Brand Report
Teneya Gholston, who was integral to marketing at Revlon-owned Creme of Nature for a dozen years, believes the natural hair movement is embarking on a new era characterized by experimentation with heat and protective styles.
“I hear a lot of naturals who maybe in the past never used heat or they didn’t do braided styles, but they’re open to it now,” she says. “The category is shifting, and there’s this big cry for being able to change your hair, being more free, not having to play by the rules.”
Gholston’s new brand,Texture Crush, is aimed at consumers who don’t always play by the rules that defined the earlier era of the natural hair movement like the three-step LCO (leave-in, cream, oil) method or the six-step curly girl method to minimize damage and maximize moisture. It’s launched with four products priced under $17: Main Squeeze Frizz-Fighting Moisturizing Shampoo, Dew The Most Frizz-Fighting Moisturizing Conditioner, Shine, Shield, Deliver Frizz-Fighting Leave In Conditioner and Silk Me Out Frizz-Fighting Smoothing Serum.
Texture Crush combines the four products in a $60 Silk Me Out Bundle and pairs them with creaseless crips, and the bundle has sold out twice since the brand made its direct-to-consumer debut on August 30. Intended for heat styling, Silk Me Out Frizz-Fighting Smoothing Serum is a contender for Texture Crush’s hero product. A treatment product is expected to enter the brand’s assortment next.
“It was important to bring heat styling products to the forefront because women aren’t as scared of heat as they used to be,” says Gholston. “We’re going into silk press season as we like to call it, and I just thought that was a different conversation to have and lean into. I don’t feel like there was really a textured or a Black-owned brand really speaking to her.”
Along with handling marketing for Creme of Nature, Gholston was heavily involved with coming up with the packaging for its Pure Honey collection. The collection leaned away from the brand’s typical red and yellow shades and toward gold and beige shades. The square shape of the packaging was also a departure from its traditional round stock bottles. “It was extremely scary, I have to admit as a marketer, but it paid off greatly,” she says. “I understood that sometimes you have to push the boundaries.”
Gholston has taken that lesson to Texture Crush, which has bright pink and orange packaging and branding. She drew inspiration from fragrance and skincare brands for its shampoo and conditioner bottle’s spherical caps and the serum container’s circular shape. Gholston invested $35,000 to develop and manufacture Texture Crush.
“I wanted something in textured hair that was elevated and almost feels like it belongs on a high-end shelf, but it’s still purse friendly,” she says. “I didn’t want something that looked run of the mill and mass, I wanted something that felt special. I feel like they’re just little bottles of happiness.”
After leaving Creme of Nature in 2020, Gholston consulted for brands such as Lottabody, NaturalAll Club and The Lip Bar on product development and retail marketing. As a beauty brand founder, she will eventually turn to her connections to help seal retail deals for Texture Crush. Before that, though, she’s focused on building its digital community to demonstrate to retailers that the straight natural consumer her brand speaks to exists in force.
“I want to show retailers that she wants these products. They’re shopping in your stores, and you’re missing her because we’ve gone all the way curly hair, wash and gos, and gels, gels, gels,” she says. “This is a real category of women, and right now she’s just shopping online or she’s going into the beauty supply stores.”
Already, influencers have reached out to Gholston to review Texture Crush.Myleik Teele, the founder of closed beauty subscription box Curlbox who has over 220,000 followers on Instagram, mentioned the brand, sending an influx of people to check it out. In addition, Texture Crush has seeded product to roughly 100 influencers.
Gholston hopes to raise $250,000 in capital through grants and pitch competitions in the year ahead to fund marketing efforts, including in-person events, to drive sales. She has already hosted salon events in Florida where she lives in which consumers tested out the products in exchange for a free service. For the holiday season, Texture Crush will throw a Friendsgiving, and pop-ups are planned at texture hair salons in Texas and the Washington, D.C. area in 2025 as a way to “educate women and bridge the gap between professionals and the consumer.” Gholston is a licensed cosmetologist.
“I’m so happy to see the voice of the stylist return as an expert, so that’s also going to be a big part of our strategy,” she says. “Understanding how to use the products and what to reach for goes hand in hand with well formulated products.”