November 20, 2025 • 8 mins
Shaina Rainford is the Founder and CEO of Bask & Lather Co., a nine-figure, bootstrapped, Black-owned haircare brand rooted in science, heritage, and purpose—and recognized as the fastest-growing textured haircare brand in the industry. A board-certified nurse practitioner, Shaina launched the company in 2020 after both she and her younger sister experienced significant hair loss. Inspired by the natural remedies their mother created to restore their hair, Bask & Lather evolved from a family solution into a global movement built on integrity, innovation, and community.
At its heart, Bask & Lather Co. is more than a beauty brand—it’s a safe space for women to feel seen, supported, and empowered to conquer their hair goals. With clean, science-backed formulations that promote healthy, thriving hair from the scalp up, the brand has helped millions of customers worldwide grow in both confidence and results. Its viral social presence, fueled entirely by organic storytelling and authentic customer transformations has made Bask & Lather the #1 Black-owned haircare brand on Amazon and a top-ranked brand on TikTok Shop.
Recognized on the 2025 Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies (No. 1008 overall and No. 20 in retail and CPG), Bask & Lather continues to redefine beauty by celebrating sisterhood, self-love, and the shared journey of growth—inside and out.
Connect with Shaina:
Website: www.baskandlatherco.com
Instagram: @baskandlatherco | @_ceoshay_
LinkedIn: Shaina Rainford
At its heart, Bask & Lather Co. is more than a beauty brand—it’s a safe space for women to feel seen, supported, and empowered to conquer their hair goals. With clean, science-backed formulations that promote healthy, thriving hair from the scalp up, the brand has helped millions of customers worldwide grow in both confidence and results. Its viral social presence, fueled entirely by organic storytelling and authentic customer transformations has made Bask & Lather the #1 Black-owned haircare brand on Amazon and a top-ranked brand on TikTok Shop.
Recognized on the 2025 Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies (No. 1008 overall and No. 20 in retail and CPG), Bask & Lather continues to redefine beauty by celebrating sisterhood, self-love, and the shared journey of growth—inside and out.
Connect with Shaina:
Website: www.baskandlatherco.com
Instagram: @baskandlatherco | @_ceoshay_
LinkedIn: Shaina Rainford
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
CEOs you should know. Brought to you by Comcast Business.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
My name is SHANEA. Rainford and I'm the founder and
CEO of Basket lad Co.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Well, Shane, I'm delighted to have you on the line
right now and talking about about your organization, Basket in
the Lather. So let's start by asking you the question,
what is your mission?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, So, the mission of Basket Lather is to help men,
women and children all over the world grow and keep
hair that they love.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
What inspired the creation of Basket in the Leather and
how did your personal journey shape the mission behind the products.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Basca Lather was first inspired by my sister's hair loss
journey and then mine. So about ten years ago now,
my younger sister, Leah, lost all of her hair. She
had a really bad ring worm that spread all over
her scalp. It was initially misdiagnosis dandriff. By the time
she got a proper diagnosis, she had severe hair loss.
And at the time she was in elementary school, she
(00:52):
had to wear a captive school My mom was afraid
that kids would tease her, and my mom took her
to different specialists and she has scalping now and these
different treatments, and they weren't sure that our hair would
ever grow back. So my mom took things into her
own hands and she researched natural and efficacious ingredients that
are shown to help with hair growth, and she whipped
(01:12):
up a concoction in the kitchen which is now our
viral scalp stimulated hair Growth oil. And then my sister's
hair started to grow in. And initially when it was
growing in, it was really fine and thin. My mom
did more research, learned about the magic of Jamaican black
castor oil, and Aliah's hair grew very thick, healthy and strong,
and now her four seat hair is all the way
(01:32):
down to her waist.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Wow, that's a great story. Now you talk about using
natural ingredients, how do you stay in tune with your
customer needs and turn that feedback into innovation and incorporate
this desire to keep everything organic and natural.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yes, so we always incorporate consumer feedback, and we always
make sure that all of our products, that the basis
of them are natural ingredients as much as we can.
