For Maya and Brian Smith, the founders of The Doux, the next chapter of their Black-owned haircare brand isn’t another product on a store shelf. It’s a virtual salon.
The Atlanta-based entrepreneurs are expanding The Doux beyond haircare with the launch of My Salon Empire, a Roblox experience that brings textured-hair styling, Black beauty culture and salon entrepreneurship into the digital world.
Developed in partnership with Exclusible, the virtual salon allows players to style a range of hair textures, serve clients and build their own businesses. Drawing on Maya’s more than 30 years of experience as a hairstylist, it introduces players to the realities of salon ownership and shows that building a successful beauty business takes more than creating a great hairstyle.
Players learn the fundamentals of running a salon, from client consultations to shampooing and styling. As their businesses grow, they can add salon chairs, hire staff, manage inventory and visit other players’ salons. Players can earn features and upgrades through gameplay, with additional options available for purchase using Robux, Roblox’s virtual currency.
Just as The Doux products were created to address needs Maya identified while working with clients, she wanted this new venture to reflect its audience’s interests and experiences.
According to the official announcement, Maya envisioned an experience where young Black gamers and other gamers of color could see themselves, while keeping it welcoming to everyone.
Players can style straight, wavy, curly, coily and kinky hair, along with a variety of protective styles. The selection reflects a collaborative effort, with Roblox creators contributing more than 50 hairstyles. Future updates will offer even more ways to personalize avatars with textured hairstyles and culturally relevant details.
The response has been significant. Within a month of its August 31 launch, My Salon Empire surpassed 2 million plays, with women accounting for 87% of its players across age groups.
With My Salon Empire, Maya and Brian Smith are taking The Doux beyond the beauty aisle and into a world where the next generation can explore Black beauty culture, learn the business of salon ownership and see textured hair celebrated in new ways. But the vision behind the virtual salon goes beyond expanding the brand’s reach.
The Black Wall Street Times spoke with Maya about the inspiration behind the Roblox experience, the real-life salon lessons woven into its design, and what this digital expansion reveals about The Doux’s future.
The Black Wall Street Times: Maya, you’ve spent 30+ years as a hairstylist before building The Doux. What was it like to translate salon culture and technique into a gaming experience while keeping it authentic and appealing to gamers who may not know that world?
Maya Smith: Â The challenge was capturing what makes a salon feel alive without assuming that every player would already understand that world. A salon is about much more than choosing a hairstyle. It is customer service, timing, consultation, technique, creativity, conversation and building relationships. I wanted those elements reflected in the experience because they’re the foundation of my own business.
At the same time, the game had to be fun first. I never wanted it to feel like someone had disguised a lesson as a video game. Players learn by doing. They welcome a client, help select a style, work with different hair textures, perform the service, earn money and reinvest in their salon. If they take too long or overlook what the client wants, that affects the experience, just as it would in a real salon.
Someone who knows Black salon culture may recognize the details immediately. However, a player who has never stepped inside that environment can still understand the creativity, responsibility and satisfaction of caring for people while building something of their own.
The Roblox creator community voluntarily added more than 50 hairstyles to the game, expanding representation beyond what you initially built. How did that organic contribution shape or surprise you, and did it change your vision for what the experience could become?
MS: What excited me most was that these creators understood immediately why range mattered. Textured hair is not one look or one experience. Braids, locs, fades, twist-outs, braid-outs, curls and protective styles can all carry different cultural, regional and generational references. The creator community brought its own knowledge and creative perspective to that conversation.
Their contributions reinforced something I already believed: authentic representation should not come from one person deciding what represents everyone. It becomes more meaningful when people already creating on the platform help shape what appears there. The fact that these creators rallied around the experience also showed us that the need was larger than our brand. They were excited to see textured hair treated as central to the game rather than something added at the end.
It expanded my vision because the game became more than The Doux translating its world onto Roblox. It became a platform that the community could help build. That opens the door for the experience to keep growing alongside the people playing and creating within it.
Partnering with Exclusible is a significant investment for a brand of The Doux’s size. What made this the right moment to bet on gaming, and how do you see it fitting into The Doux’s broader strategy for reaching the next generation of consumers outside the beauty industry?
MS: The opportunity began through an unexpected connection. I was on a panel at SCAD and happened to sit next to a Roblox executive. That initial conversation eventually led to contracts being signed about a year later, followed by roughly six months of development. It reminded me how important it is to enter rooms, meet people outside your immediate industry and remain open to where a new relationship might lead.
Roblox made sense because the next generation is already there creating, playing, connecting and expressing themselves. Beauty has always been a form of self-expression, so gaming isn’t as far removed from our world as it may initially seem. The Doux has also never viewed itself as only a hair-product company. We are a lifestyle brand rooted in creativity, with connections to music, art, fashion, culture and now technology.
This investment lets us introduce younger consumers to The Doux through an experience rather than just an advertisement. They can learn about textured hair, salon culture, customer service and entrepreneurship while enjoying the game, whether or not they have ever purchased one of our products. It is part of a broader strategy to meet people where they are instead of demanding that they come and find us. It also demonstrates that an independent Black-owned beauty company can create intellectual property, participate in technology and build beyond the limits of the traditional beauty aisle.
