As we grow older, millennials and mature Gen Z’s are starting to develop a certain degree of nostalgia for our younger days. The food we loved, the shows we watched, and even the everyday tasks we did with our parents that we took for granted back then. For instance, remember those times of sitting at the kitchen table while our moms styled our hair? The hair barrettes, scalp grease, and rat tail comb all harken back to a simpler period. Do you feel that? Yea, me too.
Jasmine Carr felt it too.
When the 25-year-old North Carolina native launched her beauty company Pizazz by Jazz Cosmetics in 2017, she knew she wanted to set herself apart from what she’d been seeing. The brand was started during the height of the beauty influencing era when makeup companies were pumping millions of dollars into constantly releasing new, glitzy yet gimmicky products that were well packaged, but didn’t really connect with Carr on a visceral level.
Conversely, the self-proclaimed “Theme Queen” said she wanted to evoke real emotions through her products.
“For my first collection, I started out with a weed-themed line that included items specific to a smokers’ experience, which was ok, but it’d been done before,” she said, also pointing out that the collection didn’t receive as much attention or sales.
It was then Carr realized she needed to draw from her own experience to make the collections emotionally connect with consumers. One of her most popular to date is the Don’t Touch My Hair Collection which pays homage to all of the staples of a Black girl’s hair journey. The line includes the Doo Glow highlighter, created to look like the classic Doo Grow hair grease, a Pump It Up rosewater facial spray, a take on the classic holding spritz, and Sulface8 lip gloss, which, you guessed it, is a nod to Sulfur grease–although it doesn’t have the characteristic smell we loved to hate.
She says she allows her creative process to be guided by her authentic experiences.
“My creative process is honestly what I feel,” said Carr. “The Don’t Touch My Hair Collection was just mostly my memories. My grandmother doing my hair on Sunday. Me asking her ‘can I go play outside?’ ‘No. Go get the barrette box. You got school tomorrow. Got to get your hair done.’ And remember holding your ear down for the hot comb?”
Yes, I do. Along with many other Black women too. She correctly points out those products she honors in the collection “really held the Black community together for a very long time and we just innately understand certain things we see right away.”
Other wildly popular lines are her 2000s collection, which includes an eyeshadow palette with shade names like ‘106 & Park’, and the Fresh Princess Collection, themed around the cult classic TV show, the Fresh Prince. The meticulous curation of the products paid off, with Karyn Parsons who played Hilary Banks on the famed series singing the collection’s praises.
“She actually acknowledged the brand on Twitter,” she shared. “I couldn’t believe it.”
This was particularly shocking because Carr primarily promotes the products via the brand’s official Instagram and TikTok accounts, and doesn’t own a Twitter, yet it still went viral there.
“It just really speaks to how much we need products that tap into our specific, yet universally Black experiences–I’m here to give them that.”