Tina Knowles launched hair care line Cécred with daughter Beyoncé after years of mixing custom hair treatments

Years before she was the matriarch for one of music’s most famous families, Tina Knowles started a business catering to professional women who needed their hair styled—and quickly.

Speaking on Wednesday at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in Santa Barbara, Knowles said Cécred, the hair care line she launched with her daughter Beyoncé Knowles Carter in February 2024, is the product of four decades in business, fashion, and entertainment. In the Houston hair salon where the Knowles matriarch started her career, she relied on products that had human hair ground into them to add protein to strands. Knowles would whip up butter and hot olive oil treatments to bring more moisture and balance to her clients’ hair, including her daughters. Knowles said both Knowles Carter and actress and singer-songwriter Solange Knowles worked in her salon.

“The dream has always been to create a product that had everything that you need in one product and one step,” Knowles told Fortune senior writer Sheryl Estrada. “And Beyoncé had that dream as well—because I was doing all those things to her hair.”

Knowles said Knowles Carter decided to fund the hair care line herself rather than working with outside investors because the two were so focused on research and development. Investors balked at the costs. Knowles said they wanted a product that wouldn’t merely lay on top........

© Fortune