How Hawthorne of Caribbean food empire Golden Krust got past a traumatic experience to start beauty brand

Lorna Hawthorne is the founder of a beauty brand that caters to Black women. The brand, known as LLHOMD Beauty Care, was designed to keep the legacy of her late husband Lowell Hawthorne alive and also fill gaps in the beauty industry.

The brand honors Lowell in its name, as each letter reflects a different family member’s initial: Lowell, Lorna, Haywood, Omar, Monique, and Daren, according to the Insider. In the 1980s, Lowell founded Golden Krust, which became known for revolutionizing Jamaican foods in the United States. 

Today, there are more than 100 Golden Krust establishments across the country. Lorna helped her husband turn Golden Krust into a multimillion-dollar venture, according to Insider.

Then in 2017, tragedy hit the Hawthorne family. Lowell died of suicide and his family spent some years mourning his death. Now the Golden Krust family has entered the beauty industry with a hair and skincare brand.

Lorna has always been a fan of beauty products and when she couldn’t find the type she wanted on the shelves, she made them herself, mostly from her kitchen.

“I love skincare,” she told Insider. “I’m always pouring oils, different scents, and one day I was pouring my oils when I came up with the idea for a company. We’re beautiful inside, and I wanted to create products that could help people feel beautiful on the outside.”

Lorna started the company with the help of her sons, Haywood, Omar, and Daren. Launching LLHOMD Beauty Care is to give Black women a wide variety of choices in the beauty industry.

“Black women are underrepresented in a lot of spaces in America and I think the last couple of years have changed the perception of consumers, businesses, and corporations,” Omar Hawthorne told Insider. “We have a very strong Black woman in Miss Lorna with a track record of success, so who better to be part of engendering that change of what entrepreneurs look like in this country?”

Lorna launched her skincare brand at the height of the pandemic and according to her, the challenges were enormous, particularly concerning the supply of ingredients and products they needed. “The world supply chain crunch certainly added to the timeline, with the ingredients taking longer to arrive, so we actually winded up air-freighting some of the products because we were committed to the launch,” Haywood Hawthorne said.