On the porch of her childhood house in Beaumont, Kristen Wells-Collins used to line up her cousins and siblings as college students.
It was her means of turning playtime into lesson plans.
“I’d come house excited to play trainer,” she recalled. “Even on my porch, we had a college desk that I’d arrange just like the classroom… I used to be all the time desperate to share.”
That’s the place her ardour to grow to be a trainer started.
Now, Wells-Collins is a chemist and the founding father of Black to the Lab, a hands-on STEM program that has launched greater than 3,000 women to the science behind on a regular basis magnificence merchandise.
By workshops the place college students combine lip gloss and lotions, she makes use of cosmetics as an entry level into STEM.
Within the Nineteen Sixties, beauty chemistry analysis was male-dominated. At present, 48.1% of beauty chemists within the nation are ladies, and solely 8% are Black.
Wells-Collins is making an attempt to alter that demographic to be extra inclusive, she mentioned.
Is science enjoyable?
Rising up, she didn’t initially see science as a definite calling.
However when she acquired to the fifth grade, her math trainer challenged her pondering, usually asking college students to resolve issues on the board.
“It was there that I noticed that I’m actually good at this,” Wells-Collins mentioned.
Science took a firmer form in highschool, when academics urged her right into a medical magnet program.
With a mom who was a nurse, she started to think about a future in well being care and set her sights on changing into a pharmacist.
Journey to Houston
Wells-Collins carried that ambition to Prairie View A&M College, the place she earned a bachelor’s diploma in chemistry and later a grasp’s in group improvement.
On the HBCU, she discovered greater than lecturers.
“It formed my very own confidence as a pacesetter, which is a variety of what reveals up in how we pioneer STEM training, significantly with Black to the Lab,” she mentioned. “It allowed me to achieve a extremely deep connection and community to not solely my friends, but in addition my professors. PVAMU has a really, very wealthy group of assist and fervour that enables us to maintain Black college students on the forefront of what we do.”
A citrus allergy that led to entrepreneurship
Wells-Collins didn’t instantly join science to magnificence.
That realization got here later, sparked by a citrus allergy.
It led her to formulate her personal magnificence merchandise.
In 2020, Kristen Wells-Collins launched Black to the Lab, an academic program that created a big degree of publicity to STEM careers for youngsters & younger adults. #ForwardImpact offered by @StateFarm. Learn extra right here: https://t.co/ddOLi67aTZ pic.twitter.com/Srfen73EqZ
— EBONY (@EBONY) June 19, 2024
As Wells-Collins experimented in her kitchen and shared merchandise with family and friends, she started asking greater questions.
Why had nobody explicitly proven her that cosmetics had been chemistry?
“It was at that second in my kitchen that I made the connection,” she mentioned, recognizing “the absence of that connection for somebody who had studied science.”
Kristen’s journey
Earlier than Black to the Lab, she launched a small enterprise referred to as The Chemistry Of, which paired skincare merchandise with data playing cards that defined the elements.
However the extra she mirrored on her late discovery, the extra she felt referred to as to succeed in younger folks earlier.
“I needed to create one thing that serves as an early introduction for younger folks to grasp the connection between STEM and the wonder house. I didn’t know the way it was going to actualize in that second, however I planted that seed, and I proceed to water that seed as I work with younger folks.”
Kristen Wells-Collins
“I needed to create one thing that serves as an early introduction for younger folks to grasp the connection between STEM and the wonder house,” Wells-Collins defined. “I didn’t know the way it was going to actualize in that second, however I planted that seed, and I proceed to water that seed as I work with younger folks.”
That seed grew into Black to the Lab.
Kids break down what the beauty trade encompasses in her workshops.
“That’s past simply make-up,” she mentioned, pointing to merchandise like shampoo and lotions.
By shifting the main target from self-importance to perform, she encourages women to see cosmetics as instruments for innovation and problem-solving.
“For us, having one thing enjoyable and culturally related and thrilling, it sparks that curiosity,” Wells-Collins added. “It sparks the will to know extra and to study extra, and to attach with totally different folks and sources that can help you achieve a deeper understanding. We wish to preserve on the forefront of how we interact women to think about themselves inside an trade the place they usually really feel underrepresented.”
Carlisha Bradley, whose daughter used a Black to the Lab equipment, mentioned it helped her youngster regain curiosity in science.
“Camille was using within the automobile final night time and mentioned ‘I’m a scientist, Mother, I can train you methods to make lip gloss,’” Bradley recalled. “I used to be already a believer in you and your work however that one hit house and touched my complete coronary heart!”
Her work has expanded throughout Texas and past, together with the Jennifer Hudson Present and AfroTech.
“I like that you just’re altering it [representation] and making such a distinction. And now there could be so many extra folks of shade in that,” Hudson mentioned.
However Houston stays a significant touchpoint.
One of many earliest Black to the Lab experiences came about there, when a good friend requested her to convey kits to a toddler’s celebration.
Since then, this system has grown into faculty and group partnerships.
Her imaginative and prescient manifested right into a bodily house in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the place Black to the Lab was a part of Tulsa Magnificence Collective, a storefront popup with a STEM Magnificence Bar and classroom that resulted in February.
The placement carries private and historic that means. Being in Tulsa, she mentioned, “felt like a full circle second,” particularly contemplating her husband’s household ties and town’s legacy of Black entrepreneurship.
Every Saturday, she works with college students there, serving to them discover scientific ideas.
“Studying isn’t mastery, studying is curiosity,” she mentioned as her message to younger Black college students in search of their footing in STEM.
She urged college students to “keep curious” and to all the time be a “pupil at coronary heart.”
