We recently connected with Inez Lval and have shared our conversation below.

Inez, appreciate you joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

It all started with Covid. I had to shut down my salon suite due to mandatory shutdown and during this time, clients called me asking me about what they should use to take care of their skin and how they wished i had products they could buy because they trusted me and my expertise. Thats when I decided to change the course of my career and build a beauty brand with my knowledge of skin. It’s been a crazy roller coaster transiting from a service provider to a product and brand developer. These past three years have been the most scary and fun time of my career as an esthetician.

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

I have been an esthetician for 20 years and love everything about the beauty industry. My speciality is body waxing but my expertise is in skin care. I had a waxing salon for many years until Covid happened and that changed my course into creating a skincare line. The name of my brand is Inez Laval Face and Body and I started with 6 products, we carry an acne line and a beard and face oil. Our line is gender inclusive because acne affects everyone at some point in their life. I created this line as an expert in skin and really understanding the consumer’s needs due to seeing so many clients of all genders, and ethnicities and really treating them for their skin concerns. Through my eyes, as an esthetician skin is skin, and really understand it I wanted to create something that anyone with a particular skin concern such as acne could use. I also wanted to create the process of using our products easy and simple to use. We created a number system that takes out the guessing game on how to use our products to get the best results. As we grow as a brand I will be adding more products such as brightening and anti-aging as well.

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

When covid happened and the service industry was hit hard it was really hard not to give up and change careers because there was so much uncertainty. So having to pivot and start new was really hard and scary but I am so happy that I did.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I chose Shopify as my e-commerce for my business and it is a love-hate relationship with Shopify! I love it because in the back end, I have all the tools I need to run my business but I hate it because I am not a web designer and really understand the back end of Shopify has been really hard to do. They made it as easy as possible but I went blindly into it and had to learn new skills that definitely were out of my comfort zone, but all in all, it’s a great platform to have. The pros for me with Shopify are it comes with a lot of perks to make your shop run well and keep you current on e-commerce technology but at the same time it is a con as well because trying to keep up can be overwhelming but I still would recommend it to anyone wanting to start an eCommerce business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://inezlaval.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inezlavalbrand_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ILavalBrand
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/inez-laval-2635b22a/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/inezlaval

Image Credits
Inez Laval all the photos done by me.