It matters that Candera Thompson’s ruby red hair is still visibly pigmented. To make sure Bask & Bloom Essentials’ products wouldn’t fade color-treated hair, Thompson dyed her own hair and tested them out. Lightly fluffing her textured strands, Thompson smiles and says the consistent curl pattern of her two-day-old twist out is owed, in part, to Bask & Bloom’s More Moisture Creme.
The creme is one of more than a dozen products from Bask & Bloom Essentials, a hair-care line for women with all hair types. Based in Bridgeton, the company designs products specifically to support healthy postpartum hair and fight the loss, breakage, thinning, and drying that many women experience after giving birth. Thompson first launched the business after experiencing hair shedding after giving birth to her first child in 2010, and then severe hair loss following the birth of her second child in 2015.
Like many Black women exploring ways to care for their natural hair, Thompson joined an online community to ask questions and crowdsource advice. The Facebook group Thompson joined had 50,000 members. Stories of mothers struggling with their hair after giving birth were common. Faced with her own hair loss, she made an appointment with her OB/GYN and a dermatologist, but neither offered solutions. The hair-care industry also didn’t have much to offer on the market, so Thompson started researching ingredients and partnered with a Black woman chemist to experiment with formulas.
“No one was speaking to postpartum itself,” Thompson says. “There weren't a lot of products that talk about protecting your hair from breakage, reducing shedding, and strengthening hair.”
The women in her Facebook group cheered her on, eventually becoming Bask & Bloom’s earliest customer base. She reached out to professionals in scalp care, trichology, and dermatology to get their feedback. She pulled from her savings to get things up and running and threw all her time, energy, and focus into building the company while balancing motherhood. Becoming an entrepreneur, she says, is about ignoring the “noise in each space” and concentrating on your vision and the resources that can help you bring it to fruition.
“There were long, long nights where it was just like, OK, now I have to learn email marketing,” Thompson says. “So, I'm waking up at one o'clock in the morning breastfeeding, but I'm also learning how to run ads on Facebook. I wasn't in the position to go to a million networking events with two small kids at home.”
It took a little over two years for Thompson to perfect the formulas, working with experts in development and running 90-day tests on real people to gather feedback and measurable results. They tested for hair fullness, stronger strands, more length retention, and less breakage over time. They used ethically sourced fragrances, and avoided additives, fillers, and any known endocrine- or reproductive-system disruptors. Soon, sales started coming in, and in addition to U.S. customers, she received orders from the Caribbean, Canada, and the UK.
This past year, Bask & Bloom won SELF magazine’s 2023 award for Best Leave-In for Natural Hair, and has been featured in Elle, Allure, Essence, Cosmopolitan, and on Oprah.com. Thompson says her long-term goal for Bask & Bloom is to connect hospitals and maternity wards to reach postpartum parents directly. The company made progress on that vision this past year, announcing a new partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which will provide Bask & Bloom’s postpartum hair-care kits to patients across its 40 hospitals and more than 700 doctor offices and outpatient centers in New England.
As the company grew — and importantly, as her kids got older — Thompson was able to involve herself more in the St. Louis area’s business community. In fact, Bask & Bloom found its manufacturer, its packaging company, and a supplier for select ingredients through that entrepreneur ecosystem.
“The support has been so amazing,” she says. “In 2021 we won an Arch Grant and that put us in the ecosystem of anybody and everybody who's an entrepreneur in St. Louis. And we're still cultivating those relationships. We talk to each other all the time. We provide resources and share them with each other.”
“I travel to California and New York a lot for beauty events and expos, but that's something that can happen right here,” Thompson adds. “You don't have to move your beauty brand to one of those states. That's my biggest thing for anybody: You have to put yourself out there, 'cause the support is here in St. Louis.”
Explore more stories about inspiring St. Louis entrepreneurs who are contributing to the growth and success of the area's startup community.
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