Black History Month: Miami Native Lulu Cordero Becomes First Afro-Dominicana With Hair Line At Target
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - As CBS News Miami continues to celebrate Black History Month, a story of a young girl raised in North Miami who had a hard time finding hair products she could use growing up. Now she's helping put more products on store shelves so others don't have to struggle the way she did.
Her name is Lulu Cordero, and she is the founder of Bomba Curls.
Her products made it to big retailer shelves this past year, but the company has always helped celebrate Black hair since its inception.
"I grew up in a world where curls and natural hair weren't necessarily celebrated or embraced. I am a black Latina. And so for a very long time, the standard of beauty didn't look like look like me," explained Cordero.
Cordero immigrated with her parents to North Miami as a young child in the 80s.
"My parents are from the Dominican Republic, my dad got to this country, and he worked as a dishwasher and that was his first job in the U.S. and then he was also a security guard," Cordero said.
To see him get up every day and work, and sacrifice to build a better life for the family lit a fire in Cordero. Later it fueled her switch from becoming a physician to starting her own business.
"Going around beauty hair shops and trying to help, you know, curly hair stylists understand the product and just doing it that way," she explained.
Cordero started out dropping off samples at beauty stores and salons in Miami Lakes. She was her own representative and salesperson.
"Over time this would thin out and be sparse, my mom was the one that suggested that I turn to those ancestral remedies," Cordero explained of thinning hair.
One of her signature products to help address that is called Forbidden Oil.
"I knew my formulas were rock solid, and in my case, I was like, you know what just try it, I want to leave somebody with some samples," she would tell potential clients.
The key ingredient is coffee beans, it helps to stimulate hair root. It grew to be popular, but not before a series of rejections.
"Every single day, you're hit with challenges. Every single day like it was something new and it requires having a certain level of grit and I'm grateful to my upbringing and that helped give me that grit that you need in order to make the dream happen."
Her first big deal was with Nordstrom, Target followed more recently.
This William H. Turner Technical Arts High School grad is very proud of helping a new generation with the hair product she never had.
Bomba Curls now has a full line of beauty supplies for hair care, including vitamins.
