In episode fifty eight of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder and CEO of Bread Beauty Supply, Maeva Heim. 

“Visibility” is a word that came up a few times during this particular conversation with Maeva. Maeva explains that her relationship with her own hair was largely influenced by visibility. Maeva had spent the bulk of 20 years using a chemical hair relaxer to straighten out the natural texture of her hair, explaining that the bulk of the hair education we receive in mainstream culture is designed for straight hair. It wasn’t until a trip to the US, during which her hair relaxer exploded in her luggage, that she decided to move back towards her natural hair texture. She wasn’t alone in embracing what’s called the “natural hair movement,”- at that time, there’d been over a 40% decline in hair relaxer sales over a five year period. 

A simple, effective, modern beauty offering for women of colour wasn’t particularly visible either. In a time that Maeva has coined “pre-Fenty,” there were even fewer brands catering to woman of colour than there are now- and there were absolutely no simple, effective, fun nor modern options in the haircare category. 

Confident in her idea to simplify wash day for women with textured hair, Bread Beauty Supply was born- a now six month old, award winning brand that launched into US Sephora, making it only the eighth black-owned beauty brand to be picked up by Sephora, and just the third in the hair space. It was during the development process that Maeva made visibility work to her advantage. She explains the exposure we have to other founder stories online today meant that she felt she could do it too, without fear- and that’s exactly what she’s done. 

 

In this conversation, Maeva and I discuss how she secured investment from the same fund who invested in Emily Weiss’ Glossier and Kim Kardashian’s Skims, the challenges of launching a brand through an overseas retailer in 2020, and the makeup look her aunt in West Africa bestowed on her in childhood that may well be making a comeback. 

You can read this interview now at glowjournal.com

Follow Bread on Instagram at @breadbeautysupply

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at [email protected]

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