We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful MARQUITA JONES. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with MARQUITA below.

MARQUITA, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I had my first son in 2012, and soon became a single mother afterwards. I would find jobs that wouldn’t really fit the schedule I needed. The last job I had ended up firing me, due to me having to take off 2 days in a row. My son had been running a fever for 2 days and I had no one to keep him. After I got fired, I sat down, and just kept asking myself, how could I make money from home and still be with my son.

I’d always loved lipstick and lipgloss. I began doing research and found a lab that I could by from. Eventually that didn’t satisfy me because their colors were limited, and I soon found 3 other brands selling the same stuff from them. So I decided to do further research and figure out how to make the products myself.

I also realized that as a woman of color, it was really hard to find products that really were made for “us”. Color ranges were limited and there just wasn’t that much representation at the time. Cost also played a part.

I wanted to be able offer a wide variety of products in tons of shades that were also pocket friendly, and that has continued to be my mission.

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.

My name is MarQuita Jones, and I am the owner and founder of Klarity Kosmetics. Klarity Kosmetics is black owned and we are currently a team of 3. I make and manufacture all of our products in house from my custom made formulas. All of my products are vegan and cruelty free.

It’s so hard to express how much I absolutely love what I do! I mean, wake up out of my sleep in the middle of the night, create something and go back to bed lol. It’s so weird how I can have this image in my head, or this color story and I’m not satisfied until I see what I saw in my head, in front of me.

I come from a broken home and environment and it has always meant a lot to me to be able to work hard and be able to see my hard work pay off. I wanted to be able to let my children experience the things I didn’t growing up. My mom never had a lot and did her best to take care of me and my siblings, and I just wanted it to be different for my children.

For my customers, it has always been important that I play apart in making their day. I still get butterflies anytime someone knows who I am or has used my products at all. In my head, I’m always saying “This is really real lol”. I always make sure to put a lot of love into making my products, and sometimes I’m still in awe that I made something that was just a thought at first.

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

I sell on Shopify, and have been since 2016 or 2017. I’ve tried sites like Volusion, 3DCart, Bigcommerce, Weebly, Bigcartel, you name it lol. Shopify offers EVERYTHING I need and more. They offer reports that help you when its time to file taxes, keeping up with inventory. My all-time fave is the capitol offers. This allows you to buy lots of inventory without having to touch your business money right away. So it helps with scaling.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

In March of 2021, I posted a video of a pastel palette I’d made called So Mermaizing. I really just posted to get engagement since I hadn’t posted in a while. I had nooooo clue that I would kinda go viral that day. Everyone kept commenting saying OMG DO A PREORDER, DO A PREORDER! And at first, I didn’t want to because the palette wasnt completely finished. So long story short, I did a preorder and the palette sold out 4 times in 2 days. I think the first 2 days, I made over $70k. I was floored. And it kept selling to where I had to mark it as sold out so that I could get started on making more.

Mind you, it was just me and my mom working at the time. So I had to hurry and find a bigger working space, since I was still working from home. I ended up finding a small warehouse, got everything moved, hired 2 more people and we all worked tirelessly to get those palettes finished.

All kind of delays with vendors came up and extended the shipping time frame for more packaging and pigments. That was definitely one of the toughest times I experienced, but it helped me grow and learn more. I’d never had employees before, so I had to learn payroll and HR, and working with a team. Learning them and vice versa.

That was really my breakout moment for me, and I’m forever grateful for that.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.klaritykosmetics.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/klaritykosmetics
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/klaritykosmetics