Even our preservatives we use the closest too natural And
this is really inspired by our first two products. So
our Scout stimulator and hair elixer, simple formula, powerful ingredients
(02:09):
and these are all natural essential oils colprested oils. And
what we did was, as people grew in infinity to
our initial products and they showed their results and that
social proof, they started to ask for more products. They
were like, well, we trust these two, they have amazing results.
And what we do even until this day five years later,
is we formulate what the customers ask for, and that's
(02:30):
how we've built out our full product line. And for us,
it's very important that we continue to use natural ingredients.
So not sure if you're aware, but over forty percent
of the ingredients in hair care products, topical products, skincare,
body care have ingredients that are shown to be toxic
right at certain concentrations and also prolonged exposure. And we
(02:53):
keep that in mind when we're even in the formulation
process and making sure that none of those ingredients ever
touch our products.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Running a business while raising a family is not an
easy thing. So how do you balance being a CEO,
mom and a wife. And what's helped you the most
in staying grounded?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, so balancing being a CEO, a mom, business, all
of those things there is no true balance right always.
I'm a huge proponent of acknowledging the fact that when
you're giving your attention to one thing, you are removing
attention from another. So sometimes balances. I had a baby
this year. She's eight months old now. In the first
(03:30):
three months of her life, she was on zoom calls
with me right right in my arm or right in
her basinet. She's right next to me, and we're just
doing the thing together.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
She's CEO and training, So you just make things happen sometimes,
you know, this year especially, we had its immense growth.
There's no time to slow down. You just make it work.
You figure it out and go along for the ride.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Every CEO faces setbacks, Every person faces setbacks. And I
wonder if you can share a major challenge that you've
faced in building bask and leather and how did you
overcome it.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yes, so definitely, every business, every CEO founder, you're going
to face setbacks. Every day is there's something's going to happen, right,
So I constantly have to remind myself of positive thinking
and positive framework of thinking and perspective because this is
what I asked for, right, and I'm living the dream
(04:24):
and I would say one of our biggest setbacks. So
this year we had amazing growth, right, and that led
to severe operational constraints. We grew faster than supply chain
was positioned for, We grew faster than our fulfillment centers
and our internal team was positioned for. And what we
had to do was very quickly pivot and adjust. We
(04:45):
then went to find the biggest manufacturers in the US.
We had our fulfillment centers expand their operations. We had
to very quickly identify that issue and quickly make decisions
that were going to be the best because ultimately customer
experiences of the most importance to us. And now finally
six months later, we are in a very good place
Black Friday ready supply chain, operations, logistics, building that team.
(05:09):
But that was a big setback because our customers were
very frustrated. Either you're out of stock or they have
back ardered items that they want. And because our products
are replenishable goods that require consistent use for great results. Right,
imagine you fall in love with the product and now
you're coming for your subscription for your product and you
can't get it right. But we quickly pivot and we
(05:30):
move along.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs, especially
women of color, who want to turn their ideas into
a thriving business.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, so, my biggest piece of advice for entrepreneurs, especially
women of color, would be to just do it. Don't
worry about a saturated market, don't worry about having the
perfect business plan, perfect anything. Things are going to adjust
and change. I can take you through a full evolution
of basket Lather. Every time we think we have it
figured it figured out, we have to adjust, pivot, and
(06:00):
move along again. And nothing's ever going to be perfect.
But when you're passionate about what you're doing and who
you're serving, everything will end up perfectly for you.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
What's the legacy that you hope to leave behind through
your brand? What's ahead for you?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah? So the legacy that I hope to leave behind
for basket Lather is that the sky is literally the
only limit. Basket Ladder is a brand that was created
for the community, right, products that directly target a community
that's underserved. I know how difficult it is you go
to stores and you have products that aren't specifically made
for our curls, our coils and the legacy that I
(06:39):
want to leave behind is I've built this brand with
no investors, no debt, no mass retail distribution, and we're
currently the fastest growing and one of the largest textured
haircare brands in the industry. And I've done that again,
no strategic advisors, no fancy business plans, no investors, and
no debt. And if I can do it, you can
do it too.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
What do you think is some of the qualities that
you brought into that challenge that allowed you to move
forward with such success.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yes. My greatest qualities that attribute to building this brand
with great success is I'm a nurse practitioner and I
always say nurses have the greatest critical thinking skills of anyone, right,
and nursing it's you have to learn how to delegate
and there's never only one right answer. It's which is
the answer that's going to save the patient's life first?
