We recently connected with Chelsea Hare and have shared our conversation below.

Chelsea, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?

I’m standing in the shower with my (now ex) boyfriend and he turns around to reach for the shampoo and notices the purple branded bottle of pH Balancing Vagisil and concerningly asks me, “is everything okay???” and spastically gestures his eyes downward. I ask him okay with what?? *insert curious emoji* He proceeds to tell me he thought when women had any sort of vaginal product in the shower, that something was wrong. Of course I look at him like he’s lost his mind and explain to him that is not what that means. This is when the gears started turning and I started thinking well, if he thought that, surely he isn’t the only man to be under that impression. Surely, any man that’s visited my apartment (dad, brother, friends, sneaky links, etc) couldn’t possibly have thought the same thing and how mortified I am knowing that it even was of question!
So I asked myself, “how can I create a discreet version of vagisil so I can continue balancing my pH without unknowledable men assuming I have poor hygiene or any abnormalites?” As I am asking myself this question, I have my eyes locked on and staring deep into the soul of my BAR of dove soap. While my brain is calculating the first question, I asked myself why I switched to bar soap instead of liquid soap and it was to optimize the use while paying less.

In reality, we don’t need much soap portions to have a good general clean but (and I could be wrong), soap companies design the spouts to be larger than necessary to have consumers use more than needed, run out earlier and return right back to the store to purchase more. Whereas bar soaps last a bit longer than a bottle of liquid soap in my own personal experience. That’s when I asked myself, how could I put vagisil into a bar so I get more bang for my buck?

I then began to let my mind wander and realize that vagisil isn’t organic or natural and it’s filled with allllll types of carcinogenic chemicals that I can’t fathom I allowed myself to use for so long.

Boom. The idea of Charlie Oliver C|O was born. Off to whole foods, sprouts, and central market to grab a grip of ingredients and essential oils to mix up over 6 months until a solid combination stuck and perfomed similarly (even better in my opinion) as Vagisil and Summer’s Eve products. An organic, vegan, all natural and discreet method of vaginal pH balancing.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi there!! My name is Chelsea but I go by Charlie as a nickname! I graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX with a Bachelors of Science in Applied Physiology and Sport Management. Because I graduated the year of the covid-19 pandemic, sports was NOT the industry to be in. I had to find some way to bring in income. I decided to continue to pursue careers within the property management industry which happened to be the industry I was in while putting myself through college and in my free time, get a few digital marketing certification to increase my chances on getting hired in a marketing role. I transitioned into Digital Marketing and now work in Social Media!

With C|O, I consider myself reletively credible because I have a degree in physiology and know the humam body and the physiology of it, like the back of my hand. Within my degree, I also was required to nearly fry my brain with loads of chemistry courses, all of which I did particularly well in. Because of this, I thoroughly enjoyed testing different formulas while coming up with Charlie Oliver’s.

With C|O, I know we stand apart from our competitors in the sense that we are an all organic product. Not many other vaginal cleansing products can claim the same. Our product is free from preservatives, sulfates and fragrance/perfume. We do post all reviews submitted to our website publicly and notice there is a strong correlation of consumers noticing less noticable vaginal odors! This is certainly attributed to a balanced pH, which I am quite sure is derived from regular C|O use.

I am most proud of offering a subscription model! I personally used to HATE going to buy ANY feminine product but especially hygiene products and now offer a subscripton model so myself and the C|O crew never have to worry about that again because it’s shipped straight to the consumers mailbox which cuts out the super awkward eye contact between me and the cashier who probably doesn’t give two shits about what he/she is ringing up.

One thing I want our consumers to know is that Charlie Oliver is a female founded company and the health + wellness + education of lady bits will always and forever be our number one priority. With that said, we have no intentions on sacrificing the formula for the sake of profit or gain.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I actually have yet to take out any loans for Charlie Oliver and have so far, only used what spare change I had left after paying monthly dues. For that reason, I have had to start really small and only buy what I can afford for the business to get the ball rolling and get it started. Moving forward, we now take profit and re-invest it back into supplies and marketing for C|O.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

My academic experience is centered around science and the human body. I have absolutely NO experience or knowledge of business, accounting or entreprenurial duties. I wish I knew more entrepreneurs like myself or other women in this specific e-commerce space that I could have as a mentor. It would have been incredibly helpful to have as a reference point and somewhere I could turn to for answers to simple questions instead of just Google and YouTube University. I also wish there was a website or blog I knew of that essentially gives you an answer key or step-by-step guide to starting a business from starting the LLC to calculate taxes!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.charlieoliverco.com
• Instagram: @charlieoliverco