T. Bernie, CEO COCOACHiC Beauty
www.COCOACHiC.com
www.myspace.com/cocoachicbeauty
www.youtube.com/cocoachicbeauty

COCOACHiC was born out of a lifelong, pure passion for cosmetics and pride in the beauty of black women. While doing part-time modeling in high school, I wrote an article for the city’s Sun-Sentinel newspaper discussing the need for companies to make cosmetics better suited for black women. In college, I interned at the Procter & Gamble Company in Public Affairs for the Olay and Secret brands.

Fast-forward ten years while working in financial services marketing, I scored a national writing debut in Honey magazine discussing the social stigma of being a dark-skinned woman.

At the beginning of my cosmetics career at The Estée Lauder Companies, I was exposed to new launch activities that moved me to acknowledge my inner voice and act on my intuition regarding the state of cosmetics and perception of the beauty of black women.

Putting all these experiences together with the mindset to do something, the sistapreneur within set loose. In 2004, I created COCOACHiC, a beauty brand and community dedicated to real beauty, diverse beauty, women, their style and their flow.

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What does your business offer customers? COCOACHiC.com is the first-ever cyber beauty community to offer women of brown skin shades comprehensive and relevant cosmetics, beauty and wellness information:

•   product reviews and expert advice
•   community chat with other members
•   exclusive giveaways, offers, events
•   chic merchandise
•   philanthropic causes
•   cool beauty links

COCOACHiC Beauty is also a boutique marketing firm that offers beauty companies a platform to connect to women of color beauty consumers.

Items available in the CHiC Boutique at www.cocoachic.com/boutique include COCOACHiC high-quality, private-label products as well as other brands such as Jane Carter and IMAN Cosmetics.

What do you love the most about running your business? Running COCOACHiC marries my love for cosmetics, marketing, the beauty of black women and touching people’s lives. It’s amazing and fulfilling to answer the beauty questions and needs that help women of color feel more confident.

I also love the different artisans and people I meet due to the cross-promotional nature of the way COCOACHiC does business – from the creative types like graphic designers, web developers, videographers, photographers, music executives and makeup artists, to celebrities, publicists, brand managers, other small business owners, members of our CHiC Clique and MySpace friends.

What makes your business unique? We are not just a cosmetics brand or just a blog, it’s bigger than that. COCOACHiC stands for black women’s unique style sensibilities in many forms. What makes COCOACHiC.com unique as “the ultimate online beauty source for women of color” is that we are multidimensional:

1)    Content goes beyond just product reviews, critiques and includes CHiC Pros expert features on renowned as well as the up & coming such as Celebrity Makeup Artist Sam Fine and Celebrity Natural Hair Artist Hair Nedjetti; demonstration and how-to videos; special editorial features such as SororityCHiC, BlackLuvCHiC, MoshoodCHiC and CelebrityCHiC

2)    Cosmetics beauty essentials like brushes, all natural lip balms and hair styling products are available for sale in our online boutique and we host and participate in beauty events such as Shecky’s Beauty Night Out, Circle of Sisters, and Henri Bendel trunk shows for people to meet us and engage with our products in person.

3)    Comment and share opinions on beauty and hair by voicing votes in our interactive polls and surveys or responding to reviews and starting new discussions on the CHiC CHAT message board.

4)    Community sponsorship programs (www.cocoachic.com/chiccauses), the first is contributions to Dress for Success with proceeds from sales of the CHiC Classique Silk Scarf and IMAN Beauty Success Kit, and the second is TeenCHiC (www.cocoachic.com/teenchic), a beauty education program of all-day workshops that builds self-confidence in young girls.

Community is what makes us different. No other beauty or hair website for women of color offers the range or variety of online and offline experiences of COCOACHiC.com.

How does your business positively contribute to the natural hair community? The “i” in COCOACHiC stands for “integrity”, which is part of our mission statement in positively influencing beauty perceptions of women of color. To represent the beauty of chocolate skin hues includes the range of skin tones, body shapes, spending habits, and skin and hair types. Relaxed, natural, mixed – we embrace all hair types.

I went natural while developing the initial business plan and launch of COCOACHiC, one reason being I felt it was important to relate to all aspects of beauty care for black women. It was such a cathartic and liberating process to cut off all my hair and release from chemical processing.

I gained a certain confidence in having my facial features stand out and reveling in discovering my true hair texture and kink pattern. My favorite hair brands include Hamadi, Kerastase, Bumble and bumble, Pantene, Aveda and Elasta QP.

We feature many natural and organic hair care product reviews, expert advice, interactive polls and giveaways that appeal specifically to the natural hair community. Some key links are below.

CHiC Critiques product reviews:

• Kinky-Curly – Budget Natural Hair Care
• Biracial Beauties: Care for the Curls

CHiC Pros expert features:

• Nedjetti, Celebrity Natural Hair Artist (September 2006)
• Jamal Hamadi, Owner Hamadi Beauty Organic Hair Care (March 2007)
• Great Head by Hamadi

CHiC Links:
Hair Websites

CHiC Boutique:
Jane Carter Solutions natural hair care products for sale

Voice & Vote poll:
Hair Poll sponsored by Pantene® - Participants receive a free sample of Pantene Relaxed & Natural

Get Goodies free giveaways:
Hair Care Travel Bag compliments of our friends at Elasta QP:

•     Reflect Sheen Spray
•     Design Foam Recovery Conditioner
•    Glaze Conditioning Gel
•     Feels Like Silk Styling Gel
•    Mango Butter Moisturizer

Where are your goals for your business in the future? Just like hair, the future goals for COCOACHiC, naturally, are to grow organically through grass roots tell-another-sister and to nourish the content needs of women of color and the business opportunities for beauty companies large and small that enlist us to help them market to these consumers appropriately.

In the near future, we want to increase visitors and membership to our website, tour nationally to meet more women in person, and feature more demonstration videos. Ultimately, we want to syndicate our content, retail more COCOACHiC private-label and popular brand products, open a physical boutique retail space, and distribute our products in well-known retailers like Sephora and Target.

As a matter of fact we want to become “the black Sephora” and be the content and retail destination for brown beauty. It’s about empowerment and a new wave of Madam CJ Walker - style entrepreneurship. We must OWN our beauty. COCOACHiC truly personifies the legacy and future of black beauty and its business.

Any final words?

The first “C” in COCOACHiC is for “Confidence”. Be fierce and firm in your dedication to your passion. Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.