We were lucky to catch up with Felicia Hasal recently and have shared our conversation below.

Felicia , appreciate you joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

In 2016, I had an idea to start selling the homemade bodybutter I was making for my son. How do you name a product? I sifted through dozens of names. Then it hit me! When you grew up in Detroit and are currently living in Chicago, what better way to pay homage to your favorite cities than to name your product after them. This is how the first name of “Urban Butterz” was born (Insert laughing emoji). Several weeks later, I had said the name hundreds of times and I hated the name. How would I change the name now that it’s all over my newly created Etsy page? If I change the name how does that affect my business? Does that make me look like an inexperienced business owner? I felt like I was going to be stuck with a business name I disliked.

Luckily a friend and fellow entrepreneur gave me a book called “Re-Work”, which is about how to get out of your way and move forward when you’re starting a business. One of the sections of the book speaks on naming your business. Basically, the book explains how many business owners change their business name multiple times in the beginning. It goes further to say, it’s easier to change names in the beginning than years down the line. I didn’t change the name immediately. I had some time on my side to figure out what would be a name that embodied my product values, style, and mission to make a bodybutter that is out of this world.

Fast forward to 2019, I am back living in Michigan. UrbanButterz’s orders have been steady. It felt like a great time to start planning to expand the visibility of the business. It was time to start doing vendor shows and pitching my product to stores. However, I did not want to expand with the current name. I needed some help, so I called my sassy older sister Michelle. She has always been the person I bounce ideas with, and she had no problem telling me the truth. Her first question was, “Tell me what your goal is for the bodybutter and who do you see using it?” I took a huge sip of wine and then explained that my product was for people who cared about what was going into their body. I wanted the product to be targeted to people, not a specific gender. I wanted this to be a product that everyone could identify with. I needed a name that would let people know right away this bodybutter was out of this world. My sister looks at me and says “MARS, Mars bodybutter!” It was genius, but I can’t use “MARS” I’ll get sued. Who wants a huge company sending you a cease-and-desist order! We broke out the white board and dry erase marker and started figuring out what could “MARS” be an acronym for. We sat for hours until it was down to ‘Michigan-made Awesome Rubs & Salve’ or M.A.R.S. Bodybutter.

The next step was to solidify LLC with the State of MI. I pull up the paperwork online and start filling out the form. First box to fill was ‘Name of the Company.’ I began to fill out “Michigan-Made” but I stopped. “Awesome” I hate the word Awesome. It felt “kid-like”. I wanted something that felt fancy. I am an Artisan, and I am making a special homemade product. I pull out my phone and go to Thesaurus.com and I type in Homemade. There it is “ARTISANAL.” I look back at the LLC form on my computer and type “Michigan-Made Artisanal Rubs and Salve”.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hi! It’s Felicia the Owner of M.A.R.S. Bodybutter and I want to tell you all about my body butter that I created in June of 2016; but to do that, I need to tell you about my Son, Ethen. My Son had terrible eczema. His beautiful brown skin was covered in flaky dry spots and itchy, and irritated sores. The doctors started prescribing one medicated ointment after another, but nothing worked. That is, until I Google searched “all-natural eczema relief.” That’s when things took off for the positive.

By this point, I had already gotten the dyes and detergents out of Ethen’s clothes, sheets, and towels. Now, I was examining the lotion I was using on his skin. Glycerin? Stearic acid? Isopropyl myristate? Turns out all this stuff and more is on the internet, right there under the heading of “skin irritant.”

Then I stumbled across a YouTube video where a woman was mixing homemade body butter. Then another video … and another video … and another video. These were all women of different ages, ethnicities, and life experiences, some telling their story, others just sharing a recipe that involved only shea butter, cocoa butter, and essential oils.

It wasn’t long before I had made my first batch and rubbed it into my young prince’s skin. It was almost a miracle how fast it worked. His skin was smooth, clear, and he wasn’t itching. There was no way I could keep this to myself. The world had to know, and “Michigan-made Artisanal Rubs and Salves” was born.

As a single mom working a full-time application engineering job by day and being an entrepreneur by night (and weekends!), I understand the importance of having a product that is multi-use so that not only you can save on time and money, but knowing you are using the safest and healthiest skin care product!

Well, I’ve done all that and more! With scents like “Love that KoKo” “Lemoncello” “Rosebud” and “Man-ish” that were created with only essential oils that marry with your natural scent and will enhance the scent of body fragrance products (Cologne, perfumes etc.)

It’s amazing for all types of skin, from sensitive to dry. It even moisturizes hair and beards.

M.A.R.S. Bodybutter is expanding this year and will be launching new product lines. We will be launching our new Body Scrub this Fall along with our updated Fall Set (a curated set of 3 jars of our best fall scents). M.A.R.S. will also be launching Lip ButterBalms, and Doggie Paw & Nose butter in 2024.

M.A.R.S. Bodybutter – MAKING BODYBUTTER THAT’S OUT OF THIS WORLD SINCE 2016

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I am looking forward to telling this story 20 years from now. I have never funded a business before. I hope what I am about to outline will reach a young person who wants to start a business but thinks they need to be rich; Mostly you just need to be able to follow through, have consistency, and be driven. I had been following a company called ‘The Lip Bar’ and the owner started her company from her kitchen. Starting a business from home is not new, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are proof of that. However, Melissa Butler was from my hometown of Detroit and a black woman. If she could start a business from her kitchen, maybe I could too. I just needed to get started.

