Savannah ethnic hair-care manufacturer Strength of Nature LLC has completed a deal with Unilever North America to buy the corporate giant’s Soft & Beautiful, TCB and Pro-Line Comb-Thru brands for an undisclosed price, Strength of Nature President and CEO Mario De La Guardia announced Friday.
The sale was finalized Wednesday.
“We are extremely pleased to add these great brands to our expanding portfolio,” De La Guardia said. “Soft & Beautiful, Soft & Beautiful Botanicals, TCB and Pro-Line Comb-Thru are brands with strong consumer following, high awareness and a long tradition of serving their consumers.
“We are excited about their potential and strongly believe they each provide an excellent foundation for expanded innovation and product improvement.”
Kees Kruythoff, president of Unilever North America, said the brands have a history of success in the ethnic hair-care category, which he characterized as one of the fastest growing categories in the personal care sector.
“We believe their potential can now be more fully realized with Strength of Nature,” he said.
De La Guardia formed Strength of Nature with his father, Mario De La Guardia Sr., in 1999.
The senior De La Guardia is a chemical engineer who developed the breakthrough Dark and Lovely no-lye hair relaxer for Savannah’s Carson Products in 1978, which revolutionized the ethnic hair-care industry.
Before Dark and Lovely, lye — sodium hydroxide — was the chemical commonly used to straighten ethnic hair. But lye is highly caustic and often caused burns.
Eventually trading his lab coat for a business suit, De La Guardia served as Carson’s president from 1982 until 1995, when the company was sold to L’Oreal.
Several years later, Strength of Nature was born.
“We started with three employees and four products in a 20,000-square-foot warehouse,” the younger De La Guardia said.
Gradually, Strength of Nature began making their products themselves instead of contracting them out and quickly outgrew their original warehouse.
When L’Oreal announced it was leaving Savannah in 1996, Strength of Nature bought Carson Products’ old location on Ross Road from L’Oreal and is expanding that facility to approximately 300,000 square feet.
In 2008, Strength of Nature bought the popular Elasta QP line of hair products and, in 2009, added the African Pride line.
The acquisition of the Unilever lines presents the company with a great opportunity for growth, the younger De La Guardia told employees gathered Friday for the announcement.
“These are great brands and our objective — as it is with each of our products — is to make them even better for our customers,” he said.
With approximately $50 million in annual sales, the private, family owned business seems to have already mastered the growth curve.
It currently has more than 200 employees, is growing revenues at the rate of 20 percent a year and manufactures about 99 percent of its products — “everything but aerosols,” De La Guardia said.
ABOUT STRENGTH OF NATURE
Headquartered in Savannah, Strength of Nature LLC is one of the fastest growing companies in the multi-cultural hair care category. With a mission to deliver high quality, innovative products to women and men of color at fair and affordable prices, Strength of Nature markets a number of leading brands such as Profectiv MegaGrowth, African Pride, Dream Kids, Beautiful Textures and Elasta QP.