Intense Beaute began from personal struggles that McDaniels had gone through to achieve her goals. Atiyah McDaniels grew up around fashionable and artistic members. Her mom and aunt worked in the beauty industry and her father was a visual artist. With so much artistic and beauty influence, it seemed only inevitable that Atiyah would also make her stamp on the beauty industry as well. \u201cMy mom and aunt are naturally fashionable people,\u201d McDaniels said. \u201cWhen I see an item, I have a natural tendency to make it stylish and look good in a way that people would want to wear it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Atiyah McDaneils had worked at clothing retail stores and had gone to community college to pursue her goals of getting into the fashion industry. However, Atiyah grew dissatisfied with both her jobs and her extra-curricular education. She had grown tired of cleaning messy stores, and folding clothes. At the community college she had attended, Atiyah felt as if she was wasting her time not gaining the knowledge on business and marketing as she liked.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe professors that taught me, didn\u2019t have the day-to-day business experience that I believe I want and need; therefore I left and kept working.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During that time, a personal crisis had happened when Atiyah had colored her hair and put in a relaxer which caused most of her straightened hair to fall out. By that point, Atiyah had no choice but to tend to her natural hair. While tending to her natural hair, Atiyah felt that her hair was healthier and getting more of the nourishment it needed to be bountiful again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom that day on I stopped using relaxers in my hair.\u201d Atiyah said. \u201cAfrican American hair is healthier when you don\u2019t put all of those chemicals and products in your hair.\u201d It was through this experience of taking care of her natural hair that Atiyah started making hair extensions for her, and even started selling them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am driven by the creative visions I have.\u201d Atiyah answered when asked about how she develops her ideas. \u201cI write down a lot of my ideas in a notebook and often go back to flesh out more and make them reality.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of running her own business, Atiyah has three books related to her business endeavors in the beauty and fashion industry. While McDaniels has written three ebooks on business management, and resources to use for the beauty industry, her most popular and the one that\u2019s in print is Change Your Mindset Change Your Life: Learn How to Manifest the Life You Want. Change Your Mindset <\/em>was written during the hardships of last year’s pandemic. Atiyah was dealing with raising her newborn, some personal issues in her life, and struggling with whether or not she would continue her self-made business. It was through writing about her personal philosophy on how to conduct your own business that she was able to find the heart to continue Intense Beaute. The book takes the reader through the journey McDaniels had gone through to make her own business, and it all starts with changing your mindset. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a way to uplift myself,\u201d McDaniels says as we discussed her book. \u201cIt was a way for me to help myself and create a sisterhood for those that felt the same way I did. I wrote a chapter a day based off the topics I wanted to tackle from the chapter titles, and I kept it going until I was done.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n