Bettiann Gardner, co-founder of Soft Sheen Products Inc., one of the largest African American-owned hair care manufacturing companies in the U.S. and the first female co-owner of the Chicago Bulls, passed away on December 19. She was 93 years old and died from complications from Alzheimer’s disease. Gardner and her husband, Edward G. Gardner, founded the company in 1964 to create better hair care products for African Americans. The company employed nearly 900 people at its peak, mostly at its 8-acre campus.
The company began while Gardner’s husband was working as an assistant principal with Chicago Public Schools. He sold hair products for a beauty supply company to local salons for extra cash, eventually selling them at home. Mrs. Gardner did the books, while the couple’s four children helped bottle products and screw tops on jars. Each worked at the company throughout high school, college, and beyond.
Prayers and our deepest condolences to Mrs. Bettiann Gardner’s family & friends. Her Southside Princeton Park neighbors, Resurrection Lutheran church members, childrens’ schoolmates, and Soft Sheen customers will always & forever treasure the Gardners (Soft Sheen’s founders) as friends & advocates for “our” communities! May God bless & grant her a well-deserved eternal rest
The company’s culture was largely a reflection of Gardner’s values and principles of excellence. The policies and procedures she put in place positioned the company for exponential growth with the release of Care Free Curl in 1978, an invention of Gardner’s son Gary Gardner. The Gardners sold the brand, now known as Soft Sheen Carson, to cosmetics giant L’Oreal in 1998.
Gardner and her husband bought a share of the Chicago Bulls around the time Michael Jordan joined the team in the mid-1980s. They went to every Bulls home game and received rings with their names on them when the team won world championships. The couple sold their stake in the team after the couple sold their business.
Gardner was also a great supporter of the arts, buying the shuttered Avalon Theater in 1987 and renaming it the New Regal. She ran the day-to-day operations and produced children’s shows that played to busloads of CPS students through the 1990s. She was also a founding member of Chicago Sinfonietta, an orchestra featuring minority and women musicians.
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Gardner was born in Chicago on June 26, 1930, to Yula Gueno and Joseph Gueno. She was a graduate of DuSable High School and a product of Chicago’s Wilson Junior College, now Kennedy-King College, and Roosevelt University. Before devoting her career to Soft Sheen, Gardner worked briefly at Spiegel and the Chicago Public Library.
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