We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful LaTasha Walker. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with LaTasha below.

LaTasha, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

What my parents did right was showing me what hard-work and dedication to your field means. My mother was a supervisor of a cleaning company, and my father was a small business owner. My mother took her job very serious as a supervisor of a cleaning company because she was a firm believer in “Whatever you do in life, make sure you are the best at it.” My mother, God rest her soul, was a person that kept her space clean and organized. She instilled those values into myself and my sibling. Being able to stay organized is a must when running a small business. I’m the owner, the employee, the driver, the delivery person, the social media marketing manager, and the accountant. I wear many hats with my business and being efficient and organized has helped a great deal in reaching our audience and making sure packages are mailed out in a timely fashion.
My father was a small business owner of a restaurant and catering business. He taught me the value of entrepreneurship and fulfilling your life dreams. My father worked long hard hours in order to make his dreams come true of owning and operating a restaurant and catering business in downtown St. Louis, MO. I would see him coming home, tired and worn out but yet fulfilled. It made me want to become my own Boss.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is LaTasha Walker and I’m the owner and operator of a small business, Heavenly Body and Hair Care LLC, that specialize in making all natural beauty products. I got into this business around 2015 when I was looking for an all-natural conditioner for my daughters hair and I could not find one that actually conditioned and detangled so I started to experiment with different natural oils and natural butters. Once I found a great combination, I wondered what other all natural ingredients could I experiment with to make different all natural products for my household. This is around the time I started to hear about harmful parabens and sulfates in hair products and it made me angry actually that companies were allowed to sell products that are harmful to human and animal life.I started making different all natural products such as soaps and body oils for myself and close friends and family.
I went to register Heavenly Body and Hair Care LLC in September 2020 in order to create affordable all natural products that have a purpose and that work. The hardest part of starting this business was the starting budget, I had limited funds. I started to buy inventory little by little and just putting it into storage. It took months and months to have enough inventory to start but it was well worth the wait and it also taught me a great deal about patience and endurance.
Everytime I make a sale it does something to me because someone is interested in a product I made with my own hands, and I know it sounds weirds, but having a person use my product just makes my heart smile. Everything is handmade and made in small batches and I want to keep it that way forever.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I knew Heavenly Body and Hair Care was my baby because my mother unexpectedly passed away September 2021, a year after we started. It took everything in me to continue to work and perfect my craft. Some days I allowed myself to grieve and other days I had to push myself out of bed and to the lab. After my mothers’ funeral, it took me weeks to even go back into my creative lab. My social media presence suffered because I was not posting daily, as I was before. Basically, I was a mess mentally and I did not know how to pick myself back up after this tragic loss in my life. I finally had enough of my own misery and went to my lab, I just looked around and touched different items on the shelves and I began to come alive again, just being in my special space. My soul woke back up and it felt good. Some days are better than others but I know my mother would want me to continue building and working on my dreams and that’s what gets me through those harder days.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

When this business idea started to take shape in my mind, I didn’t pay it much mind because I knew my funds were limited. I said to myself “I’ll just continue to make my own stash and my family products that they need”. But the more products I made the more I felt someone else has to be out there that would benefit from all natural products. I started to think maybe I could sell my products to more people and people at my church started to support me and then word of mouth got around and more people wanted to try my products. Once I felt like I actually wanted to start the real business with registering with the state, I knew I didn’t have the money to just start so I started ordering products and putting them in storage. I remember the first thing I ordered were shipping boxes. It took me months to get everything I needed together but I did it. Then I started to order bottles and jars to put the products in, everything seemed to be moving slow but it was moving and that’s all that mattered.
After months of buying inventory I was finally able to get a website and the rest is history.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://heavenlybodyandhaircare.com
• Instagram: @heavenlycareproducts
• Facebook: heavenlycareproducts
• Twitter: @heavenlycarepr2
• Other: TikTok: @heavenlycareproducts

Image Credits
N/A