Community Highlights: Meet Shanda Carter and Keisha Meighan of Adaora Beauty Hawthorne

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shanda Carter and Keisha Meighan.

Hi Shanda and Keisha, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
We are decedents of Belizean parents. My sister and I both attended college, graduated and have worked for the County of Los Angeles for over 15 years combined. One day we were speaking to each other about the cost of retirement and we realized that our jobs were not going to be enough for us to have the lifestyle we wanted. We concluded that we needed to build generational wealth and we needed to do something we loved at the same time. So my sister and I had a discussions about what makes us happy and how we can give back to the community while building wealth for ourselves. We both agreed that we loved interacting with people and we both had experience in retail. After brainstorming, we agreed that a beauty supply store would give us the opportunity to provide customers with knowledge about our hair type and the products that work best for people of color. Additionally, a beauty supply store would also allow us to provide jobs for the community and lead others that were interested in the beauty industry towards the right direction.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
The road was not smooth, there were many obstacles. One of the biggest obstacles was trying to find a location for the beauty supply store. As we all know, real estate in California is very expensive and every location we looked at was well above the price range we were willing to commit to for our first business venture. Other challenges we have faced and continue to face as we grow our business is discrimination from the product distributors because we are a black-owned business. We have been denied certain accounts with some distributors because we are within the same radius as an Asian owned beauty supply. Challenges that we have encountered are finding employees that are responsible and willing to work. As a black-owned business, some of our customers believe that they are entitled to discounts and free items. They threaten to never shop with us again if we do not bend our rules or negotiate prices to their liking. We have learn so much about ourselves and our business ethics because of all the struggles we have endured but we have no complaints and we feel so blessed to have our dream of being a business owner come true.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Adaora Beauty Hawthorne?
Adaora Beauty Hawthorne is nestled in the awesome city of Hawthorne, CA. Our beauty supply store is part of a franchise owned by a proud Nigerian woman, meaning, not only are we women led but we are a fully black-owned company. Adaora beauty supply store provides hair care products for people of color and takes pride in showcasing and selling products made by other black-owned companies and entrepreneurs. Adaora Beauty Hawthorne is more than a beauty supply store, our store is also home for many entrepreneurs that work in our Salon. We have braiders, nail techs, eyebrow and eyelash techs and cavitation services for non-invasive body contouring. Having these services in one place sets us apart from other beauty supply stores. One of our goals at Adaora is to help alleviate some of the stress our customers have by providing them with a one-stop shopping experience. Some of our main goals are to continue to provide outstanding customer service to our patrons, provide jobs to the community and to assist those who want to break into the beauty field by helping them to network and meet professionals already in the industry.

How do you think about luck?
We wouldn’t call our journey luck… We call it a BLESSING. We open our business during a global pandemic and we have continually prospered throughout the year. Once we decided to step out on faith, our lives changed forever. On top of that, our business continues to grow every month. We prayed for this and we are committed to providing the community with a one stop shop for their beauty needs while giving them excellent customer service and respect.

Contact Info:

• Email: info@adaorabeautyhawthorne.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adaorabeautyhawthorne/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/adaorabeautyhawthorne
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/beautysupplyblk

Image Credits
All photo credits to : Shanda Carter Keisha Meighan