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

Alright, Chelsea thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Thousands of dollars in debt, my face was covered in cystic acne that was the size of golf balls, and all I could do was mask real internal problems with beauty products and any cosmetic treatment I could find. I was shopping for all different types of beauty products to help. And even though they were top of the line, they were actually making my skin worse. I was so inpatient that I would just keep trying new products, and ended up with so many that I only used once or twice. I was down on myself for spending thousands of dollars on skincare and accumulating so much waste, so I tried to find a solution that would allow me to resell the products safety and let my products benefit someone else. I had looked on different resale platforms like Poshmark, but found that there was no middle man or quality control. This is why I started YouFromMe – nothing like it existed. ⠀⠀

Chelsea, 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?

My name is Chelsea Rowen 30 years old. I got into the beauty industry based on having severe cystic acne and trying so many different beauty products that never worked for my skin. Through our shop you can shop, sell donate and recycle all beauty products in one place to reduce waste. These are beauty products that the everyday consumer no longer wants or needs, but are in the best shape with enough life left to benefit a new owner. A consumer may want to resell if the product didn’t work for them, they didn’t get around to using it, or if they have too much of it. In fact, 70% of our inventory is brand new products that are still in their original packaging. Our philosophy is to reuse these products that are already in circulation, to create more sustainability in the industry. We created our own quality control process in order to safely resell gently used products, in partnership with a certified lab in Boston. We’ll put any skincare, haircare, bodycare and fragrances through this rigorous process. We test the products to make sure there is no contamination, yeast or mold so that every product is 100% safe to be passed on to a new consumer. There are major environmental benefits by repurposing beauty products, we’re reducing manufacturing efforts and the co2 emissions put into the environment, as well as extending the life of a product that would end up in the landfill. And a huge plus for the consumer is that they can save money! On the donation front, we started partnering with local shelters like the Montclair Food Pantry and others across the country to donate products monthly. People who otherwise don’t have access can really benefit from these products.

This year we also started partnering with major brands, such as Axiology, a zero waste makeup company. If brands are switching out packaging or rebranding, they’ll send inventory to us rather than wasting it and having it go into the landfill.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Stay consistent and make sure your message is clear and easy to understand but make it fun! We struggled with this for a long time as we are the first resale shop for beauty products and navigating into a space that’s completely uncharted and has never been done before is exciting and scary at the same time.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

We sell directly on our marketplace directly through shopify put has intergrated other shopping networks into our shop like google, instagram and facebook.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.youfromme.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/youfromme_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/youfrommeLLC
• Other: pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/youfromme/ tiktok: @youfromme

Image Credits
chelsea rowen and natalie walker