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

Alexis, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.

Going up my dad owned his own business which was passed down from his father. This meant we practically lived at his store; we walked there after school instead of a babysitters, got after school jobs there once we were old enough, and knew every employee and customer by name. I love this growing up and wouldn’t change it for the world. That being said, now looking back at it as an adult I didn’t realize what that meant to my parents and our family. This meant my dad was never not on call, he would open up his pharmacy in the middle of the night for a sick child, he would deliver mediation to the local nursing home meaning missing dinner most nights, and it also meant tough decisions with other family members over financials and best business practices. So when I decided to go into business with my family it was a decision I didn’t take lightly. We never wanted a store front, employees, or anything to fight over. We made a promise to only do this as long as it was fun, no debt, no fighting, and no long crazy hours. We enjoy blending, creating, traveling, and working together! We call our bank account, Ink Oil college fund which will go to my niece when she is ready. She is already part of the Ink Oil family and loves to put stickers (labels) on our products. We are teaching her young how fun entrepreneurship can be.

Alexis, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Ink Oil, LLC, was created by a very cool, tattooed mom and her daughter. Here is their story: The day I turned 18 I got my first tattoo. I quickly recognized that getting a tattoo, or even removing a tattoo, can be seriously uncomfortable. My mom was using essential oils in many aspects of our lives. I recognized the therapeutic effects of pure essential oils in a unique blend could provide a product that can reduce discomfort, speed healing, and keep skin healthy and vibrant while getting tattooed. With the help of my pharmacist brother, cool tattooed essential-oil using mom, and the sacrifice of most of my body for tattoo oil testing, we got Ink Oil up and running successfully. We then decided to expand our line of essential oil blends and our family to cover not only new tattoos, but beards, baby bumps and our favorite addition, pups!

With each blend we make sure to test every oil until we have the perfect balance of essential oils. Not only do we have amazing skin from testing out these oils, but we also have an amazing time doing it together. We will keep showing off our tattoos, pups, and the men in our lives with beards. We hope to see yours too!

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

We started small, and I mean small. We would order .5 ml bottles of oils and blend 10-12 1 oz bottles of products at a time. My brother is a pharmacist, my is a essential oil guru, and I was just a girl getting a lot of tattoos for practice. We are still small, we still bottle 75% of our own products. Although we enjoy working together we had a HUGE moment in Ink Oil history when we finally got to move one of our products, our best seller Ink Soap, to a manufacturer. It was incredible cool to tour the warehouse and watch as gigantic barrels of essential oils were mixed and bottled on assembly line for us! Sample Solutions in Colorado has been amazing to work with and we can’t wait until all our products are on that line.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Markets have been our best source of new clients. Our product are niche and a little quirky, especially when you see them all on one page of a website. They don’t add up and most people don’t even know what they are. However, you put me in front of a real life person and let me explain how one of our blends are going to help their puppy calm down in their kennel, get their senior dog off allergy medication, find the perfect gift for the bearded husband or pregnant wife, or heal their new investment in their skin, a beautiful tattoo and I can sell out in half a day!

Contact Info:

• Website: www,shopinkoil.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/shopinkoil
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/shopinkoil
• Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ShopInkOil

Image Credits
Scott Gianchetta with Photo Box Photography