We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Briah Duncan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Briah below.

Briah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So, let’s start with a hypothetical – what would you change about the educational system?

The greatest change the education system could find advantageous is the active encouragement of creativity as a means of problem solving.

I remember being in high school, I would often get called out for doing math “Backwards.” This meant, coming to the same final answer, but with a different method than how the teacher often taught it.

My teacher required us to show “proof” for each problem we’d solve– a step by step proving how the final answer was concluded.

This was the worst! Although my answers were correct, she would often mark my paper in red ink, as my “proof” often times did not align with how she conventionally taught us to solve the math problem.

Once I became an entrepreneur, I quickly learned that there is not “one way” to solving the game of life. I realized that as a business owner, my path to success may look different from those around me, but my final goal of success was all the same.

Guess I wasn’t too far off in my thinking after all, ha ha.

Briah, 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?

I’m Briah Duncan. Together with my Husband, Adly Enoicy, we founded Selphf– a black owned, female founded business. Selphf is a skincare company dedicated to empowering others through self-affirmation and healthy, beautiful skin.

Adly and I both have mental health backgrounds. I have a Bachelor’s in Psychology from UCF and a passion for helping underrepresented and overlooked communities. I practiced for three years as an ABA therapist across the entire East Coast of the country, helping children with Autism learn skills for daily life functions and independence.

Adly has a Master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy from Syracuse University and a CAS in Addiction Studies. He spent over three years helping families, couples, and children reconnect, heal generational curses, and much more. He has also been a mentor to individuals of all ages and we can’t forget about the years of important work he has done with the LGBTQIA2S community.

At the height of COVID, though many people’s most difficult times, we used adversity to fuel our passion to help others on a wider scale. We rebranded, and transformed Selphf into not only a full time job, but also a full time opportunity for all. Selphf pushes our message of self-love and self-care, with a huge focus on mental health!

Some of our greatest products came out of this time. Some included our boost bar for Anxiety & Depression, as well as our new line of Sensory soaps, inspired by my love as an Autism Therapist and the Nuerodivergent community.

Here at Selphf, real is beautiful. We use real stories to create each of our products, and they all have real results they each deliver. We use real ingredients in each of our products and there’s zero animal cruelty. Our products are handmade with each individual’s unique experience, story, and skin in mind. Our products are made with you in mind.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Unlearning my habits of spontaneity while running a business was the hardest and most expensive lesson to learn. My first year, I learned this the hard way while trying to market without proper strategy. I lost thousands of dollars and made tons of errors.

In business, it’s a numbers game, and if you don’t properly plan, you will quickly find yourself in a hole. Making decisions which can impact your business often times require an extra level of attention in order to ensure they are executed properly.

This was a valuable learning experience, and from it I grew and expanded my knowledge and understanding.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Our greatest pivot was recreating our name and brand image.

Prior to being Selphf, we were Body Care For Self. Changing our name required us to reconstruct our brand’s visual identity, while staying true to our mission of promoting mental health, self-care, self-building.

As a business, you never want to remain stagnant, but instead continue to grow and transform. Changing your brand name and logo after establishing an identity and social-media following is not only a scary thing, but also risky.

Today, Selphf is a Sleek, modern and eye-catching lifestyle brand. One which makes customers feel elevated and luxe from start to checkout. We stayed true to our roots, and that allowed us to remain connected to our day-one followers, while establishing a greater following.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Selphf.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/selphfskincare/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/selphf/
• Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/selphfskincare
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc7zF6ypFgnLCOR01_hhaMw
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@selphfskincare

Image Credits
@Masappetit Samuel Thornhill