Charrlotte De’Davis changed her first name by deed poll, inserting a second R to honor her Ghanaian grandmother. Former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell simply changed hers by marriage to Geri Horner.
Now the founder of Bardou Beauty and the former Spice Girl are both focused on R-words.
For De’Davis, it is telling disadvantaged girls and women to always remember to be themselves. For Horner, it’s the reunion of four-fifths of the world’s most famous girl band for a UK tour.
The two got together recently when Horner hosted a charity gala and auction organised by The Bardou Foundation, a social enterprise set up by De’Davis’s beauty business with aims to champion women and girls and help shape their professional futures.
At the event to represent The Prince’s Trust charity, Horner told a star-studded guest list: “There are too many young people who don’t have access to the right support.”
Held on International Day of the Girl Child, the event, at the original Mayfair home of London’s iconic Annabel’s private member’s club, raised £71,000 for eight charities devoted to empowering girls and women.
In between entertainment by a snake dancer and West End opera tenor Tim Rogers, awards were given to Marisa Peer for her work through the #iamenough movement and Bollywood star Amy Jackson for her achievements as a role model and work for the Sneha Sagar Orphanage in India.
Business And Charity Goals
For De’Davis, a former events management professional who spent weeks organising the event, there is a clear link between the business ethos of her company and the goals of its foundation.
Her beauty business began as a hair brand, set up three years ago with Aidee Phelan, the celebrity hairdresser who came up with David Beckham’s blond-streak mohawk haircut before the 2002 soccer World Cup.
They opened a number of pop-up blow-dry bars in the UK, including a site in London’s Covent Garden, but struggled with high rents and local taxes.
Phelan stepped out of the business to focus back on men’s hair, while De’Davis concentrated on women’s beauty products, such as dry shampoo and eyebrow gels.
Now she is launching a beauty spa brand called Bardou Beauty and plans a beauty academy focusing on training girls and women in the industry.
“Bardou Beauty is an ethically-driven beauty lifestyle brand looking to challenge the widespread belief that beauty is only skin deep and the fact that for beauty brands the bottom line is, well…the bottom line,” she says.
”We strongly believe that a woman is at her most beautiful when she feels confident, empowered and strong and we want to support and empower women to find, embrace and enhance their own meaning of beauty.”
Values of Beauty
De’Davis, who says she has an “absolute passion for helping young girls and women,” is also seeking to refocus efforts to empower them on core values.
Much of this work is focused through The Bardou Foundation, launched last year at an event hosted by actor Idris Elba as a social enterprise focused on improving the lives of underprivileged girls and women.
“From my own experiences, I recognize the inequality problem that we speak about when it comes to girls and women,” she says.
”A lot of the focus has been on financial equality but I wants to focus on values.
”For Bardou Beauty, for example, it’s all about having an impact on society.
”It’s about helping girls, some of whom come from horrific situations, build confidence, have hope, get into the beauty industry and know that they have support.”
For De’Davis, the business and foundation both pay tribute to the leadership tips she received from her grandmother who recommended keratin and shea butter for hair care but left a deeper personal message etched on Bardou’s memory.
”She looked into my eyes and said to always remember to be myself,” she recalls. “These were her three foundations of the beauty that I always saw in her.
”My current products contain keratin and my future ones will have shea butter so there’s a lot of inspiration from my grandmother residing in my products, business and philanthropy.
”I was named Charlotte after her and I guess I have taken a lot of her traits because I am at my happiest whenever what I am doing is positively impacting people’s lives.”
