We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cniyah Whitfield a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Cniyah, appreciate you joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

What drives me is knowing that growing up I was different. I was born with a cleft lip and was ashamed. I wanted to change the way I saw myself and the words I chose to speak over myself. The words we speak are powerful and we should choose them wisely. I wanted to let other girls with similar feels know that they are beautiful and it starts with their very own words.

Cniyah, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Honestly, it was my aunt who pushed me to do this. We started during that crazy time in everyone’s life that we are still working through (C-19). My aunt came to me after praying about all this free time we had. It was a no brainer for me. This was going to push me way out of my comfort zone but I knew I was in good hands. We sell affirmation products geared towards women who struggle to find positive words to speak over themselves. The focus is changing the way we speak the lipgloss is just the method. I am proud to be doing this and spreading a positive message this world needs more positivity. I plan to keep making an impact one lipgloss at a time. It’s a great message and quality product.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

Getting started was a lot of trial an error. We wanted to make sure that we knew what was in our products. We did a ton of research major shoutout to YouTube University. We learned what oils went well together and what ones did not. We were able to secure our lipgloss base vendor from doing research. Outside of the base, tubs, and packages we hand mix everything ourselves. It’s work but it’s also bonding time as well. We love it. We’ve learned about private labels and although we know there will be a time we may not be able to hand mix everything but it works for us right now.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

It truly has been word of mouth. When people love your product they will sell it for you. Just off of word of mouth we were able to expand to doing custom orders. We’ve done stocking stuffers, bulk gifts, and baby showers. We know that we didn’t invent lipgloss but the product hits different when you can get behind the mission.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.whittylips.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/whittylips
• Facebook: Whitty Lips

Image Credits
Viera’’s Vision Anthony Crawford