Meet the Black family behind Luster’s Pink lotion and the plan to modernize a 70-year legacy

The useful part

Meet the Black family behind the Luster's Pink hair lotion you grew up with. TheGrio Opens in a new tab Meet the Black family behind the Luster's Pink hair lotion you grew up with For nearly 70 years, Luster Products has been a fixture in Black haircare. Now, the founder's granddaughter, Resa Luster-Mac, is carrying the family legacy into a new generation.

How it works

• He eventually made his way to Chicago, where he worked as a barber on the South Side before creating the products that would become Luster Products.
• However, today in a world of social media algorithms and content creation, brands need more than just good products to reach consumers.
• We know they work hard for their money, so we work extra hard behind the scenes." "One thing I want people to know about Luster is that we are a one-stop shop, meaning we care about our formulations.
• Though she is part of the third generation to work for the family company, Luster-Mac says she was never pressured to take over the family business.
• However, she admits that when she was brought in for an internship, she did not imagine her father would hire her.

What to take from it

"To keep your clientele as a barber, they've got to want to come back because you provide great service," she said. It lived on your grandmother's vanity and in your family's hair drawer, a bottle your mother reached for on Sunday nights somewhere between the wide-tooth comb and the silk scarf. Just as that bottle was passed down through generations, so was the company behind it.

Example or evidence

• "Whatever we make in this building, we're using it on ourselves," she continued, noting that she uses Luster products in her and her family's haircare routine.
• Yet for most of that run, consumers knew very little about the family behind the brand.
• "That was by design," Resa Luster-Mac, chief marketing officer of Luster Products and granddaughter of founder Fred Luster Sr., told theGrio.
• He grew up in Mississippi, where his family was forced off the farm they lived on when he was a child after people realized they were Black.

Details worth keeping

Odds are it was rubbed into your curls, waves or coils as a child. The reason, she explained, goes back to her grandfather's upbringing. Those experiences behind the chair, she says, shaped his entire approach to business.

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