Just days after what seemed like 40 days and 40 nights of Bay Area storms, the clouds have finally given San Francisco a break – just in time for Ayesha Curry’s Sweet July Skin coffee truck pop-up during All-Star Weekend.
The line of people waiting for blue-foam lattes and eye cream samples keeps growing, and Curry, greeting fans with genuine warmth, is telling me about the latest launch, the Coffee Fix Peptide Eye Cream, before greeting the crowd with hellos.
“I’m obsessed with the eye cream, honestly,” Curry tells me. “It’s the product that we’ve worked the longest on. It took the longest to launch, but we’re really proud of it.”
As we chat amid the bustling All-Star Weekend festivities (and I do mean bustling), it’s clear that Curry’s approach to business is as methodical as it is passionate. She’s particularly excited about incorporating soursop, a unique ingredient that serves as their source of vitamin C. “People in the islands use it all the time, but not a lot of people mass market use it,” she explains, “and so, we were really excited to bring that stuff in there.”
But what’s particularly fascinating about Curry isn’t just her business acumen – it’s her ability to juggle multiple ventures while maintaining authenticity. When asked about her brand’s “starting five” (because yes, I had to throw in a basketball reference), she has her roster lined up. “It would definitely be our toner, our Irie Power Oil, our vitamin C serum, our cleanser, and this eye cream.”
The conversation takes an unexpected turn when she reveals her next frontier: acting. “That’s how I grew up. I was doing it since I was three and so, took a step back when I became a mom,” she shares. With her oldest daughter approaching 13, Curry feels it’s time to revisit her first love. “Now, I’m excited to just fill up the cup from a passion perspective and let my creativity flow a little bit.”
Speaking of her daughter, the beauty entrepreneur and growing mogul lights up when discussing how the next generation approaches skincare. “Riley… she just tried the eye cream and she’s loving that, but she always steals my cleanser and she steals my Castaway cream,” Curry laughs. “She tries to steal my toner, but she’s not old enough to use a toner.”
When asked about her vision for the next decade, Curry pivots away from talk of business empires. “I’m always impact over legacy,” she says. Her nonprofit Eat.Learn.Play, which she co-founded with her husband Stephen Curry, focuses on youth education in Oakland. She speaks passionately about improving literacy rates and high school graduation numbers in the area – metrics that seem to matter to her far more than sales figures or social media followers.
The mother of three is equally thoughtful when it comes to raising her own children in the digital age. While most parents of tweens have surrendered to the inevitability of smartphones, Curry’s taking a different approach with her almost-13-year-old.
“Everybody else has one,” she says matter-of-factly, “I’m like, ‘It doesn’t matter. You’re not everybody.’” Her concern isn’t just about screen time – it’s about a generation so focused on documenting their lives that they forget to live them.
All-Star Weekend may be about basketball, but Curry’s presence reminds us there’s room for so much more. “I think city wise, it’s really cool to see the vibrancy come back to the city,” she reflects. “I’m hoping that this is the spark that ignites and keeps that vibrancy here.”