The companies affiliated with the popular beauty product brand Carol’s Daughter filed for bankruptcy.
Founded by Lisa Price, a former writer for The Cosby Show in 1993, Carol’s Daughter specializes in natural beauty products with a focus on black women. Price started selling her handmade product at flea markets and is considered a grassroots success in the industry. Several high profile celebrities lent their support to the company, including Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, Jay Z and others. Halle Berry once gave a gift basket of the products to Oprah, who did a feature on the line.
According to The Wall Street Journal, despite being in more than 2,000 stores nationwide, the company has struggled to make a profit for several years:
CD Stores LLC, formerly known as Carol’s Daughter Stores LLC, filed its Chapter 11 petition with the Manhattan bankruptcy court, as did the individual companies behind Carol’s Daughter stores. Court papers show that CD Stores is 100% owned by parent company Carol’s Daughter Holdings LLC (the parent company didn’t file for bankruptcy). And the petition, which reported assets and debts each in the $1 million to $10 million range, was signed by Carol’s Daughter Chief Financial Officer John D. Elmer.
In new court papers filed Thursday afternoon, Mr. Elmer said most Carol’s Daughter stores have been unprofitable since 2010. Before the bankruptcy filing, the company closed all but two of its seven stores and terminated 29 of its 42 employees. It hopes to use its time in Chapter 11 to reorganize and consolidate its operations around its two open stores, in Brooklyn and Harlem. Besides the stores, Carol’s Daughter products are offered for sale on its website and through such third parties as the Home Shopping Network and Sephora.
Don’t worry; the company isn’t going anywhere right now! You can still get their products on their website and through a lot of other retail outlets, including Target.
Image via Carol’s Daughter.