(07:28):
And we move, we pivot, we adjust right And those
things have set me up extremely well to be a
successful entrepreneur because every day I have to operate and
think like a nurse.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
That's fascinating. And here's a fun question. If you were
to open your iHeartRadio app right now, what would be
the first song that you play? And why oh, that's
a good one.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
If I were to open my our Heart radio app
right now, and the first song I would play would be,
I would say a Milie by Little Wayne, It's Black Friday,
We're in the we're moving, we're moving, we're breaking records.
That would be the song I'll play. It's a throwback.
But that's our gam in the office right now.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I love it. I love it. If people want more
information about Basque and Leather, how do they find out more? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So for more information about Basket Lather, you can check
us out on our website at basketladcode dot com. We're
on Amazon, We're on TikTok shop, We're on Walmart Marketplace.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Fantastic. Shana Rainford, founder and CEO of Basque and Leather Coke,
thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Thank you for having me Lorraine
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Comcast Business powering the engine of modern business, powering possibilities,
CEOs you should know. Brought to you by Comcast Business.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
My name is SHANEA. Rainford and I'm the founder and
CEO of Basket lad Co.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Well, Shane, I'm delighted to have you on the line
right now and talking about about your organization, Basket in
the Lather. So let's start by asking you the question,
what is your mission?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, So, the mission of Basket Lather is to help men,
women and children all over the world grow and keep
hair that they love.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
What inspired the creation of Basket in the Leather and
how did your personal journey shape the mission behind the products.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Basca Lather was first inspired by my sister's hair loss
journey and then mine. So about ten years ago now,
my younger sister, Leah, lost all of her hair. She
had a really bad ring worm that spread all over
her scalp. It was initially misdiagnosis dandriff. By the time
she got a proper diagnosis, she had severe hair loss.
And at the time she was in elementary school, she
(00:52):
had to wear a captive school My mom was afraid
that kids would tease her, and my mom took her
to different specialists and she has scalping now and these
different treatments, and they weren't sure that our hair would
ever grow back. So my mom took things into her
own hands and she researched natural and efficacious ingredients that
are shown to help with hair growth, and she whipped
(01:12):
up a concoction in the kitchen which is now our
viral scalp stimulated hair Growth oil. And then my sister's
hair started to grow in. And initially when it was
growing in, it was really fine and thin. My mom
did more research, learned about the magic of Jamaican black
castor oil, and Aliah's hair grew very thick, healthy and strong,
and now her four seat hair is all the way
(01:32):
down to her waist.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Wow, that's a great story. Now you talk about using
natural ingredients, how do you stay in tune with your
customer needs and turn that feedback into innovation and incorporate
this desire to keep everything organic and natural.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yes, so we always incorporate consumer feedback, and we always
make sure that all of our products, that the basis
of them are natural ingredients as much as we can.
Even our preservatives we use the closest too natural And
this is really inspired by our first two products. So
our Scout stimulator and hair elixer, simple formula, powerful ingredients
(02:09):
and these are all natural essential oils colprested oils. And
what we did was, as people grew in infinity to
our initial products and they showed their results and that
social proof, they started to ask for more products. They
were like, well, we trust these two, they have amazing results.
And what we do even until this day five years later,
is we formulate what the customers ask for, and that's
(02:30):
how we've built out our full product line. And for us,
it's very important that we continue to use natural ingredients.
So not sure if you're aware, but over forty percent
of the ingredients in hair care products, topical products, skincare,
body care have ingredients that are shown to be toxic
right at certain concentrations and also prolonged exposure. And we
(02:53):
keep that in mind when we're even in the formulation
process and making sure that none of those ingredients ever
touch our products.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Running a business while raising a family is not an
easy thing. So how do you balance being a CEO,
mom and a wife. And what's helped you the most
in staying grounded?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, so balancing being a CEO, a mom, business, all
of those things there is no true balance right always.
