“Beauty Deskside” is a series celebrating Black and Brown founders and their beauty companies or brands.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a beauty problem, came up with a solution and thought, “Hmmm. I should create a product just like this.” Only I would move on to the next thing and forget all about my “invention.” Philomina Kane is proof that we shouldn’t sit on an idea, especially a very good one.

Philo has combined fashion and function with her brand KIN Apparel, a collection of satin-lined hoodies and accessories for hair protection and comfort. The proud Bronx-born, Ghanaian-American knows first-hand just how integral the silky fabric is to maintaining the care and condition of natural hair.

In this exclusive Q&A, Philo speaks to leveraging community connections to launch KIN Apparel, overcoming small business growing pains and what her ancestors have taught her about perseverance.

Beauty for Breakfast: What is your first beauty memory?

Philomina Kane: I was turning 16 years old, and me and my friends were starting to get into eyebrow threading. So we went to Fordham Plaza and there was a jewelry shop with a threading space upstairs. We waited for 20 minutes and after I was like, “Whoa! I am a new woman.” This was the day before my birthday. I had my outfit, walked into school the next day and you couldn’t tell me nothing. One of my friends was a photographer and she took photos of me. I had an entire Facebook album called “16.”

What was the impetus behind KIN Apparel?

Back home in the Bronx, I was living with my mom, and my grandmother and aunt eventually came to America. They all knew how to do hair. So getting my hair done was never an issue until I came to Princeton [University]. It cost a $100 to get a perm. There was a week when I traveled to the Bronx and traveled back [to New Jersey] after getting a perm — all of that cost less than $100. But I couldn’t keep doing that and my hair was just growing and falling out. So I just thought, “Why don’t I just grow my hair out and go natural?”

This was during that natural hair movement where we saw creators like Naptural85 and IamTreaH start to make Youtube videos and I was binge-watching all of them. Then my late friend Ozi, who was already natural, I asked her to chop my hair after I had about four months of growth. I had a teenie weenie Afro and I was obsessed! And with SnapChat becoming popular, every day I would take a snapshot of my hairstyle and then say Day 5 natural, Day 10, Day 25. My friends would say, “Philomena, this isn’t Youtube.” And I’m like, “Hmmmm, actually you’re right!”

So the summer of 2015, I started my Youtube channel and it was called Naturally Philo and that was a place for me to document my  hair journey. So that’s where I started that community that I had built.now. But prior to that when I went natural, I would put on a scarf before playing rugby at Princeton to protect my hair. But one day I was like, “There has to be a better way.”

That’s really how it started — on campus I was wearing a satin scarf and then just putting the hoodie on.  It was a thought I had and then I just forgot about it. 

So when did that thought become a reality and a real product you could wear?

I had my Youtube channel, Naturally Philo, and I was building a community there. It grew to almost 200,000 subscribers of women telling me I was inspiring them to go on their natural hair journey. And I thought, “Wow! I want to lean into this more.”I started calling my subscribers “ KINfolk.” KIN stands for “Keep It Natural.”

My big break came towards the end of 2018 when an agency approached me to make a haircare product to sell to my community. But at the time I was working with NaturAll Club and had a non-compete agreement. So I did a satin-lined hoodie with the agency for six months. They fronted everything but I just had to market it. That first collection had one black and one green hoodie. Then, at the end of 2019, I wanted to venture out and lean into what would become KIN Apparel. I gave NaturAll Club a one-month notice in March 2020 and then two weeks later was quarantine for COVID.

I’m the type of person to always have a plan B. I told myself I was going to lean into KIN Apparel and if it doesn’t amount to anything, I will be a full-time Youtuber. KIN Apparel ended up working out because I’m really good at social media marketing and everyone was home during the quarantine glued to their phones. I will tell you the algorithm was good in 2020!

Who do you lean on for support?

I was not leaning on anyone in 2020. I was really leaning on my community and knowledge to grow the brand. There were a lot of grants to come about that were for Black women and I won $70,000. Jamie Schmidt, the founder of Schmidt Naturals, her and her husband were giving away $100,000. I won $50,000 and it reassured me that I was on the right path. But what Jamie also told me was to look at what I built. I wasn’t just starting out. And the other $20,000 was from Shea Moisture and Brown Girl Jane. With these grants, I was able to buy inventory, do marketing, website branding and update the KIN Apparel logo.

What has been the most challenging lesson you’ve learned so far?

You know when people say growing pains, I say GROWING PAINS. I think everything that could happen to a small business has happened to me and I always just chuck it up. They are all learning experiences.

This has been my hardest year at KIN Apparel. In June, I got an email on a Friday saying that our warehouse was shutting down and we had a week to get out or face liquidation. If it wasn’t for good and dedicated people on my team, I don’t know where my inventory would be. As a clothing brand, what am I without my inventory? Thankfully my production manager who lives in Norway but was in Philly/New York the week this happened, she changed her flight and took a red eye to the fulfillment center to rally up the troops. They came up with a plan to get us out, move to a new warehouse and fulfill orders that had been placed. This all happened within a week.

Another lesson I learned from this is don’t hire so many people on salary because oftentimes they tend to check out and begin to cruise. I hired so many people on salary that [KIN Apparel] lost money. We have made $10 million since I started the company and each year we do better but that doesn’t mean we were profitable.

As a product-focused brand that needs content to sell, why do I have all of these people who are not on the marketing team? I need majority of my people in marketing and sales. This year, I woke up and realized I can make money and still be efficient. We went from a team of seven full-time employees to now a team of four employees, including one contractor.

One thing my investor Emma Grede from “Shark Tank” told me is that you never end with the people you start with. And she told me this back in early 2022 and I didn’t realize it until this year.

You recently wrapped up crowdfunding. How do you hope it will continue to set KIN Apparel up for the future?

We came out with about $340,00 from the KINfolk community of 500 investors. We want to put it in larger marketing campaigns. We were also able to hire PR, work with a creative agency for ads and do pop-ups to be in a physical space like ESSENCEFest.

What would you say your ancestors have taught you about perseverance?

Perseverance and being resilient goes hand in hand to me. I’ve been through a lot in life, but if anything building a relationship with God in 2020 is what made me a stronger person. I started praying, going to the gym and building a better routine for myself. I think out of everything my grandmother has told me, she always told me to believe in God. But you have to go through things to understand.

Any big words of advice for fellow Black entrepreneurs, especially young girls?

I would say it’s never easy, but you really have to have confidence and consistency. Trust in yourself first and what you are building. If you are able to do that to the best of your ability, people will flock to you because they love your aura and essence. Pursue whatever it is you want to do with the utmost confidence in that and yourself.

What has helped me is being surrounded by entrepreneurs. Surround yourself with people you look up to. Black women succeeding motivates me to keep going.