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If there’s one thing natural haircare entrepreneur Ciera Solomon-Mouzon isn’t trying to do, it’s sell bottled hype.
The Northeast Philly cosmetologist and 19-year civic employee for Pennsylvania Veterans Affairs started her Black hair care business, Royalties of Essence, out of her kitchen in 2021.
In an industry that, she says, thrives as scroll-stopping TikTok ads with too-good-to-be-true claims, Royalties of Essence takes a different path: carefully formulated plant-based products and tested in the real world by Solomon-Mouzon herself.
The products, including scalp oil, hairstyling cream and growth-encouraging shampoo and conditioner, are only one part of the holistic plan.
“It’s not just getting that product,” Solomon-Mouzon told Technical.ly. “It’s about your routine.”
At its heart, Solomon-Mouzon’s journey is about challenging the quick-fix culture of the haircare industry and keeping it real.
Inspiration from customers — and her own daughter
As a cosmetologist and mom, Solomon-Mouzon noticed gaps in available products for textured hair. Many of her clients, as well as her daughter, struggled with hair growth, and the products on the market often contained chemicals not beneficial for textured hair health.
It started with her experimenting with natural oils, and turned into product development.
“I did a lot of research,” she said. “I wanted to make sure that everything was formulated correctly.”
After sourcing ingredients with the help of a cosmetic chemist, she tested her first product on herself, applying the scalp oil to her edges — the fine hairs along the hairline — after they had thinned a bit from wearing braids.
“I noticed that it helped with my edges, that’s how I knew it worked,” Solomon-Mouzon said.
She built Royalties of Essence one customer at a time, often face-to-face at local pop-ups around the Northeast and community events in Philadelphia, where she built a reputation through word of mouth. Her first customers came from the local community where she was born and raised, and where she plans to grow the business.
4 years of bootstrapping and leveraging social media
Just as haircare takes time, patience and a good routine, building Royalties of Essence has been on the slow and steady since releasing its Triple Nourishing Scalp Oil four years ago.
Solomon-Mouzon has bootstrapped the business, avoiding the debt that comes from loans. In the beginning, it was an offshoot of her home-based cosmetology business. For a while, she utilized space set up for small businesses at malls, including Willow Grove Park and Morrestown Mall, something she hopes to go back to.
For now, most of her sales are done through ecommerce, between her own website, Etsy, Amazon and Walmart’s online marketplace.
Social media is also central to the business, especially as Solomon-Mouzon starts to create content that lays out her holistic approach, beyond simply marketing the products.
“I use Facebook and Instagram a lot, and I’ve started putting more into TikTok,” she said, noting that she’s still experimenting to see which platforms deliver the best results.
Solomon-Mouzon’s next big goal is to secure wholesale contracts, getting her products into salons and back into retail spaces. “I really want a couple of wholesale contracts because that’s guaranteed money every month,” she said. She also envisions offering hair styling services again and eventually expanding her retail presence, but always in a way that stays true to her local, plant-based, results-driven philosophy.
“I wanted to create products for ethnic hair that will help our hair to thrive and grow,” said Solomon-Mouzon. “That’s something that we need.”
