This week I sat down with Pearl Parker (senior, English) who discussed her exciting journey as a social media influencer promoting Black-owned businesses and their beauty products.
What types of things do you do as an influencer in beauty products for Black women? What is your primary goal?
As an influencer, I primarily promote a lot of Black-owned or Black-founded haircare businesses. I think it's extremely important to put money into Black-owned businesses because it directly helps these business owners and the Black community. However, sometimes I will promote products based on my general liking or brands will send me products to try out, whether that be through gifted campaigns, a paid collaboration, or paid campaign. My primary focus is to empower both men and women to embrace their natural hair.
What inspired you to start doing this and why is it important to you?
It primarily started because I struggled with my natural hair a few years back. I was struggling to embrace it, struggling to style my hair and, at many points, I didn't like my hair at all. Overall, I found that learning about my hair, creating new styles, and finding products that work best for me helped me to embrace my natural hair. Then this bloomed into my passion of wanting to help others learn more about how to do the same. This is why this platform and being an influencer is very important to me. Knowing how to style your hair, how to manage it, and how to keep it healthy is extremely important. And on my platform, I'm able to share tips, give advice, show hair tutorials and recommend products tailored for curly hair. I also love creating new hairstyles and giving individuals inspiration on fun ways that they can style their hair, but overall it makes me feel great knowing that I'm able to help those on their hair journey. It feels great knowing that a lot of people are inspired by me and support my platform.
What have been some challenges you faced as you began to become an influencer?
When I was first becoming an influencer, I was facing a lot of doubt, doubt within myself, as well as the many individuals who doubted me and what I was doing. People doubted my capability and they didn't think that this passion of mine would really go anywhere. I also heard a lot of discouraging comments, especially when I first started. However, regardless of what people thought, I was still dealing with the battle within myself. A lot of times I was thinking, is this passion worth my time and effort? Will it go anywhere? And a big one was, will I even achieve any of my goals in regards to this?
What have been accomplishments you've achieved along the way?
My biggest accomplishment so far was working with the brand CurlMix. It was seen on Shark Tank a couple of years ago. I worked with them on a campaign and it was super rewarding. I felt honored to work with them because they are a well known, Chicago-based company. Another big accomplishment of mine was working for the fashion brand, Asodara. My most memorable experience was doing an Instagram Live tutorial with their head wraps. They have like 31,000 followers, so it was a really exciting thing to do. I have smaller accomplishments as well, such as brands reposting my hair tutorials on their pages. Overall, I'm really thankful for these opportunities and accomplishments because I wouldn't be able to do any of them without God.
Do you feel that your major in English and minor in marketing have helped you during this process?
Initially, I didn't think they would because for a while I was more focused on academic writing. And there's definitely a difference between business writing and creative writing. I had to learn how to be flexible in different areas with my own writing and learn how to transfer the knowledge that I was learning in my English classes over to what I was doing on my social media pages. Overall, I think it's really helped especially with all the tools and insight I've gained from my major in English as well as minor in marketing.
Do you plan to continue this after graduation? And if so, what are your future plans?
I do plan on continuing after graduation. My primary plan would be to get more professional tech like cameras, a new laptop, and editing software programs. Right now, I film everything on my iPhone 11 and it is really difficult to edit on that. I want to make sure that I'm increasing the quality of my content as well as the transitions. I also want to focus more on my YouTube channel, creating longer tutorials and educational videos. I feel like I need to start stepping up and investing more into this passion.
Can you name a few products that you have really liked or would recommend to others?
My main disclaimer talking about hair products would be that not every hair product that works for me is going to work for someone else. However, I would definitely recommend the brands Shea Moisture, Cream of Nature, and TGIN. Overall, there are a lot of products that I like, but the most important thing when looking for good natural hair products is to ensure that they have clean ingredients in them.
Check out Pearl’s Instagram, Youtube, and Tik Tok to view product reviews and tutorials.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.