¶ Women Empowered With Natural Products
I'm Tammy Williams and welcome to Naturally Brown Woman , the natural resource for and about women of color . So I want to tell you guys about a product that's out there for women of color and that is so refreshed . It's all natural . Please welcome , shakira Springs to Naturally Brown Woman . Hi , shakira .
Hello woman , hi Shakira , hello , you are at home today , as many of us are , and uh , you have a a special guest with you today .
Yes , so I do have a special guest . He happens to be uh two and a half months . Yes , so I just delivered at Northside here in Atlanta almost three months ago . And so , as I was saying earlier a lot of times , as women , you know , we have families , you know we're trying to just , you know , do everything .
We're entrepreneurs , we're mothers , we're wives and a lot of times , like me , I don't believe in daycare for this early at this stage with COVID and everything . So , um , at any point during this interview , you may see me have to actually grab him to bring him live on with this , this interview . I'm pretty sure .
But just so you know , yeah , I do have a extra guest special .
We love it . We love the whole idea because you know what you your . Your is so refreshing . I mentioned that you have a lot of product , from facial cleaners to cleansers , to toners , to several other items that you've done . In fact , tell us about some of the other things that you have in your product line .
So I have a lot of bestsellers . I have Acne Wash is one of my top five products that I sell and it's for people who have active acne and you want to get rid of it in an organic way . So I do use a raw African soap . It comes from Ghana and then I just kind of break it down , filter it , and that's what I use for people with active acne .
A little bit of tea tree . That's one big item that actually I've had that for about five years . So I also have a green tea and honey skincare box and it comes with a cleanser , toner , a serum and also a green tea and French clay mass , and so that one is pretty big . A lot of people love it .
It has a peppermint , chamomile and rosemary scent , so it's pretty earthly . I love it . It smells as soon as you just smell the bottle . It kind of wakes you up , it's kind of refreshing , gets you going . That's another top seller . Another one that I have also sell feminine care . So I have Yanni washes , which are all organic .
A lot of times women have different things that's going on and sometimes you don't , sometimes you just you want to , you know , be clean without using chemicals . So the Yanni wash is a good option for that . I also have yanni gloss .
It helps like , if you , you know you may get waxed or shave uh , you know close shaves or what have you so you can kind of use that uh light oil to kind of help , you know , smooth things out and it gets rid of razor bumps , you know , if you are shaving . So I have a lot of interesting um products .
Yeah , I see , and you know what , and , and you have all of this and , like you were speaking about earlier , being able to be a mother and to still be an entrepreneur , because you were actually working in corporate America pre-COVID and working in corporate America and you decided to that , hey , I want to come off of this job .
And just because you're a financial analyst , so you go from that to starting your own business . How did you make that transition ? How did you come from ? Decide number one you're going to leave your job and start something different , totally new so it was quite indeed a beautiful struggle .
I actually left corporate five years ago and I said I had my baby and I went back to work .
Prior I had , you know , the five he's five now and I went back to work right after and I had took my six week and I went to work and it just didn't feel right and I didn't really like leaving my baby at daycare , him screaming and hollering you know how it goes and so I felt like I wasn't appreciated enough at work and I felt like all the time that
I'm giving you is not what's being given back to me . So I decided to take more time off and when I took more time off I found out that I needed to be home as a mother . When I made started the transition , I was kind of going into my savings .
My husband was still working , so he was , you know , paying the bills , of course , but for me , I always like to provide , I like , I like to help my . I don't want him to have to pay everything , and then we're just living off of his savings .
So during the transition I was living off of my savings , dibble and dabble , and then I just thought about I enjoy going to spas and things of that nature and I was like I want to kind of bring that into the homes of women . So I started looking at ingredients all around the world and I just kind of put them together .
I probably spent about 28 on different ingredients and I just started making things with it and it took a . It took a long time to get out there it really did . But what I did during the times was I would do pop-up shops , I would do a lot of guerrilla marketing .
My husband was out there giving out you know the old school , passing out business cards , just everything I could possibly think of , think of to get through that transition from leaving corporate . Cause you know corporate , you're used to that weekly salary . Like you know , you're gonna get it .
Yes , you know , happy week , we had a good week , you're gonna get paid on that you know , Friday or whatever .
Yeah , and that's usually the biggest struggle in making a transition , because I made a transition from working in production for different companies , companies and then stepping out as an independent person or starting a business .
It's like , do you think about I'm getting this paycheck every two weeks , you know , and now I'm going into where , yeah , I got to something totally different and you know just that . That struggle , you know .
And then getting to that point of saying , ok , I'm going to go ahead and step out and do this because I felt like one hand was like OK , I want the two week paycheck . The other hand was like but I want to start my own business . So it's like the struggle until that decision of you know what started and you did massive research .
You know , had you had any other experience with natural ingredients ? Um , or did you start at that point of you know let me research , let me study , let me find out what ingredients work with , what's the best combinations I actually um had an idea of starting it , probably before I had even left work the particular business that I wanted to do .
I had already started looking . So , for instance , I was like I wanted to get Dead Sea Mud because I had heard the benefits of it . I had just not been able to go to Jerusalem . So I'm like , let me , just how do I get Dead Sea Mud ? Take that as an example . I started trying to um contact people from Israel .
Trying to it was so hard because of the language barrier . So I was starting to figure out , okay , I need to try to get someone here in America that already gets it here , versus trying to go and get it straight from there . Um , so that's what I started doing . Was um just start trying to get like small ingredients to test out .
And , um , once I did that , I started researching um new ingredients and I just become overwhelmed with the just , you know , just new things that are in the kitchen , things that you really don't pay attention to , so like cranberry seeds and I'll . You know , I'll just start researching . You know , what does that do for the body ?
