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

Jhalesa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Getting that first client is always an exciting milestone. Can you talk to us about how you got your first customer who wasn’t a friend, family, or acquaintance?

I came up with my first product, the yoni bar, while in college at the University of Central Florida and while making these soap bars in my dorm room, I would give out samples to my friends, roommates, and women on campus for free to get their honest feedback. Before I knew it, I had a bunch of people coming back to me asking for more yoni bars and I knew from there that I had created something extremely special. Once the demand got so high, I decided to start selling the yoni bars officially and eventually worked to create my online store.

Jhalesa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Jhalesa Seymour and I am the founder and CEO of Salt.Xo, a handcrafted skincare company based out of Florida. I started the business back in 2018 in my dorm room at University of Central Florida in hopes to create a solution to problems that are common among women and that aren’t talked about enough within our community (yeast infections, vaginal odor, acne, hyperpigmentation, etc). I always tell people that God whispered the ingredients into my ear as I had no prior experience in skincare and had never owned my own business before this. At the time, I only had $67 dollars to my name, but I was confident in my abilities and did the research to look into healing ingredients that would work with the body instead of going against it.

From that point, Salt.Xo was birthed and has grown into a multi-million dollar empire. I am truly, truly greatly to watch the business grow from the ground up and I am appreciative of every single person that has ever made a purchase, reshared a post on social media, or supported me in any capacity. Without the love of my Saltbaes, we wouldn’t be here, 5 years later, still thriving and still working towards our ultimate goal – retail stores. I want other young entrepreneurs to know that you don’t need a business degree or millions of dollars in funding to make your dream come true, believe in your product and believe in yourself and stay patient as things unfold for you.

Have you ever had to pivot?

In 2020, our shipping carrier lost over 1000 packages due to the hurricane that impacted Florida and as a small business, this really hit us hard as it was our first major loss. I had to call my family to come down from Miami to help me remake all of the lost items and get them prepped to reship out to customers. Not to mention, I had to do all of this out of my own income as we weren’t reimbursed whatsoever from our shipping carrier.

I personally emailed all of the customers affected by this travesty and let them know of the situation and although quite a few were upset, many of them were understanding and patient. This taught me to never use a moment of defeat as an excuse to give up. Although things didn’t go as planned, we figured out a solution and still managed to rectify the situation.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

That it’s impossible to do it all by yourself. You need help, you need a team and you need support. In the beginning stages of opening my business, I was customer service, the manager, the inventory purchaser, and the marketer. I was extremely exhausted and burnt out every day. I soon hired help and it scaled my business to heights I couldn’t even imagine.

My gift is product formulation and marketing and that’s what I prefer to specialize in. I’m grateful that I learned this lesson before it was too late and was open to making the necessary changes to better my business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.saltxo.com
• Instagram: salt.xo

Image Credits
Dreams Over Everything, LLC