In honor of Black Business Month, we shine a light on Cierra Washington, better known as Promise B Mae, a visionary entrepreneur who has turned her name into a brand and her ideas into empires. With six-figure businesses spanning entertainment, wellness, auto sales, and now beauty, Promise has built a reputation as a multi-hyphenate powerhouse unafraid to break barriers and unapologetically chart her own path.
At the end of this month, she will open Baddies R Us, an all-pink luxury beauty bar located in the same shopping center where she grew up. With the bold tagline “Bringing Luxury to the Hood,” the salon is more than just a space for hair, makeup, and lashes, it’s also the set for a new reality TV series that will pull back the curtain on the drama, artistry, and ambition of the beauty industry.
Promise is no stranger to building culture-shifting platforms. She’s the founder of The Nyx Network, a Black woman-led streaming platform, the producer of The Real West Coast Baddies, and the creator of highly successful wellness and beauty brands like The Box Detox and Buss Down Hair Goddess. With each new venture, she continues to prove that Black women can build, scale, and dominate industries on their own terms.
We sat down with Promise to talk about her newest project, her fearless approach to business, and what Black Business Month means to her.
What does it mean to you personally to open Baddies R Us in the same shopping center where you grew up?
Opening Baddies R Us in the very shopping center I grew up around is such a full-circle moment for me. It makes me feel truly accomplished, like I’m living out that “buy back the block” dream. To be able to bring something this beautiful and upscale into my own neighborhood means everything. It’s proof to the little girls in my community that they can grow up and do it too, that they can build something of their own, right where they come from.
The tagline “Bringing Luxury to the Hood” is powerful! How do you want your community to feel when they walk into your establishment?
That tagline is bold just like me. I chose it because I wanted to make a statement: I’m not running away from my community, I’m investing back into it. Too often, people make it out and forget where they came from. I wanted to show the opposite. I’m putting hundreds of thousands of dollars back into my hood because we are worth it. When people walk into Baddies R Us, I want them to feel like they just stepped onto Rodeo Drive or into a luxury Beverly Hills salon. It’s about creating a safe, elevated space where people from my community feel like they belong in luxury, because they absolutely do.
You’ve successfully built brands across industries from wellness to entertainment. How do you decide which ventures to pursue and when?
Every business I’ve started has come to me as a sign. With my wellness company, I saw people, including myself—struggling with things like painful periods or fertility challenges, and I wanted to solve those problems holistically. With The Nyx Network, it started when I auditioned for another network and didn’t get the spot. I felt like I had wasted time, and instead of sitting in that disappointment, I created my own lane and started producing my own reality shows. I always pay attention to those moments when God or life gives me a push. It’s like the sign telling me “this is what you’re meant to do.”
With Baddies R Us doubling as both a beauty bar and a reality TV set, how do you see beauty, entertainment, and entrepreneurship working together in this space?
This space is about the hustle, the art, and the story all in one. People are going to see the behind-the-scenes of what really happens in a salon, whether it’s stylists competing on who does the best installs, a stylist juggling multiple businesses, or even conflicts about keeping stations clean. That’s entertainment. But at the same time, it highlights the entrepreneurship, the grind, and the creativity that goes into beauty culture. Beauty, entertainment, and business naturally overlap and Baddies R Us is where all three will shine together.
As a Black woman leading multiple six-figure businesses, what advice do you have for other women who want to scale their visions into reality?
My advice is simple: just do it. Don’t sit around daydreaming about what you want to build and take action. If you want to open a salon, start by touring spaces. If you want to launch a product, start by researching what will set yours apart. Even if your first step is just writing your ideas down in your notes, it’s action. You can’t manifest a dream without movement. There’s really nothing to it but to do it.
In honor of Black Business Month, what’s your perspective on how communities can better support and sustain Black-owned businesses year-round?
Supporting Black businesses doesn’t always mean spending big money, it can be as simple as reposting, sharing, and spreading the word on social media. Book an appointment, buy a product, or tell a friend. A lot of the time, support is free and takes only a second, but it makes a huge difference. If we want Black-owned businesses to thrive, we have to make sure we’re uplifting them not just in August, but every month of the year.
With Baddies R Us, Promise B Mae isn’t just opening a salon. She’s creating a cultural hub where beauty meets business, entertainment, and empowerment. True to her brand, she’s showing her community, and the world, that luxury isn’t out of reach. It’s right here, in the neighborhood where it all started.
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