For years, Isis Benjamin and her mother, Gina Spence, were desperately trying to raise $450,000 in funding to grow their vegan hair care business, House of Isis.

So far, they have not achieved that goal, but have gone from strength to strength.

“We have been doing it through sheer bootstrapping,” Ms Benjamin said.

Ms Benjamin and her mother moved to the United States in 2006. After earning a cosmetology licence in 2008, Ms Spence opened a salon in West Palm Beach, subsequently developing a natural/vegan haircare business, House of Isis.

The funding part of things has been one of their biggest challenges.

“We are double minority-owned,” Ms Benjamin explained. “We are Black-owned and we are also woman-owned.”

She said you often read about business pitch contests offered to small businesses in America, but competition is fierce.

“You are one in a million,” she said. “Sometimes our Bermuda roots count against us. When they discover that we are from Bermuda, they think we don’t need any money.”

House of Isis has kept on scaling up anyway. This year, they expanded to their first outlet in Britain, with products now being sold at the Topkuttz Barbershop in Nottingham, England.

“That is run by my brother Kurvin Spence,” Ms Spence said. “He was voted Nottingham’s best barber in 2025. Our citrus collection has really taken off there.”

In May, the mother-daughter duo moved their warehouse from Port St Lucie, Florida, to Orlando, which has a metropolitan area of more than two million people. The bigger hub has allowed them to speed up growth.

“We have easier access to more commercial things, which is what we needed,” Ms Benjamin said. “Since the move, we have done pop-up shops and vendor events in Orlando. Sales have been strong, so far. We plan to do farmers’ markets next, to try to get into a few local stores.”

The last two years in the US have been turbulent for many business owners with President Donald Trump imposing high tariffs on products imported from overseas.

Ms Spence said the import taxes have mostly spared them. From the start they chose easy-to-source ingredients such as shea butter, cold-pressed olive oils and essential oils.

TikTok is also helping them to drive up sales for their shampoos, conditioners, scalp mists and dreadlocks care products.

House of Isis now sells around 22 products with satin-lined bonnets and shower caps being their newest offerings. Ms Benjamin said their long-term goal is shelf space at stores such as Whole Foods, Sprouts and Fresh Market.

They haven’t forgotten their roots. They were panellists at the Bermuda Economic Development Corporation’s Global Entrepreneurship Week earlier this year. Things went so well that they decided to make their products more available on the island.

“Demand in Bermuda was so high that we could not leave our Bermudian customers out,” Ms Benjamin said.

In August, they started selling at DLux in St George, a beauty boutique run by Donyaé Hollis. Within a month, they went from selling two different products there to seven.

“They are now our bestselling location on the island,” Ms Spence said. “Some of our customers have told us people are clogging up the Causeway to get to DLux.”

House of Isis is also available at People’s Pharmacy and Imperial Cuts Barber Shop run by another brother, Denere Spence.

Ms Spence and her daughter are asking islanders to show their support for their business.

“The faster that our Bermuda outlets are selling out, the more we can continue to send more products down there,” she said.

They are also looking to expand into other stores in the City of Hamilton.

• For more information, seehouseofisis.co