Years before she was the matriarch for one of music’s most famous families, Tina Knowles started a business catering to professional women who needed their hair styled—and quickly.
Speaking on Wednesday at the Fortune Most Powerful Women’s Summit in Santa Barbara, Calif., Knowles said Cécred, the hair-care line she launched with her daughter Beyoncé Knowles Carter in February 2024, is the product of four decades in business, fashion, and entertainment. In the Houston hair salon where the Knowles matriarch started her career, she relied on products that had human hair ground into them to add protein to strands, and Knowles would add in oils, butters, and other moisturizers to bring balance to her clients’ hair, including her daughters. Knowles said both Knowles Carter and actress and singer-songwriter Solange Knowles worked in her salon.
“The dream has always been to create a product that had everything that you need in one product and one step,” Knowles told Fortune senior writer Sheryl Estrada. “And Beyonce had that dream as well—because I was doing all those things to her hair.”
Knowles said Knowles Carter decided to fund the hair-care line herself rather than working with outside investors because the two were so focused on research and development. Investors balked at the costs. Knowles said they wanted a product that wouldn’t merely lay on top of strands to make it feel smooth, but instead they wanted a product that could penetrate the pores of all types of hair textures.
“Our customers have done the marketing for us because it’s really a quality product,” said Knowles.
The line is a family story, Knowles told Estrada. Her daughters first worked sweeping Knowles’s Headliners salon, and Knowles said she worked with plenty of entrepreneurial women there. Blockbuster musical group Destiny’s Child got its start performing for salon customers.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
