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

Ology, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

Ology Essentials supported female entrepreneurs who came out of the pandemic with a desire to control their own time and income. We created layers of opportunities including a small commitment as an affiliate, midsized commitment with wholesale and white label products, and the full brand experience with their dream product line. We support majority female founded businesses, offering low minimums allowing these women to enter into the health and wellness industry without breaking the bank. Some might consider these women competitors, but we firmly believe that supporting women has a positive ripple effect throughout their community. We hope to build a legacy of lifting other entrepreneurs up with us.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

MEET THE TEAM Ology Essentials was founded by Kayla Fioravanti and Haleigh Fioravanti in Nashville, TN. Notice anything? We are a family business! And it all started with Kayla’s non-compete in the cosmetic industry ended in 2017.

Kayla Fioravanti has been a leading expert in the natural cosmetics industry as a cosmetic formulator for over 24 years. She has always had a deep and abiding passion for aromatherapy and natural personal care products. In 1998, Kayla co-founded Essential Wholesale – one of the first all natural cosmetics/ingredients companies – which was listed as an INC. Magazine 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America for three years in a row. Essential Wholesale Started out $50 in her kitchen and grew to a multimillion dollar company. At this time, Kayla was formulating for large cosmetic brands and small businesses.

Kayla’s passion for aromatherapy and formulating never wavered, which is why on December 1st of 2017 – the day her noncompete ended – Kayla co-founded Ology Essential with her daughter-in-law, Haleigh.

Ology Essentials began as a small CBD and skincare company, but over the years it has evolved and expanded into a contract manufacturing company. Through the years, we’ve operated as a small team of women dedicated to supporting small business owners in their dream to bring their brand and products to life.

Juliana Frizzell has been one of those women with us since 2019 as our sales and marketing manager. But in August of 2022, an opportunity came about that allowed her to join the Fioravanti ladies as an owner of Ology Essentials.

During this time, we also added another boss lady as an owner in Ology Essentials. Anne-Marie Faiola of Bramble Berry has been friends with Kayla since the early 2000’s as a competitor in the cosmetic industry and as legislative advocates for small businesses. Their relationship evolved into a lifetime friendship and now a business partnership.

OLOGY ESSENTIALS’ OFFERINGS
We love research and studying so much—we put it in our name! We take our name very seriously as a research driven brand of high quality skincare products and private labeling services. And our mission is to be able to provide you with the services and knowledge necessary so that you can launch your very own line of personal care products.

PRODUCTS WE CAN FORMULATE + MANUFACTURE INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO; lotions, creams, serums, elixirs, potions, scrubs, polishes, body butters, lip balm and gloss, ointments, balms, salves, facial cleansers, masques, baby care, pet care, aroma- therapy based products, topical herbal products, internal CBD tinctures and oils, CBD truffles, body and massage oils, bath soaks and salts, intimate oils, natural deodorant, perfumes and colognes, signature scents, shampoo, conditioner and much more! And BONUS – all of our Ology Essentials branded products are available to consumers for purchase and retail stores for wholesale.

WHAT WE ARE MOST PROUD OF
What sets us apart from others in the Industry is that we shatter the barriers to entry. We want to make it possible for other small businesses to bring their product visions to market. This is why we offer low minimums of 25 units per sku for white labeling and 50 units per sku for private labeling – this is almost unheard of in this industry! And to ensure ease of entry we eliminated all the excessively long research and development waiting periods that are common in the contract manufacturing industry.

Our hearts desire is to support your climb up whatever ladder you set your mind on in the hemp, beauty, aromatherapy, and personal care industry. We want to make it possible for you to focus on building your dreams while we do the heavy lifting quietly in the background for you.

Have you ever had to pivot?

There was the obvious pivot during the COVID years that every business experienced, and once we recovered from those crazy times, we hit another obstacle that required another major pivot. When our business started in 2017 Haleigh and Kayla had completely different roles than we hold today. We were the creative side of Ology Essentials, focusing on product formulation, brand development, and marketing. Last year key partners stepped out of the business leaving the two creatives holding the company together. We stepped up to our new roles and started steering Ology Essentials with confidence and clear direction while keeping creativity alive. We firmly focused on making the success of Ology Essentials fully dependent on the success of the businesses that we manufacture for. When they succeed, we succeed.

This pivot allowed for the new female owners, Juliana Frizzell and Anne-Marie Faiola, to join the team – bringing our female ownership to 100%!

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

HOW KAYLA FIORAVANTI BECAME A COSMETIC FORMULATOR

Kayla’s entire business journey as an aromatherapist and cosmetic formulator started with a case of ringworm that her son had on his face in 1998 that would not respond to prescriptions or over the counter medications. She went to local health food stores and found that all the books pointed to tea tree essential oil. In 3 days the ringworm was gone and she was hooked.

Not only did the teat tree work brilliantly, but it didn’t cause an allergic reaction. She had spent a lifetime using unscented products due to allergies to fragrance oils. She was sold, and thus began her journey to becoming a certified aromatherapist, one of the first registered aromatherapists, and a cosmetic formulator.

Wanting to formulate naturally, Kayla reached out to cosmetic chemical companies asking for advice on formulating naturally, and they said it couldn’t be done. Kayla took that as a challenge, and developed a method to do it anyway. And in the early 2000’s, she launched her first cosmetic company, Essential Wholesale – selling natural bulks bases with low minimums. Essential Wholesale started out with $50 in her kitchen and grew to a multimillion dollar company and was listed as an INC. Magazine 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America for three years in a row.

Contact Info:

• Website: ologyessentials.com
• Instagram: @ologyessentials AND @ologyessentials.labs 
• Facebook: @ologyessentials AND@ologyessentials.labs
• Twitter: @ologyessentials
• Other: TikTok – @ologyessentials AND @ologyessentals.labs