We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Temika Walker a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Temika thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.
B4 UR SKN® first client was a judge from the Brooklyn Public Library Power Up Pitch Competition in summer 2021. Someone spiritual was in my ear saying just take a sample of your body butter to the judges at the Brooklyn Library since I’m always there researching data for the pitch competition which required a 21 page business plan, powerpoint presentation and financial projections. Lets just say that was my lucky day and I ran into one of the judges named Arcola. I had asked her if I gave her a sample of my body butter to try, would it disqualified me/the brand from applying for the competition. And she kinda turned her nose up at me and said, I’ll try it but it won’t guarantee you to be selected. And I responded , That’s why I asked you that question so that I wouldn’t get disqualified. And I kept selling the characteristics of the body butter and stressed that it does NOT have any cocoa butter or shea butter in it. Just 6 unrefined cold-pressed oils and raw fruit butters from the Amazon rainforest of my grandmother’s home country Guyana, South America. Long story short, Arcola kept the sample. In her defense when I tell this part of the story , she tells people she didn’t give me the turn her nose up at me, my body language.
That same week, I had a web designer named Keshia with Coditivity set up the site. Keshia left me a voicemail stating that someone was trying to place an order but the website was not fully set up. Therefore, I asked Keshia the customer’s name and she said Arcola, and all I did was scream on the phone ‘Yes’. I knew she was going to like the product. I responded to Arcola email inquiry for the product and hand delivered the Mahogany Hair & Body butter. Then that following month , she ordered another 8oz jar for a friend as a birthday gift. And that was my first official sale on a partial website.
Then I receive even more good news, that Fall 2021 the final for the Power Up Competition, an behold I was selected as the top 8 finalist after beating out 57 business plans with this being my second time applying because in 2020 the judges comments on my last business plan didn’t state how my body butter is any better than the ones on the market. So the second time around I put my savings $15,000 into the product, raw materials, labeling, register trademark , lawyer fees, web designer fees. From me being selected, the judge Arcola pulled herself out of the competition so that there wouldn’t be any conflict of interest since she tried and purchased my product. And from winning the $1,000 from the competition, unfortunately I didn’t make it to the top 3 finalists. However, B4 UR SKN® soft launch was in September 2021. Another amazing milestone that year was that my registered trade mark was approved October 2021 brand name & emblem/logo December 2021.
B4 UR SKN® began with a chance encounter and perseverance. During the Brooklyn Public Library Power Up Pitch Competition in summer 2021, fate stepped in when I met Arcola, a judge. Taking a leap of faith, I offered her a sample of my body butter despite concerns about disqualification. Despite initial skepticism, she kept the sample, and that pivotal moment marked the start of something incredible.
Shortly after, a web designer, Keshia from Coditivity, alerted me that Arcola was attempting to place an order on an incomplete website. The sheer excitement confirmed my belief that she’d appreciate the product. I promptly responded to Arcola’s inquiry, hand-delivered the Mahogany Hair & Body butter, and later fulfilled another order for her friend’s birthday.
This momentum propelled me into the final round of the Power Up Competition in Fall 2021. Despite a setback the previous year, investing my savings into refining the product proved worthwhile. Though I didn’t secure a top spot, the recognition fueled B4 UR SKN®’s soft launch in September 2021. Subsequently, the approval of my registered trademark and brand name/logo marked significant milestones in October and December 2021, respectively.
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.
Founder, Temika Walker of BlacBeutyNo9, LLC is a Brooklyn, NY, plant-based and black owned skincare company that created the brand “B4 UR SKN®” in 2020. With a BA in International Trade & Marketing from Fashion Institute of Technology, she has traveled abroad to Shanghai, China, and studied at Donghua University in an effort to refine her understanding of product development and import/export logistics on a global scale. In addition, Temika has over two years of experience in the cosmetic industry, where she has gained the necessary skills to launch a successful skincare line.
“After growing tired of suffering from confidence issues resulting from damaged, dry skin and acne prone skin, I used the formulated solution called The Mahogany Hair & Body Butter.”
My grandmother introduced me to crabwood oil and how the natives of Guyana would coat their bodies to repel insects when harvesting the crabwood fruit from the Mahogany trees of the local Amazon forest. When mixing the crabwood oil with other fruit butter and oils, the recipe drastically improved my legs’ skin’s texture and healed my acne breakouts and facial scarring.
In the creation of B4 UR SKN®, Temika formulated a unique solution for problematic skin, without using cocoa or shea butter, utilizing only unrefined fruit butters and cold-pressed oils. The name of her first product is called the Mahogany Hair & Body Butter. B4 UR SKN® “Mahogany Hair & Body Butter” will provide your skin & hair all it requires for daily moisture. Some of the added benefits range from but not limited to, anti-inflammatory, scar healing properties and the exfoliation of dead skin. “Mahogany Hair & Body Butter” is made up of unrefined ingredients and cold pressed oils that can serve as an excellent insect repellent.
B4 UR SKN® goal is to be the leader in natural & specialty skincare products, with a focus on the use of only premium base, raw ingredients. With the formulation of “Mahogany Hair & Body Butter” completed, Temika is currently working on three full body moisturizing massage bath bars to compliment her body butter. These bath bars are an aromatherapy body butter, for oily-combination skin to be released Spring/Summer 2023.
Further, B4 UR SKN® was among the top eight finalists of the Brooklyn Public Library-Power Up Competition 2021, won second place twice for two different pitches, which one was with Brooklyn Women’s Business Center @ the LDCENY, and her recent win of the $20,000 grant with NYC Boss Up 2023 competition. Also, her product was featured in Ready Set Shop and Sip Shop Eat, an ecommerce platform and a product featured in the April 2023 edition of Lush Magazine. Great things are looking up for Temika Walker and her brand B4 UR SKN® for the year 2023.
