Jerricha Hoskins: from a homeless woman to owner of $2m hair care brand
A fascination borne of admiration and respect usually attends any story of success depicting a life that experienced squalor and hardship.
Such is the life of Jerricha Hoskins who turned her life around from a homeless woman to the proprietor of the fastest-growing Black-owned hair care brands, Arcani Coil Care.
A cosmetologist whose line produces vegan-based temporary hair colors, men’s beard care kits, kids mousse and her bestseller “Enthroned Edges’ ‘ edge control, Hoskins was able to put up and drive the business to its success path in just a couple of years.
“I’ve always wanted to be like Madam CJ Walker. And I’ve been using all the products on the market but it just didn’t work out for me. I used the most popular products and it just did nothing. So I started formulating things and just introduced it to the public,” Hoskins said.
She had a very challenging childhood growing up, however, her resilience led her to create and own a business worth $2 million. “In a little over two years, I built like a two million dollar business,” Hoskins said.
According to WDTN, Hoskins used to be in foster care and lived in homeless shelters. When she was 15 years old, her mother left her in foster care at Daybreak Dayton, a youth services organization.
By age 18 Hoskins had become a single mother and homeless too. “I remember changing his diaper once and I would like to see his hip bones and I just broke down like I can’t even, like, feed him,” she said.
She was determined to make a better life for her son as well as others. Realizing that none of the popular hair care products she was using really worked for her she started formulating things and just “introduced it to the public.”
Her determination coupled with the right formula resulted in the birth of “Arcani Coil Care” worth $2 million. Arcani Coil Care is a natural hair care line featuring tear-free kids’ shampoo, leave-in conditioners, lock cream, edge control and more.
According to the Dayton Business Journal, a business that started as a grassroots campaign on social media grew to sell almost $2 million in items, shipping 90,000 units of edge control alone.
The company operates from 2809 Philadelphia Drive in Dayton and Hoskins is now a mother of six with staff made up of mostly single mothers and foster kids who are aging out of the system.
“I’m very passionate about working with at-risk youth because I was an at-risk youth at one time. I know that if I was able to see something like this at an earlier stage it would’ve given me that extra push,” she said.
Her products have traveled around the world to Zambia, Canada and the Caribbean with Houston, Atlanta and Chicago being her top American suppliers.