You know , externally , what does it do ? Because a lot of things we put in our bodies can benefit us externally as well . So I just was researching just anything . I would see I was just , you know , just researching and researching . So that's kind of how I , how I started .
Yeah , and that second phase of , or the thing that people most um think about is , um , oh , there we go yeah , we're .
We're very transparent over here , like this is being mothers .
You definitely have multitask yeah , yeah , let me ask you about . You know most people get concerned about the funding part of the business . They have the business idea , but then how do you fund everything ? What was some of your uh funding ? Uh , did you self-fund or how did how did that come together for you ?
for me . I honestly didn't want to take any type of investments , just personally , I wanted to grow it organ person . If I only if I only saw one or two people that day , at least I would let one person a day know about so Refresh . So that's kind of how I did it .
I would meet people and I would always just talk about my business every day and I just kind of got it out by word of mouth . I didn't have any type of handouts either . I just kind of just did it word of mouth and on foot .
Yeah , yeah . And now some of your products . I understand you do a lot of salon , direct salon sales and in whole foods correct . Right , you've really grown your business . Why all natural ? What was your push toward making sure you had a product that had all natural ingredients ?
The reason why I chose to do organic and natural and vegan products was because my mother died of cancer when I was 13 . My dad died when I was about three , so a lot of family members have died from cancer . And the thing it becomes like the unknown , like why are all these people dying from cancer ? Is it the foods we're eating ? Is there an environment ?
Is it the skincare ? Is it , you know , radiation from the sun ? Like where exactly is the cancer just coming from ? And it's still kind of unknown . We can speculate where it's coming from , but we really don't know a hundred percent for sure .
So I just started thinking like maybe if I change the way I eat , the I put in my body , the things I put on my body , then that will help me , you know , in the long run .
That's kind of why I wanted to develop organic skin care , because it , you know , whatever you put on on your skin , that being the largest organ we have , it's going to seep through and go , you know , into your yeah , with the COVID situation going on and we know that there are many students who are now facing what their careers you know are going to look
like .
¶ Entrepreneurial Advice and Success During COVID
Then you started your business , you know , like we said , pre-covid , and you transitioned . But what advice would you give like not only the students who are trying to figure out , okay , how am I going to ? You know , many of them are saying I want to start a business and I want to do something like that . What advice would you give them ?
And even adults that find themselves now in transitional careers and just trying to figure out the future , thinking about that , may have always had a business idea , but never really stepped forward . Always had a business idea , but never really stepped forward .
You know what are some of the things you would share . I would advise and I actually work alongside a lot of teenage girls entrepreneurs . They kind of I actually teach them how to become a good entrepreneur . But what I would recommend is , whatever your passion is and I know people say , well , okay , what is your passion ?
Your passion is when you wake up in the morning . The morning there's something that you can do easily and freely and it doesn't like involve you really thinking outside the box to do it , it just come natural and you enjoy doing it . I think that's the passion you know . So anything that comes natural to you is a good way to start something .
I kind of I started doing accounting when I was about 19 . I do taxes also , so I've had that business since 2001 . And it's nothing I like to do , but I know how to do it . So there are two things you can have something that you enjoy doing , and then you can also have something that you just know how to do .
You become an expert in it and you can do that as well . So , being an entrepreneur , you can have fun with it . And then sometimes , if you're expert at something that's not that fun , I would say take either route and just work at it every day , and , um , it's something that you can't give up on .
It may be slow in the beginning , but you just have to to keep at it . So I would definitely say , uh , during covid , and it seems like everything is just um a struggle with how you know , things have changed . It's still hope .
It's still hope because , um , there are still people out here who are , who are working , and there is money out here to be made , even though it seems like everything is shut down .
How has COVID impacted your ?
business . Actually , it increased my business , being that a lot of people are aren't out shopping right now . A lot of people are home and since they are home , it's easier for me them to just order online and then I just send it out to them Instead of because I know like a lot of stores have lost sales .
Like I spoke to someone who work at Target and they said a lot of people don't come in as much as they used to , so people are not going into stores and they're not doing Amazon where they're going to go . So a lot of people will increase in their business .
Tell people how they can find you , your websites or social media you can find me at so Refresh .
A lot of people forget to put the ed . So be you know , be sure to put the ed on the end . So it's on instagram . It's so refresh with an ed , and then my site is wwwsorefreshcom , um , and so I'm on facebook too . I think it's under the so Refreshed Company .
Any final thoughts ?
I'm just going to say you're actually looking at me . You're looking at the result of a hardworking wife and mother mother of five , to be exact . So , if I can do it , I'm literally breastfeeding and doing an interview . So it should be motivating for for people who are watching
¶ Never Give Up, Keep Pushing
. Um , just never give up . You know , whatever the situation in your face , what you can't , it's a workaround for everything . I always believe that it's . It's . You can do it , Like , despite uh , what people say , uh , people think your idea is dumb Despite how you feel , even when you're sick , you still have to keep going , Like you just have to .
You just have to keep going to just push , push , push , push . That's all I can think about now that I just had a baby . But really , like , just keep pushing and it'll work out . If , whatever you do , whatever you spend your time on every day , it'll work out .
If , whatever you do , whatever you spend your time on every day , as I'm sure that you well is what comes into fruition .
Yes , yes , thank you so much and you have done an excellent job . Five children yes five . I have to give it up to you . Congratulations on all of that . And and breastfeeding while we're interviewing . This is a thing . This is the epitome of what can happen , what you could do for real , for sure . Thank you so much for sharing that . Thank you , kira .
Thank you so much . And , guys , please check out our product , go to our website , take a look at her socials , join up like and thank you for joining us on Naturally Brown Woman today . You , you .