What are you most proud of and what are the main things you want potential clients/followers/fans to know about you/your brand/your work/ etc.
What I hold dearest is witnessing the realization of an idea born in 2018. My belief in the universe has brought full circle the creation of a product for the beauty, health, wellness, and skincare industry. At one point, my Great Uncle from my Guyanese family wanted me to assist with his beauty schools in Florida, but I respectfully declined due to being young and adhering to my husband’s southern values.
Leaving my husband at 26 as a survivor of domestic violence, I relocated to NY with my two young boys.
I had a stint as a stylist and model, often recognized but preferring not to dwell on it.
In 2017, I joined a cosmetic company, but two years later, a back surgery led to a premature return to work with unrecognized medication side effects. The subsequent layoff, just before the pandemic, came with a small severance package.
In my first year of sales, I hustled through 25 pop-ups, solely focused on selling body butter.
Currently, I’m juggling part-time grocery deliveries to fund my brand while weekends are dedicated to local pop-ups, where I sell my products for brand recognition. A return to a 9-5 isn’t feasible after a mental breakdown that made me leave my job, a move I believe was divinely guided.
I express my gratitude to the customers and dear friends who lend their support and share their testimonials. Each time I review my DMs or check the sales orders on my Shopify account, tears of joy well up in my eyes. I am truly thankful to the almighty that our brand is finally gaining recognition.
Throughout it all, I feel a protective force guiding me, especially during the pandemic. This is only the beginning for B4 UR SKN®. Every obstacle I faced, every person rooting against me, the universe has countered fiercely to bring me to where I am today. And when I reach millionaire status, I’ll tell all in a book, revealing the strength gained from those who doubted me. As the saying goes, “God don’t like ugly!”
My motto: Perseverance Conquers All.
MY DREAM
MY LIFE
MY DESTINY
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
Yes, We hand crafted our body butters and outsource our handcrafted cold pressed soaps to a small business black owned business in Staten Island. We tell them the ingredients we would like to have in our massage bar soaps and the company creates our recipes for each soap.
How we became a skincare brand was based on my skincare issues as a child and learning about crab wood oil from my Guyanese grandmother as I stated in my bio. However, the trial and error period of creating the body butter was challenging . When I first started learning about different fruit butters, cold pressed oils, carrier oils and stabilizers it was a lot of research. Since I was creating the first line trial of our body butters during the pandemic, I had more than enough times on my hands to get it right. And everything was funded from my savings account & unemployment funds.
The first line trial of the body butter didn’t have a stabilizer and soon as you open the container the formulation was spilling out. The ingredients at the time was Mango butter, crab wood oil, marshmallow root oil jojoba wax and arrow root powder. But then I was like, I use the arrow root powder I will need to preserve the product with vitamin E. The science was too complicated at the time to formulate the first stage of the body butter. Then I was reading different body butter blogs and Facebook groups about wholesalers of shea butter and cocoa butter. Someone mentioned Kokum butter but it was very expensive to stabilize the body butter which is a go to instead of using Cocoa butter without the sweet aroma of the Cocoa butter. Therefore, I came across a company in California that source their raw material from South America and after window shopping their site for the Kokum butter, it’s like I struck gold and found another fruit butter called Pequi fruit from the Amazon rainforest of South America too.
Once I purchased a small amount of the Pequi fruit & Kokum butter and researched how to make the basic body butter with the other four ingredients Mango butter, Marshmallow root oil, crab wood oil & jojoba wax, which yes, I substituted my ingredients with the basic recipe then tweaked the recipe due to the ingredients I purchased was so raw and unrefined & pure. The whole process of melting the fruit butter down using the broiler method, then pouring in the cold pressed oils with the melted fruit butters was like magic to the eyes. The aroma in my kitchen was amazing and I was satisfied that I was able to mask the crab wood oil earth smell naturally. And the trick to that was the Pequi fruit & the marshmallow root oil.
So when my grandmother from Guyana asked me how I was able to get rid of the crab wood oil, I told my grandmother a lot of research, formulation and science.
Some people ask me if I’m worried about anyone knocking off my product, I tell them with confidence NO! Because the recipe is in my head measurements wise, and if someone tries to hack my google drive and try to formulate the body butter. They will not be able to master what I have formulated. And plus all the ingredients are really expensive. If they can master getting rid of the crab wood oil earthy smell using my ingredients at a cost effective price, then I’ll tip my hat to them.
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
Our favorite marketing story would be submitting my raw footage of my skincare journey to a black e-commerce platform called We Buy Black.com. I put the video together using photos and videos of my skincare journey on TikTok. It wasn’t the best video, but I can say it did put us on the map for a minute and per the sales team I started a trend on their platform by submitting my raw footage of my skin before & after . Then all of a sudden the other skincare brands followed suit by showing their raw video footage of their skincare journey vs just showing a video ad of two beautiful models whose skin is already perfect posing by a product.
And the other favorite story was selling out of my body butters & massage body soaps at three huge events. One in Manhattan called Colored.colors, Markets for Makers-Brooklyn & Brooklyn Museum. Baby, when I tell you I cleaned house, I cleaned house by talking, engaging with the customers, explaining the ingredients, letting the customers sample the products on their skin & watching the potential customer reaction. Especially the Brooklyn Museum pop-up on a rainy day. Boy did I pray that day, because I couldn’t believe how many people came out to a museum then shop on a rainy day during the summer. With those 3 pop ups I cleared over 4 grand just for a weekend event. My testimonial videos are on our IG page.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://b4urskn.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/b4urskn/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/B4URSKN/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/shorts/iJVtKjfpiPE?si=2AG2_9q6hg5XzITR
Image Credits
Lush Magazine Publication