'I was forced to use a shoe brush for my hair, so I created a global business for black ladies curls'

Treasure Tress is Europe's largest natural hair product discovery box for textured hair

Jamelia remembers doing an internship in China when she ran out of hair care products. Desperate for black haircare which was rare in the 2000s, she was forced to use a shoe brush.

This unfortunate experience made her realise the massive gap in haircare for black women. After all, she grew up seeing one type of hairstyle on TV, perfectly straight hair and not a kink in sight.

The Aston University graduate founded Treasure Tress, a discovery box service delivering top haircare products to women and girls with textured hair. Drawing on her childhood styling classmates hair in the playground, Jamelia was driven to make black girls proud of their curls.

After months of balancing her start-up and a gruelling corporate career, she decided to run Treasure Tress full time and created Europe's largest natural hair product discovery box. So how did Jamelia go from playground hair stylist to global business owner?

Jamelia Donaldson, 33, said: "As a child I was entrepreneurial, at primary school I earned pocket money doing kids hair in the playground and in secondary school people came to my house and I did their hair.

"I wanted to be a hairstylist but my mother thought it was a limiting career so I set my sights on becoming a lawyer."

Originally from London, Jamelia applied for Business and International Relations at Aston University which offered a one year internship in Beijing. As she drank in the Eastern architecture she panicked when she lost her haircare products.

As the only black person for miles she was forced to run a shoe brush through her curly hair. It was this humiliating experience which lit a fire in her to fill the black haircare gap. She said: "It was alien and desperation. I was one of the only black girls for miles and you are the centre of attention, my hair was an added layer of complexity.

"Growing up it was terrible, the only option in media was to relax your hair, which means chemically straighten your hair which is permeant. Data shows a relationship between relaxers, fibroids and cancer in black women.

"Growing up the media only promoted one image of black beauty. I got back and worked in a corporate career, in my second year however I still wanted to solve this hair issue.

"I started an Instagram page to collect data from people to know if there was a need for the service. I didn't know what I was doing or where to even source a cardboard box from.

"I launched the first Treasure Tress box and had to balance corporate career with start-up. I woke up at 4-5am, work for about two hours, go to work 7am-7pm and get back to working on Treasure Tress.

"This included building pitch decks for brands, figuring out what the business could be and finding brands. By month eight I was completely burnt out so I exited my job and put my all into Treasure Tress."

Jamelia sourced haircare products for curly hair and sent discovery boxes of them to clients, everyone from mixed-race, Asian and Mediterranean women. She stacked boxes in her bedroom, then garage, front room, dining room and finally warehouse.

The business expanded globally and serves 46 countries and works with over 250 beauty brands. Now Jamelia splits her time between Birmingham and London, even opening a successful pop up shop in City Centre last year.

Treasure Tress also won the Channel 4 initiative Black in Business, where she scored £100,000 worth of TV advertising and mentorship. She said: "Older women say this is what they needed growing up and other women were happy their daughters had this service.

"It meant they would see their natural hair as normal. I feel very proud. Progress has been made, we launched the teen experience which were personal development workshops for Black teen girls age 12-19.

"I noticed they were so confident in their skin and the challenges we faced growing up didn't faze them, and they embraced their hair."

Applications for Black in Business are now open and will close on October 28. Click here for more information.