Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelly Davis.
Hi Kelly, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’m Kelly. I’m a Baltimore baby through and through, but I live in Cary, NC now with my husband Keith and our kids. Most people who find me online know me through my beauty brand, Seventh Reign Lux but the truth is, the brand came out of something a lot harder than a business plan.
My husband, Keith Davis Jr., was wrongfully prosecuted after Baltimore police shot him in 2015. They tried him five times for the same case making him only the second person in U.S. history to be tried that many times for one incident. According to Colin Miller, a University of South Carolina law professor who studied the case, Keith is the most aggressively prosecuted man in American history. I spent seven years fighting to bring him home. Protests, press, billboards, court date after court date. He finally came home in January 2023.
Those seven years could have hardened me. The system wanted me angry, exhausted, and small and some days I was all of that. But somewhere in the middle of it, Keith and I made a decision. Taking care of ourselves became our resistance. Every single visit, we both showed up sharp. Put together. Whole. Because the system was trying to reduce him to a case number and reduce me to a tired wife, and we refused. Looking good, feeling cared for that was us saying you don’t get to take our dignity too.
That’s where Seventh Reign Lux was really born. Not in a kitchen with a business plan in that fight. It’s a luxury beauty brand now, but at its core it’s the bottled version of the thing that kept me standing: the belief that softness isn’t weakness, and that Black women deserve to feel cared for, especially while we’re carrying impossible things.
I also still work in criminal justice. Just last week I stood in the Maryland State House and watched a bill I worked on get signed into law protections for erroneously convicted people. And I’m building a nonprofit, The 7 Project, launching late this year, centered on survivor-led reform.
So where I am today is wife, mom, founder, advocate all of it at once. Baltimore made me. The Triangle is where I’m building while still making sure I take care of home and where I come from.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No. It has not been smooth at all. I’d be lying if I said otherwise.
The hardest part wasn’t the business t was building anything at all while my family was still in survival mode. For seven and a half years my husband was incarcerated, and I was raising our kids, working, advocating, and fighting a case all at the same time. There was no version of those years where I got to focus on just one thing. I learned to build in the cracks of a very hard life. And then Keith came home and I learned something I wasn’t ready for. Everyone was excited to see him free. The celebration was real. But after the celebration ended, no one helped us pick up the pieces. No one helped him reenter. We were left to figure out reentry completely on our own the paperwork, the IDs, the emotional weight, the rebuilding of a marriage and a family and a normal life. The system that fought so hard to keep him just… let go. That was it.
That experience is the entire reason I’m building The 7 Project. It’s not about therapy appointments and referral lists. It’s about long-term, relationship-based support that helps people build real stability not just survive reentry, but actually thrive after it. Hands-on from day one: outreach at the prison gate, case management, comprehensive reentry services, community, and a clear pathway from dignity and safety all the way to full self-sufficiency. The thing no one gave us is the thing I want to give other families. On the business side, the struggle is just as real, honestly. Seventh Reign Lux is a one-woman show. Everything is me. The website is me. The marketing is me. The formulating, the packaging, the customer service, the photos, the emails all me. People see the brand and think there’s a team behind it. There isn’t. There’s me, at my kitchen table, often at midnight, building it piece by piece. I’ve had launches flop. I’ve poured money into things that didn’t work. I’ve been tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix.
But I think the struggle is the whole point. I’m not selling a fantasy. I’m building something real, by hand, through a real life. And that’s exactly what makes it mean something.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Seventh Reign Lux?
Seventh Reign Lux is a luxury beauty and self-care brand. We’re best known for our body care,the Skin Soufflé, a whipped triple-butter body butter, and our Body Nectar Serum, a perfumed body oil that people genuinely fall in love with. We’ve also grown into home fragrance, lip, fragrance oils, and skincare. Everything is small-batch and made by hand. What sets us apart honestly isn’t a marketing gimmick, it’s the why behind it. I didn’t start this brand chasing a trend. I built it out of one of the hardest seasons of my life, while my husband was wrongfully incarcerated and I was holding our family together. Self-care was how I survived that. So Seventh Reign Lux isn’t selling a fantasy of perfection. It’s built on the belief that softness, beauty, and being cared for are things every woman deserves especially Black women, especially while we’re carrying hard things. That’s the heart of it.
I specialize in products that actually perform. People come for the scents and stay because their skin changes; dryness, eczema, scarring, stretch marks. I take the formulation seriously. I’m not just blending pretty things; I’m building products I’d put on mysself and own daughters’ skin, and I do. Beyond products, Seventh Reign Lux also brings the experience to people directly through our pour bar — a luxury, interactive scent experience. Guests build their own custom Body Nectar Serum or Golden Elixir perfume oil, choosing their scent and watching it poured fresh. It’s bookable for private events, bridal showers, birthdays, girls’ nights, corporate gatherings, brand activations. It turns self-care into something hands-on and memorable, and it’s become one of my favorite ways to connect with people in person, especially here in the Triangle.
What I’m most proud of, brand-wise, is that it’s real. Every part of it is me right now the formulating, the website, the marketing, the packaging, the photos, the customer emails. It’s a one-woman operation built in the middle of a full life as a wife, a mother of four, and an advocate. When people support Seventh Reign Lux, they’re not supporting a faceless company. They’re supporting a woman who built something beautiful out of something painful, on purpose.
What I want readers to know is this: Seventh Reign Lux is for the woman who pours into everyone else and forgets herself. I want her to feel chosen when she opens one of my products. That’s the whole mission.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Start before you feel ready. You will never feel fully ready nobody does. If you wait for the perfect plan, the perfect timing, the perfect amount of money, you’ll wait forever. I started messy and figured it out in motion.
Don’t wait for permission, and don’t wait for someone else to believe in you first. Especially as a Black woman, you may be putting in the work for a long time before anyone claps for you. Bet on yourself anyway. Your belief in your own vision has to be louder than everyone else’s silence.Done is better than perfect. I’ve held things back way too long trying to make them flawless a launch, a product, a post while the world was just waiting on me. Put it out. You can adjust as you go. Momentum will teach you things perfectionism never will.
Protect your energy and be mindful of who you let close to your dream When you’re building something, guard what you’re growing. And know this: your story is your strength, not your shame. The things you’ve survived aren’t something to hide they’re often the exact thing that makes your work matter. Don’t bury it. Build on it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://seventhreignlux.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/seventhreignlux
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seventhreignlux
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Mrsdivineaura
- Other: https://substack.com/@mrsdivineaura
