Ayesha Curry wears a lot of hats — and on her favorite days at work, a lab coat. She’s a restaurateur, actress, television host, and best-selling author of two cookbooks. She’s a mother of four. She’s also founder and CEO of Sweet July, which first launched in 2019 and has since grown from a production company and lifestyle brand to include book publishing, skin care, and, most recently, a café inside the Regent Santa Monica to accompany the brand’s flagship in Oakland, California. “It’s become more of a community space rather than a store, which I love,” she says. “We’re able to uplift ourselves — and obviously sell products, because the truth is we’re a business — but we’ve also been able to partner with so many local, female, Black-owned business and community leaders as well and uplift each other. I think that’s what makes it so special: It’s not a one-person show. It really is a collaborative business effort.” At home, she collaborates with her husband, Steph. Their family lives in the Bay Area, where they spend days off hiking among the nearby redwood trees.
On her morning routine:
Right now, I have a 5-month-old and he’s my natural alarm clock, the first one to wake up in the house, so I don’t have to worry too much about that. He’s a super-easy baby, and he comes along to work with me.
A typical morning is waking up, getting my kids ready for school, and he comes along for the journey. I have to have my coffee first. I make a mean latte. I like to keep my phone aside for as long as possible and take in the day, have a moment of prayer, meditation, gratitude, and then around 8:30, I’ll take a look at my phone, go through emails and catch up on texts that came through overnight.
On a typical work day at Sweet July:
I wish there were some routine, but every day is so different for us. One day we could be focusing on production meetings and getting up to speed on what’s happening with our production docket. Or it could be a day of pitch meetings, pitching new shows that we’re producing. It could look like a skin day where we’re in the lab. Luckily the lab is close to where I live so we’re always in the lab working with our chemist and doing formulation meetings. Those are some of my favorite days. Then we’ll have fill days where we get to see the product getting filled, which is exciting. Then we have days like yesterday, we’re all in Santa Monica at the new Regent and we have the café opening. That’s been a long time in the works. The past two days have been a lot of different shoots, meetings, final taste testings.
On her “I made it” moment …
Last year we made “Oprah’s Favorite Things.” That was a big moment for us. Throughout the year this year, we’ve been able to accumulate so many skin-care awards. It’s so validating because we work really hard on a product. Nothing is white-labeled, everything is formulated from scratch, and I’ve worked so closely with the team to come together and develop the packaging and the verbiage on the box. We have such a small and mighty team, so those moments for us are so important and it does make us feel like we’ve had some success.
… But not getting ahead of herself:
We also recognize that there’s a really long way to go. All the industries that we touch on are difficult, and it takes so much time to build a rapport and trust with the consumer. That’s our biggest focus right now, and pushing forward. So while the accolades come, we still got work to do. We were not expecting it at all, and the product that they chose, we were like, “Oh my god, we have to make sure we have stock now.” It was such a wild ride, but we’re grateful.
On brushing off losses:
The failures and hurdles used to tear me up and I would take so long to recover from the trauma of it. Now I feel I am more resilient. I give myself 24 hours and move on and pick back up the pace and fix whatever it is that’s going wrong. There’s been a lot of growth in the department.
On what fuels her days:
I have a lot of coffee throughout the day and I’m not ashamed of it. These days, I’m a two-to-three-cups kind of girl. I love a good avocado if I’m trying to be healthy and I need good fats, and I’ll put Jane’s Krazy Salt — it’s the best salt. Jessica Alba put me on to this salt and it’s the only kind I’ll put on my food. My guilty pleasure throughout the day are these brownies made with Peruvian chocolate, they’re pre-packaged but non-GMO and they don’t have preservatives. They are so yummy and made of ethically sourced chocolate but so indulgent and perfectly dense and — I know people hate this word, but — moist. We make the most insane bread puddings in our café. We have this chocolate-coconut flavor, a peach cobbler, and a seasonal sweet potato Thanksgiving-inspired pudding. I’m so proud of our kitchen because they make them the exact way that I would at home and now I don’t have to make them.
On what fuels her ambition:
A lot of people will say “You’re a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none,” but I think people forget to read the whole quote: “A jack-of-all-trades is a master of none but oftentimes better than a master of one.” The saying is actually that it’s great to be a jack-of-all-trades and wear many hats. I’ve always taken that quote to heart, and I love diving into different areas of life. If a man wears many hats, people say “Wow, what a renaissance man, how impressive.” When a woman does it, people say, “She’s doing the most.” Why can’t I be a renaissance woman? Why can’t I do all of the things that make me happy and make me feel good? I’m not doing them for anybody else. Women are multifaceted, they have different interests, and that’s a great thing. It’s okay to touch and feel all of those different things on a daily basis. That’s what keeps me sane and makes me happy to be here on this Earth, the ability to do multiple things and still raise my kids.
On returning to work after giving birth:
At first I was going really, really hard and had too much on my plate. I was coming from a place of gratefulness for all of the opportunities. Then I had to tone it down and scale back because I needed to breathe. After I had my third child, I had pretty severe postpartum depression, and that shifted things a lot too. I was very hard on myself. Then, boom, the pandemic hit, and I lost my taste buds for nine months. That was super-depressing — still hasn’t come back full, and that’s been a journey for me. That’s made work look very different for me from a food standpoint, too. We’re a very Caribbean food-focused skin-care line. It’s something I’m actively navigating on a daily basis, to just feel normal again in that department. It’s also given me the space and allowed me to unlock different interests, devote more time to Sweet July Skin. Our formulas are founded on “what goes in your body can go on your body,” so I’ve been able to do a deep dive from that perspective and refocused my efforts there.
Now I’m five months postpartum, and I’m coming back up for air, and it’s really exciting. I have a new vibrancy for everything that we’re doing. I’m able to come back to the table with new ideas and reinvigorated energy. I’m back in that full-speed-ahead mode but in a more balanced, refined way. It made a huge difference with the postpartum situation. It’s been such a night-and-day experience this time around. I’m glad that I took the time to reset myself and be with my baby.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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