Learn how Beryl Botchway is championing textured hair, authentic representation, and community while helping brands better understand and serve Black consumers
Beryl Botchway doesn’t just work in textured hair, she lives it. The Treasure Tress brand partnerships exec on audacity, authenticity and why representation has to exist behind the scenes, not just in front of the camera
I’m hyper-independent, so for me, home is wherever I make it. I started renting straight out of university for that extra bit of freedom, and life snowballed from there: Coventry, Birmingham, London, back to Birmingham, and now London again. Home was wherever my community was growing. When I moved to Birmingham, I didn’t know a single soul, but built such a strong community there that I stayed for two to three years. So to answer the question properly: as a Ghanaian-born Londoner, home for me is wherever I feel safest and wherever I feel most accepted to be 100 per cent my authentic self.
It comes down to one word: audacity. I rarely tell myself I can’t achieve something or that I don’t deserve something. Success has come from wholeheartedly believing I could do something, even when it didn’t come instinctively, even when, on paper, it didn’t fully reflect my skills. Beyond audacity, I’d credit my welcoming, chatty personality. I can talk to someone from London to Houston to Coventry, complete strangers to me, and walk away having built a real connection.
One of the biggest challenges in my career has been helping brands truly see the value in the textured hair market, not just the sales potential. Many brands entering this space don’t fully understand black culture or black hair beyond the act of creating a textured hair product, and that disconnect shows. Navigating that conversation, honestly but diplomatically, has been my biggest challenge. Trust isn’t built on the product alone, but through marketing and language that genuinely respects the community it’s meant to serve.
What makes our business unique is genuine community. We serve a customer who has often been neglected by mass retail, and we do it joyfully, with luxury and a real sense of whimsy. At our core, we believe the black consumer, the person of colour consumer, deserves the very best. They deserve to be seen, celebrated and catered to with the same care and quality as anyone else.
Being a black woman has profoundly shaped my career, particularly in understanding the language brands need to speak in order to truly understand the black woman as a consumer. I’m a black woman, deeply embedded in black British culture and a Gen Z voice in the room. That intersection has become one of my biggest professional assets.
My favourite part of being a black woman is knowing that we are the blueprint. Genetically, culturally, creatively, we are the foundation of so much of what becomes mainstream, and we do it with such grace, originality and confidence that it’s hard not to sit back in awe. Being a confident, queer black woman has opened doors for me and shaped who I am in ways I’m endlessly proud of.
My black icon would be Bozoma Saint John. She was Netflix’s first black C-suite executive, has held CMO and chief brand roles at Uber, Endeavor, and Apple Music, and was named Forbes’s number one most influential CMO in the world. Beyond her corporate career, she self-funded her own luxury hair brand, Eve by Boz, with several million dollars of her own money rather than raising venture capital. Spending a day with her, I’d want to walk her through Treasure Tress, and pick her brain on scaling a brand rooted in authenticity.
My hair feels like another layer of my outfit. The way I choose to style it is so representative of my mood, how I’m feeling, the vibe I’m trying to give off. As a black woman who understands the political element of afro hair, the way I choose to present it each day is a statement in itself. It’s not always about wearing it natural, either. What truly empowers me is wearing my hair boldly and confidently, with no negative strings attached.
My relationship with my hair has flourished over the years. Like so many black girls, my mum permed my hair growing up. In Year 8, I took over styling it myself and heat-damaged it so badly I developed a bald patch I tried desperately to hide. That led me to transition my hair in Year 9. I had no plan, no alternative style, just scissors. That unplanned big chop became the start of my natural hair journey. Today, I wear my natural hair more confidently and consistently than ever.
One of my biggest projects is Curly Christmas, one of the biggest events on the Treasure Tress calendar. It’s a platform where textured hair lovers from London, Birmingham and beyond come together to celebrate the festive season, gift-giving and textured hair in all its forms. We decided to fill that gap, which led to our own advent calendar, and eventually, an in-person event where consumers can discover new brands, enjoy luxury treatments like braiding, speak directly with brands and join live demonstrations.
If I had one message for other black women and non-binary people, it would be this: try to remove the words ‘can’t’ and ‘cannot’ from your vocabulary. They act as a subconscious full stop, a quiet ‘nope, not doing it,’ before you’ve even tried. I’ll phrase it as ‘I’m not sure if I can do this yet, but I’m going to,’ because that framing encourages learning rather than fear, and leans into my competitive nature to push me toward achieving it anyway.
Instagram: @justberyl__
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