At the time, I was a new mom with a lot of new child expenses. I was only making 45K a year at my job in the heart of Chicago. Attaining all the initial things I would need to start had to be done affordably and strategically. I already had a hand mixer; I just needed all the other equipment. I had around $100, so buying new equipment (double broiler, measuring cups), fancy labels, and bulk empty jars, packaging was not possible. However, I had to buy the raw ingredients and mason jars to make my first 10 jars. I marched right into Goodwill and purchased my first double broiler which really was a small old pot and a stainless-steel bowl. I also purchased that day, a thin hemp rope and blank circle label so I could make labels from Amazon.

Shortly after, I created my Etsy Page, which only required a small fee to start. Voila, UrbanButterz was officially open for business. I went to my personal facebook page and created my first post about my new bodybutter and where my friends and family could go buy it. Miraculously, my friends and family started ordering. Then their co-workers and friends started ordering. Eventually I started getting orders from folks I couldn’t trace how they found out about my product. With sales coming in I was able to start buying bulk raw materials. However, there was an issue with the current packaging, shipping, and labels. Mason Jars are expensive and fragile. The cost of reshipping broken jars of bodybutter was an issue. My handwritten labels weren’t screaming professional. I needed to rebrand, but again I am not rich, but I believe in my bodybutter. Since I still work full-time and have a steady income, I decided to take a gamble on my own product. I decided to invest a portion of my yearly bonus into my business. Once the initial fear of using that money for my business and not my kid’s savings account subsided, it was the best decision I’d made (besides rebranding). With that self-funded investment, I was able to buy the appropriate packaging and labels, buy better equipment, create marketing materials, purchase the URLS, LLC and pay for my website to be hosted. This was a huge step for the newly re-named M.A.R.S. Bodybutter. The pandemic happened shortly after this.

Just when I thought I was on the verge of turning my side hustle into a “real” business, the pandemic hit. My first vendor show was cancelled. All the preparation and effort were now going to be sitting on my shelf. Then a miracle happened, sales started pouring in. Since 2020 sales have soared. With the increased volume, it’s time to scale, which means It’s time to start focusing on pitching and procuring additional funding. I am focused more than ever on obtaining farm space to grow our own herbs to make the essential and infused oils in-house. Having the ability to handle the volume of the potential private label opportunities, which means industrial equipment, manufacturing, and warehousing. My business has been solely self-funded. A fact that I am so proud of.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Life is just a series of decisions and pivots. The art of the “pivot” is essential in my engineering job, parenting, and business. Why keep doing something that is not working when you can just do something different. When working at my Management job in Chicago, I was putting in 10-12 hours per day. I was putting in those hours in an environment that was not supportive of me being a single mom and used micro aggressive tactics to diminish my spirit. My family were all in Detroit, I had no help. How was I going to get my business off the ground if I don’t have the time to think, take care of myself, or parent properly? I literally was drowning, and no one was coming to save me from myself-created sinking ship. I had to pivot.

Over the next few months and several therapy sessions, I knew what I needed to do. I needed to move back to Detroit and find a job that wasn’t in management. Being in a non-managerial position I would have more time to spend with my son and developing my bodybutter brand (hell I was using a business name I hated.) Being back in Detroit would bring me closer to family, which means more help with my son and more free time I had to dedicate to the business. This was the optimal pivot for my journey as it was the beginning of me pivoting the business.

Once I moved back to Detroit in 2019, I was able to use that same “pivoting energy” into the formerly known “UrbanButterz” and created “Michigan-Made Artisanal Rubs and Salve” aka M.A.R.S. BodyButter. It was time to start doing vendor shows and farmers markets to show off the new name and the new packaging. Hundreds of jars of bodybutter were made in my kitchen in February of 2020 in preparation for my first Vendor show that was in March. I purchased as many decorations as I could (affordably) for my booth, rented tables, and table coverings. I was so ready. Then the world shut down due to Covid-19. Everything is cancelled. What in the world am I going to do with all this damn bodybutter? How am I going to get this business started now?

I didn’t have to wait long to get the answer to those questions. Once the Post Office opened, I started getting notifications from my Etsy application, I had got a sale. Then another and another, sales poured in. This was a pivot orchestrated by the universe. There is no way I could have predicted that my business would be e-commerce focused.

Pivoting from an in-person business to strict e-commerce presented the biggest challenge yet, shipping. Shipping an all-natural product that is not chemically stabilized without it melting all over the package is my business’s Achilles heel. My first few clients received my product in various states of melting, which takes away from the experience. The integrity of the product is one of the most important parts of my product. My Bodybutter is creamy and smooth like butter, not a melted mess. I quickly learned that I had to put a disclaimer for my product for shipping weather delays. Over the next several months I learned to freeze my product before shipping. Eventually I found small dry ice packs that don’t increase the cost of shipping too much. What a learning curve shipping has been and now it’s one of my strengths.

Pivoting will make things better while presenting new challenges and opportunities. You must be here for the journey and the whimsical.

Contact Info:

• Website: WWW.MARSBODYBUTTER.COM
• Instagram: @marsbodybutter
• Facebook: @bodybuttermars
• Youtube: @tipsywithfe