Jalena Renae Turned a Teenage Hair Hustle Into a Beauty Brand Built to Last

At 16, Jalena Renae was already thinking beyond the boundaries of a typical teenage side hustle.

While still in high school, Renae and her sister began selling raw and virgin hair. What started as a small business quickly became a serious entrepreneurial pursuit, eventually leading Renae to graduate early and devote herself fully to the company that would become Amora Renae Collection.

More than a decade later, the Michigan-based beauty brand has grown from those early beginnings into a nationally recognized company with two physical storefronts and a business model that extends beyond selling hair.

For Renae, the foundation was established long before the company had the visibility it has today.

“I actually didn’t start online. I started selling hair while I was in high school,” Renae said. “From there, I moved into a suite, and I would literally skip school to go work at my store.”

That level of commitment at such a young age reflected something that has remained consistent throughout Renae’s entrepreneurial journey: she wasn’t simply experimenting with a business. She was building one.

From High School Hustle to Brick-and-Mortar

The company’s growth happened organically as demand increased. After graduating early, Renae moved the business from its suite into its first brick-and-mortar location less than three months later.

Today, Amora Renae Collection operates two storefronts in Michigan.

Renae describes that transition as less about following a perfectly mapped-out business plan and more about recognizing when the opportunity in front of her was ready for the next step.

“The business was growing, the demand was there, and I was growing with it,” she said.

That willingness to move when an opportunity presented itself became an important part of Renae’s approach to entrepreneurship. Starting young also meant she wasn’t carrying years of assumptions about what she was supposed to do or how quickly a beauty company was supposed to grow.

“I was young enough to be fearless about it,” she said. “I wasn’t overthinking all the reasons it couldn’t work.”

When Customers Become Community

Long before influencer marketing became a dominant force in beauty, Renae was seeing the power of personal recommendations firsthand.

Her earliest customers were connected to the environment she was already part of as a teenager. One customer would wear the hair, someone else would ask about it, and the recommendation would travel.

That experience helped shape Renae’s understanding of what makes a beauty brand sustainable.

“When one girl wore the hair and loved it, another girl wanted to know where she got it, and then her friends wanted it,” she said. “It spread organically.”

That same philosophy now informs how Renae thinks about experiential marketing.

Instead of viewing customers solely through the lens of sales, she sees community as something worth actively investing in. Events, education and experiences have become extensions of the brand, giving customers opportunities to connect with the company.

“These women are already spending their money with me, supporting my business and helping me grow, so why wouldn’t I spend money creating experiences for them?” Renae said.

For Renae, loyalty isn’t created by a single transaction. It develops when customers feel that they have a place within the story of the brand.

Building Credibility as a Young Black Founder

Being young and operating in the beauty industry hasn’t always meant being immediately taken seriously.

Renae said she has encountered situations where her age and appearance influenced how people initially perceived her. Rather than allowing those assumptions to define her, she focused on knowing her business inside and out.

Understanding the products, knowing her customers, and paying attention to the financial side of the company became essential tools for establishing credibility.

“I had to understand my product, know my numbers, know my customers and be confident in what I had built,” she said.

That distinction is important to Renae because Amora Renae Collection represents more than the products customers see on the shelves.

The beauty industry is often reduced to its most visible elements, but behind a successful product-based company are operations, customer relationships, marketing, financial decisions and a team working to keep everything moving.

Renae’s experience has given her a front-row seat to that reality.

The Meaning Behind Amora Renae

The company’s name also reflects the personal philosophy behind the business.

Renae chose Amora Renae, combining a word associated with love with her own middle name. What began as a personal message to herself at 16 has evolved into a larger philosophy that she wants customers to carry with them.

At the beginning, the idea was about Renae’s relationship with herself and the promise she was making for her own future.

Thirteen years into the journey, that message has expanded.

“Yes, we sell beauty products, but the bigger purpose is how I want women to feel,” Renae said.

That distinction has become increasingly important as the company grows. The products may introduce customers to Amora Renae Collection, but the experience and message are what Renae hopes keep them connected.

Building Something Her Daughters Can Inherit

For Renae, the next chapter isn’t simply about making the company bigger.

She wants Amora Renae Collection to become a household name over the next decade while maintaining the community-driven foundation that helped establish it.

But perhaps the most meaningful measure of success is the example she is creating for her daughters.

Renae’s entrepreneurial story began when she was a teenager with an idea and the willingness to take it seriously. Today, she has the opportunity to show the next generation what can happen when an idea is nurtured with consistency, courage and intention.

Her definition of legacy has evolved along with her.

The story she hopes her daughters will ultimately tell isn’t simply that their mother owned a beauty company. It’s that she created something young, protected its purpose as it grew, and turned a personal promise into something that could inspire other women.

That is the larger story behind Amora Renae Collection—and the reason Jalena Renae’s journey continues to resonate more than a decade after she first began selling hair as a teenager.

Black Business Month Spotlight

Throughout Black Business Month, Bacon Magazine is highlighting entrepreneurs creating businesses, brands and opportunities across beauty, culture and business.

Jalena Renae’s journey reflects what can happen when entrepreneurship begins early, grows through community and remains connected to a larger purpose. From a high school hustle to two Michigan storefronts, Amora Renae Collection represents more than 13 years of growth. It is a business built around beauty, connection, and a founder who started young—and stayed committed to the vision.