her own garden — a certified plant nursery.
Her products are currently sold by seven retailers, including Philly Foodworks and the Kensington Community Food Co-op. She also does pop-ups at farmers markets, like the weekly East Falls Farmers Market, where she met her friend and fellow entrepreneur, Hector Hernandez, a candlemaker. They often go to each other with business-related questions, and Hernandez loves using her products — particularly her lemon poppy lotion, he says.
“She wants to dabble in everything,” he says. “She doesn’t let anything get in her way. That’s what I love about her.”
Shannon Reynolds, owner of an ecommerce website called iCraft-Mart that helps new local entrepreneurs market their handmade products, was Bullock’s very first retailer, and still sells her wares to this day. Reynolds says Bullock’s brand is “superior in every way,” down to the meticulous packaging.
“Phrases like ‘vegan,’ ‘sustainable’ and ‘organic’ aren’t just buzzwords to Lakisha,” he says. “She embodies that lifestyle, and wants to make sure they’re available and accessible to all.”
“I’ve never seen anybody work as hard as she does to make her business a success,” he adds. “Lakisha is one of a kind.” ◆
BUILDING FOUNDATIONS
City program jumpstarts careers for Philadelphians interested in infrastructure
story by nic esposito • photography by chris baker evens
In 2019 then 23-year-old Cashmir Woodward was dissatisfied with the home healthcare sector job she started just out of high school and was certain it would not be her long-term career. So when a friend asked her to join PowerCorpsPHL, she decided to make a move.
“I was kind of wanting a different scene,” she explains, “so I decided to give it a shot.”
A workforce development program that provides career-connected education and paid work experiences for 18- to 30-yearolds, PowerCorpsPHL helps individuals forge careers in municipal government operations or infrastructure-based industries. The program is led by the nonprofit EducationWorks in partnership with the national AmeriCorps program and the City of Philadelphia.
Participants in PowerCorpsPHL join as corps members at what the organization calls the “foundations” level. For six months, they work in teams on a variety of projects with City departments such as green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) maintenance with the Philadelphia Water Department and land management with Philadelphia Parks & Recreation.
“For my interview with PowerCorps, they wanted to see if I’d like the work,” Woodward recalls. “At 14 I worked for a landscaping company, so I didn’t mind digging and I don’t mind getting dirty.”
With that mindset, Woodward had no issue joining the GSI crew to maintain the many pieces of green infrastructure around Philadelphia, such as rain gardens, bioswales and tree trenches. Anticipating much worse flooding as a result of climate change and confronting Philadelphia’s aging and inadequate combined sewer system in much of the city, Philadelphia launched Green City, Clean Waters in 2011 as a 25-year plan to reduce both the amount of stormwater runoff into surrounding waterways and combined sewer overflows as a result of stormwater surges from intense storms. After six months on the GSI maintenance crew, Woodward moved into PowerCorpsPHL’s second phase, which places corps members who have successfully completed the foundations program into fellowships or post-secondary education support and “industry academies.” Members can also be placed as assistant crew leaders for future six-month foundations teams.
An example of an industry academy is PowerCorpsPHL’s Bright Solar Futures Fellowship. In partnership with the Philadelphia Energy Authority, the solar installation firm Solar States and the Energy Coordinating Agency, this academy provides corps members with a 17-week training course and a 10-week internship to prepare corps members to enter careers in the solar and electrical industries.
But for Woodward, her experience working with the Water Department was what she needed to focus her career path.
“When I really saw what GSI was about, I was so intrigued that it opened up something new for me,” she says. “It made me want to be a part of something bigger than just me.”
— cashmir woodward, PowerCorpsPHL alum
PowerCorpsPHL support staff was able to help place Woodward in an internship with the Philadelphia-based civil engineering firm Rodriguez Consulting. Founder Lou Rodriguez was a former Water Department employee and served as the City’s first GSI program manager. After founding his consulting firm, Rodiguez made sure to pay it forward and provide mentorship and internship opportunities for young people participating in the PowerCorpsPHL program.
Today, Woodward has landed a full-time civil service position in the Water Department’s land survey division. Her experience maintaining GSI infrastructure as a corps member as well as her exposure to blueprints and surveying were the perfect combination of experience and expertise that made her a competitive candidate when she applied for the job.
“When I worked at Rodriguez, I started to see what they do with surveys and I was in love with all the different gadgets, the machine robots,” she says. “But getting this field survey job was a perfect fit because I’m really not a person to sit behind a desk all day.”
When asked what advice she would have for a young person considering a career in sustainability and infrastructure, Woodward had no shortage of tips and vision.
“As a corps member, take advantage of all PowerCorpsPHL offers you, especially the infrastructure program,” she suggests, adding that the program is a great connector to good jobs.
“But whatever job you have in infrastructure, just know your trade is much bigger than you,” she continues. “Infrastructure is something everyone needs in life for travel on roads and bridges, clean drinking water from clean rivers and lakes — so I want everyone to give it a chance, but especially the female members. We need more of us in the field.” ◆
Opposite page: Cashmir Woodward is a PowerCorpsPHL alum and now works for the Water Department. An excavator prepares land that PWD surveyed in May for a forthcoming Topgolf in Northeast Philadelphia.
