Boyce Clark, a native of Carriere, began each morning tending to his daughter’s needs, one of which seemed to never go away, the tangles and knots in her hair.
Each time the single father attempted to brush his daughter’s frizzy and knotty hair, she experienced miserable pain. Clark said he tried every type of brush to get the tangles out, but ended up having to cut the knots out because he didn’t dare put chemicals from detangler solutions in his 12-year-old daughter’s hair.
“Alden was going through pain every morning to try and comb out the tangles. Something had to be done,” Clark said.
That’s when Clark took matters into his own hands, using his biochemistry background to find a solution to his daughter’s unmanageable hair.
Clark grew up in Carriere, with the closest neighbor miles away from his home. He kept to himself and because of that, found his passion for science at an early age.
“I was a bit different than your ordinary child,” Clark said. “My favorite gifts from holidays were microscopes, test tubes and beakers. I had no problem entertaining myself and things like that made me happy.”
Young Clark made the most of his love for science, becoming the president of the science club at Picayune Junior High and Picayune Memorial High School. Clark then went on to get his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University before spending time working at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which exposed him to unique chemicals not found in typical hair products.
“I had a problem and needed to solve it and I believe being an outsider was my advantage,” Clark said.
Utilizing his knowledge of chemicals, Clark read book after book about hair anatomy at his kitchen table, using what he learned to later set up a home laboratory.
Clark’s initial goal was to make the safest and most efficient solution for his daughter. After 16 attempts to find the right one, testing each one on his daughter’s hair, he unearthed something that truly opened his eyes, solution 17, or better known as Lubricity.
“I came up with the name Lubricity because the word’s scientific meaning is to reduce friction, and I thought it was perfect for the purpose of this product,” Clark said.
After his daughter went to school that day with solution 17 in her hair, Clark said he received a phone call from the school.
“I had parents calling me, teachers calling me, people I don’t even know calling me asking what I used on my daughter’s hair to make it look so beautiful. Word got around quick,” he said.
It was then that Clark’s business officially began, but he was not prepared for how rapidly it would grow. Clark still had a day job, and continued to make Lubricity Labs hair products out of his kitchen, mixing his ingredients in an orange bucket. Then, a salon in Baton Rogue expressed interest in carrying his product line.
“I didn’t have a line, or barely a product. They wanted to sell bottles of my hair product in their store. All I had was a bucket full of hair product, so I had to create an entire product line in 30 days,” he said.
Clark had a decision to make, stick with his day job of uranium geochemistry or pursue his own business in the hair industry.
Clark leaned toward hair, he said.
Lubricity is now offered in many salons and via his online website, lubricitylabs.com. The business started by filling 30 orders a week and now fills 3,000 per day.
“It’s incredibly fulfilling knowing that I am making people feel better and taking pain out of their morning routines,” Clark said.