Writing by Gianina Fan
Black Beauty Near You began in Jaida Day’s dorm room at the University of California, San Diego. Today, it’s expanded its reach from the west coast to the east coast. Day has certainly made her mark on this world with Black Beauty Near You and her many other contributions to the UCSD campus.
It all began when Day was uprooted from her home of Los Angeles to San Diego to attend her first year of university. But something was uniquely missing from the UCSD campus and the surrounding San Diego area: Black beauty and hair products. Day found herself stocking up on products every time she went home to ensure she would never run out. Until one day, her mother suggested she do something about UCSD’s lackluster–or rather, nonexistent–availability of Black care products.
“There’s a lot of ways it’s easy to not feel accounted for as a [Black] student on campus,” Day says. “I know I’m not the only person experiencing this so I’m going to be able to help other students as well.”
In 2019, Day started Black Beauty Near You, a hub of all the products Black students might need including brushes, scalp oil, lace wig glue, and much more. The goal was to give Black students at UCSD access to the essential care products they need. She began her business on Instagram, allowing students to contact her through direct messages to pay for and pick up care products that she stockpiled in her dorm room. As an intern for the Black Resource Center (BRC), Day advertised her products at the BRC’s “The Shop,” where Black barbers and lash technicians were invited to UCSD’s campus to provide their services to students.
In Day’s eyes, students should not be jumping through hoops to find care products on top of the typical university stressors of exams or balancing time to have fun: “There’s other things that we as students should be focused on.” She adds: “And if you look good, you feel better!”
When the pandemic sent all college students home, Day didn’t stop. She moved her operation online and created a website, allowing her reach to expand past San Diego. She offers local pickups and drop offs, including those on the UCSD campus, and shipping for those outside of the region.
Day acknowledges UCSD is certainly not the only campus facing this deficiency. The lack of Black beauty products is an issue for many college campuses across the nation, especially at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI). By having her products available online with shipping options, Black students outside of UCSD can have their care needs met as well.
Today, Black Beauty Near You is still locally based in San Diego, but has made its way to the other coast, taking root in New Jersey through a partnership with Black Vanity Cosmetics. Day is also looking forward to an upcoming opportunity with Black Student Union at Pace University in New York for their event Natural Hair Fair. Black Beauty Near You will be providing goodies to attendees of the event.
On expanding her business, Day says,“I want to let more students know that Black Beauty Near You is here for them.”
And if becoming a CEO at age 18 wasn’t enough, Day received her Bachelor’s of Science in Mathematics-Computer Science in 2022. But it wasn’t an easy path. Though the university boasts diversity, its Black student population is rather small at 1.76 percent, according to Data USA.
“I can physically see that I’m not the majority, that I’m the outsider,” Day said of being a Black woman attending her computer science classes. “I can only count on my fingers–including myself–how many Black women there are at this school in this major. Something’s wrong.”
In 2021, computer science ranked as the second most popular major at UCSD, according to US News. Given its popularity, we should expect to see more diversity in the major. But that just isn’t true.
When Day served as publicity chair for the Black Student Union (BSU), she wrote an opinion editorial on the lack of Black women in computer science. She reported that of the 1,933 students enrolled in computer science engineering majors in the academic year 2019–2020, fewer than 10 of them were Black women.
To address the isolation she felt as one of the few Black women CSE majors at UCSD, Day sought a home with the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). NSBE is a beautiful hub of resources including recruiter opportunities, conferences, and resume review, among many other resources. Regarding NSBE, Day says it was the first time she realized recruiters wanted people like her: “We are the prize. We are adding value to their company.”
Day organized an event Engineering Orgs Near You through the BRC to connect students with engineering student organizations. To further her mission, she created a website called Magnifying San Diego where new Black UCSD students can find community and resources such as beauty or therapy services for her final internship project.
She was also introduced to Women in Computing (WIC) where she eventually served as web development chair for two years. WIC gave her academic support and experience. She was able to take her skills as web development chair and apply them to Black Beauty Near You’s website.
Today, Day balances running Black Beauty Near You on her own on top of her typical 9–5 as a software engineer at an accounting firm. She admits that it’s a lot of work but is currently working on a rebrand of the business to take some of the load off of her shoulders. Her advice for maintaining balance? A good to-do list, a calendar, and saying ‘no’ to things.
And she has a good support system with help from Black business owners that she collaborates with to provide them kits filled with care products for their clients or give discount codes of other businesses to Black Beauty Near You customers. She is also currently working on Black Beauty Near You’s rebrand with a friend from high school.
Day has also recently teamed up with three other young Black women–Desinae, Jada, and Cambria–to form a podcast called Four Deep. New episodes are released biweekly on Fridays and can be found on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Thanks to Day, Black young adults nationwide have access to the tools they need for everyday care. You can visit @blackbeautynearyou on Instagram or blackbeautynearyou.com to find what you need today.
