Sally Beauty Holdings, the leader in professional hair color, just launched its third Cultivate Accelerator Program focused on bringing beauty entrepreneurs' business plans and visions to life.
Consistent with its mission to bring professional-quality products to consumers and professionals through Sally Beauty and Cosmo Prof respectively, the program was created to find, launch, and support small businesses that created unique and innovative products within the hair care, hair color, styling tool, and nail
categories. A pioneer when it comes to launching undiscovered brands, Sally Beauty was the first national beauty retailer to offer in-store distribution to Mielle Organics, The Mane Choice, and Arctic Fox. "It is extremely challenging for new brands to break into the beauty industry due to its competitive nature.
We want to give entrepreneurs a chance they otherwise might not receive," said Maryann Herskowitz, Group Vice President of Merchandising at Sally Beauty. This was the impetus behind the launch of the Cultivate Accelerator Program in 2018.
It was conceived as a program that provides new brands with the opportunity to scale their business by offering distribution and access to a national audience. It propelled winning brands Curlanista and PuffCuff to new heights.
Ceata Lash, Founder of PuffCuff, shared that "receiving the President's Innovation Award and being accepted into the Cultivate Program was an entrepreneurial 'pinch me' moment. We were thrown into the retail side of e-commerce where we learned invaluable lessons at a breakneck pace in real-time…
