The Halifax Entrepreneur Changing The Hair Care Conversation
HALIFAX–Tiffani Young never wanted to be a business owner. But, over the past two years, the Halifax native and founder of Natural Butter Bar has built a thriving business anyway.
Natural Butter Bar is a line of all-natural products that help different types of skin and hair look their best. Young created them in her basement out of necessity. But, through word of mouth and a sincere desire to help, quickly turned Butter Bar into a successful brand.
Butter Bar products are for everyone–but Young created them primarily with black women in mind. Her goal is to make it simple for people to find the products they need to care for textured hair.
No Options For Natural Hair
Young started relaxing her hair when she was 14.
“I begged my mom to relax my hair because I grew up in predominantly white communities,” she explains.
“I was usually one of the only black kids, definitely in my class but sometimes in my whole school. In my head, I thought, ‘well if I have straight hair I’ll fit in better.’ It was just this very skewed perception of what I was supposed to look like.”
But in her mid-20s she started thinking more about the harsh chemicals she was using on her hair but wasn’t supposed to let touch her skin. She found YouTube creators embracing their natural curls and teaching other black women how to properly care for their hair.
“I was like, why can’t I do that? Why do I have to change the hair that is naturally growing out of my head just to fit in? If I don’t fit in somewhere, well, that’s their problem, not mine.”
Young went looking for the products that would help her manage her natural hair but quickly found they were scarce, and expensive, in Halifax.
So she started making products for herself at home. Once she found what worked her hair “really started to flourish.” After a couple of years, people started stopping her on the street complimenting her curls and asking her what she was using.
Before she started working full-time on Butter Bar, Young was a youth outreach worker with Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Halifax. She remembers one young girl in particular who would always comment on her hair.
“And then one day she showed up and was wearing her afro and she was like, ‘look, Miss Tiffany, I’m wearing my hair like yours.’ And I was like, you know, representation really does matter. Sometimes you’re doing things for yourself and you don’t realize how much of an impact you’re having on others.
“That was my moment when I decided I’m definitely never going back.”
Building A Business From Her Basement
Young says she had thought about turning her homemade hair-care products into a business but it wasn’t until she and her husband sat down for a brainstorming session that it started to feel real.
“That session really brought Butter Bur into its full vision; basically, I could finally see it. And so that’s really where it started,” she says.
Young says she and her husband decided she would use her maternity leave to try and start Natural Butter Bar as a full-blown business. In December 2020, with an infant still at home, she officially launched the business.
During the day she took care of her kids and by night she worked on the business, mixing products in a production space in her basement.
She says word spread fast, and with support from her community the business took off. Last month, she was scheduled to return to work after an 18-month absence but decided to make Natural Butter Bar her full-time job.
Now, her products are available in a handful of shops in the HRM and she’s doing brisk business online. She says she just finished working with Dalhousie University, which helped her refine the formula for an all-natural shampoo line she plans to release in April.
She says she’s looking to increase her distribution channels and hopes to eventually see her products in pharmacies everywhere.
Changing The Hair Care Conversation
Young says the cosmetic industry has often treated the black community “like kind of an afterthought.”
“Most of the time, there are a lot of products on the shelves—especially when it comes to hair and skincare—that are actually harmful to our skin and our hair,” she says.
Shampoos stuffed with sulfate and conditioners full of silicone dry out black hair and cause it to break. And Young says there usually aren’t many alternatives.
“There are not many choices out there when it comes to caring for black hair, so I really wanted to create a line that had black people in mind first,” she says.
“Especially within the black community, so many of us have been relaxing our hair for so long that we don’t even know what our natural curl pattern is. And then when we do allow that to grow we have no idea how to manage it.”
Young says that’s why she gives free consultations to customers, even if it means recommending products she doesn’t sell. For her, the business has always been more about “helping people embrace their natural beauty” than making money.
“It’s about helping people and also shining a spotlight on those that are typically left out of the conversation when it comes to beauty and hair and skincare.”
In an industry built on empty words that often sound nice but are ultimately about profit, Young’s apparent sincerity is refreshing. She says looking good can make you feel good and, at the end of the day, that’s what she wants to give her customers.
She thinks about the little girl, all those years ago, who was inspired by her hair.
“Sometimes you think, ‘it’s a hairstyle, like, what’s that going to do for people?’ But then I think back to when I was younger and if I had had more representation, and if I had had more people that looked like me, then maybe I would have never relaxed my hair in the first place.”
Trevor Nichols is the associate editor of Huddle, based in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].