I'm a huge proponent of acknowledging the fact that when
you're giving your attention to one thing, you are removing
attention from another. So sometimes balances. I had a baby
this year. She's eight months old now. In the first
(03:30):
three months of her life, she was on zoom calls
with me right right in my arm or right in
her basinet. She's right next to me, and we're just
doing the thing together.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
She's CEO and training, So you just make things happen sometimes,
you know, this year especially, we had its immense growth.
There's no time to slow down. You just make it work.
You figure it out and go along for the ride.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Every CEO faces setbacks, Every person faces setbacks. And I
wonder if you can share a major challenge that you've
faced in building bask and leather and how did you
overcome it.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yes, so definitely, every business, every CEO founder, you're going
to face setbacks. Every day is there's something's going to happen, right,
So I constantly have to remind myself of positive thinking
and positive framework of thinking and perspective because this is
what I asked for, right, and I'm living the dream
(04:24):
and I would say one of our biggest setbacks. So
this year we had amazing growth, right, and that led
to severe operational constraints. We grew faster than supply chain
was positioned for, We grew faster than our fulfillment centers
and our internal team was positioned for. And what we
had to do was very quickly pivot and adjust. We
(04:45):
then went to find the biggest manufacturers in the US.
We had our fulfillment centers expand their operations. We had
to very quickly identify that issue and quickly make decisions
that were going to be the best because ultimately customer
experiences of the most importance to us. And now finally
six months later, we are in a very good place
Black Friday ready supply chain, operations, logistics, building that team.
(05:09):
But that was a big setback because our customers were
very frustrated. Either you're out of stock or they have
back ardered items that they want. And because our products
are replenishable goods that require consistent use for great results. Right,
imagine you fall in love with the product and now
you're coming for your subscription for your product and you
can't get it right. But we quickly pivot and we
(05:30):
move along.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs, especially
women of color, who want to turn their ideas into
a thriving business.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, so, my biggest piece of advice for entrepreneurs, especially
women of color, would be to just do it. Don't
worry about a saturated market, don't worry about having the
perfect business plan, perfect anything. Things are going to adjust
and change. I can take you through a full evolution
of basket Lather. Every time we think we have it
figured it figured out, we have to adjust, pivot, and
(06:00):
move along again. And nothing's ever going to be perfect.
But when you're passionate about what you're doing and who
you're serving, everything will end up perfectly for you.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
What's the legacy that you hope to leave behind through
your brand? What's ahead for you?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah? So the legacy that I hope to leave behind
for basket Lather is that the sky is literally the
only limit. Basket Ladder is a brand that was created
for the community, right, products that directly target a community
that's underserved. I know how difficult it is you go
to stores and you have products that aren't specifically made
for our curls, our coils and the legacy that I
(06:39):
want to leave behind is I've built this brand with
no investors, no debt, no mass retail distribution, and we're
currently the fastest growing and one of the largest textured
haircare brands in the industry. And I've done that again,
no strategic advisors, no fancy business plans, no investors, and
no debt. And if I can do it, you can
do it too.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
What do you think is some of the qualities that
you brought into that challenge that allowed you to move
forward with such success.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yes. My greatest qualities that attribute to building this brand
with great success is I'm a nurse practitioner and I
always say nurses have the greatest critical thinking skills of anyone, right,
and nursing it's you have to learn how to delegate
and there's never only one right answer. It's which is
the answer that's going to save the patient's life first?
(07:28):
And we move, we pivot, we adjust right And those
things have set me up extremely well to be a
successful entrepreneur because every day I have to operate and
think like a nurse.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
That's fascinating. And here's a fun question. If you were
to open your iHeartRadio app right now, what would be
the first song that you play? And why oh, that's
a good one.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
If I were to open my our Heart radio app
right now, and the first song I would play would be,
I would say a Milie by Little Wayne, It's Black Friday,
We're in the we're moving, we're moving, we're breaking records.
That would be the song I'll play. It's a throwback.
But that's our gam in the office right now.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I love it. I love it. If people want more
information about Basque and Leather, how do they find out more? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
So for more information about Basket Lather, you can check
us out on our website at basketladcode dot com. We're
on Amazon, We're on TikTok shop, We're on Walmart Marketplace.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Fantastic. Shana Rainford, founder and CEO of Basque and Leather Coke,
thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Thank you for having me Lorraine
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Comcast Business powering the engine of modern business, powering possibilities,
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