When Katrina launched Shades of Melanin Hair, her mission was simple yet powerful: to help women embrace their crowns with confidence. What started as a vision to provide high-quality, natural-looking extensions that blend seamlessly with every texture has evolved into a thriving beauty brand championing self-love, representation, and resilience. From morning prayers to late-night vendor meetings, Katrina’s journey reflects not just entrepreneurship—but endurance, evolution, and empowerment. Now, she’s leading a movement that celebrates mature beauty, challenges fleeting trends, and reminds every woman that her crown never goes out of style.
FEMI: When you first launched Shades of Melanin, what was your foundational vision — and how has that evolved over time? If you were to reboot the company today, what would you do differently from the start?
KATRINA: The vision was and still is, to help Women embrace their crown. To be able to have a hair company that provides good quality hair that last, blends with their natural hair and offer a variety of styles and colors. Over time as more and more women have grown to know Shades of Melanin Hair we are increasing daily. The only thing I may have done differently was to cater to my age bracket and older first, offering grey hair at the beginning. But then again, the path I took was the path I should be on.
FEMI: Walk me through a typical day in your life as CEO. What routines, rituals, or non-negotiables do you use to stay focused, productive, and resilient — especially on days when things go off course?
KATRINA: From morning prayer, answering emails, checking inventory, helping my team process and prepare orders. There’s meetings with my vendors daily, networking sessions, education sessions to learn new skills. It’s a lot that happens everyday including Saturdays. Sundays I rest and do absolutely nothing but go to church, cook dinner and watch Lifetime. When things go off course my anxiety kicks in real bad. Then I have to stop and say to myself, “ breathe and focus”. You got this girl!
FEMI: In the beauty / hair space, trends shift rapidly. How do you identify which trends to lean into and which to skip? Can you share a recent trend that inspired a pivot or new idea at Shades of Melanin?
KATRINA: I use to focus on trends but now I focus on what is needed. Women over 40 as myself being 48. We tend to focus on what works for us and what makes us feel good. We tend to let the younger generation have those trends. Girl I can’t keep up. I’m always asking my daughters what this mean, why this or what happened to that. I pivoted about two years ago. I was talking to my mentor and was telling her my business was extremely slow in the summer and fall seasons. Even though it was hotter other hair companies were still booming and I didn’t understand why mines wasn’t. I mean I wasn’t expecting booming but something. I was getting no sales for months or five sales a month. So I pivoted and focused on an older audience and other colors besides black and blonde. Like our Brown hair collection comes in two colors and it’s already colored and available year round, not just in the Fall & Winter seasons.
FEMI: What marketing channels, messaging strategies, or content formats have been most effective for you (especially for reaching people of color or melanin-rich communities)? And how do you balance authenticity with scale as you grow?
KATRINA: I marketed by doing Billboards in New York, TV news productions, Celebrity highlights such as Octavia Spencer, Monica (the singer) Stephanie Charles, Ciara Peyton, Jekalyn Carr (gospel singer), Drea Kelly, Influencers, Networking. We were in the MLK Parade a few years back and handed out over 50 bundles. I was able to get all the celebs on my own with no help. I had a PR team at one point and let them go a couple years ago because I felt I was getting anywhere. I was doing more work than them by myself just for them to repost every celeb that tagged me like they did something. I was like, oh we not doing this. So I sent them a letter for us to terminate my contract. I’m always honest and I feel when you are honest and genuine, ppl will relate to you more and trust you. I will tell ppl in a minute, I struggled with sales and it wasn’t until 2025 is when my business took off like a rocket! Mind you I stated in 2019.
FEMI: What’s on the roadmap for Shades of Melanin — new products, services, or innovations you’re most excited about? How do you decide which ideas to greenlight, and what criteria do you use to know when it’s time to expand versus deepen your core offerings?
KATRINA: We are currently in production to expand our gray collection to more grey toned colors. The testing process has been completed, now we are prepping.
As Shades of Melanin Hair continues to grow, Katrina’s vision remains crystal clear: to inspire women to embrace every strand of who they are—gray, golden, or bold. With her new gray-toned collection on the horizon and a growing audience of loyal customers, she’s proof that grace and grit can coexist beautifully. Her story is more than a brand success—it’s a blueprint for women who dare to pivot, persist, and glow through every season of life.
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