We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Vania Jackson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Vania, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?
The name of my company was birthed in March of 2020 during an extremely slow day at a job where I was working as a temp. I had the idea for a beauty brand focusing on lip products about 2-3 months before I created the name. My faith is very important to me, so I knew I wanted to incorporate that into my brand so that I would be doing more than just selling lip products. I must’ve jotted down so many possibilities, but none seemed to spark that genuine excitement that I knew I’d get when I had the perfect name. I continued to brainstorm how I would tie the Bible into my products and because it was a beauty brand, Song of Solomon came to mind. This book of the Bible is all about beauty (physical and internal), romance, and love, so I began to play with the idea of creating the names of my products from the verses of this book. I pulled out my Bible app and began to read Song of Solomon and I instantly saw so many possibilities. Once I knew that was where I wanted to focus, the name came a lot easier. I experimented with “SOS Gloss” “S.O.S Gloss” and “S.o.S Gloss” before finally deciding on “SoS Gloss.” The reason I decided on SoS was because I knew that the other versions would be more easily associated with the widely known distress signal. I wanted my brand name to stand on its own as my unique abbreviation for Song of Solomon. From there, I scoured the book and numerous versions for weeks coming up with twelve unique names that I felt would bring my products and brand to life.
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
Who I Am:
I’m 33 years old and currently reside in Charlotte, NC and a Pittsburgh, PA native. I relocated to NC in 2019 and it was that same year that the idea for SoS Gloss was planted. I have always loved all things beauty, but I had never thought I would create a beauty brand. But once the idea was in me, it made perfect sense because I knew I’d be creating and selling products that I actually love to wear. The journey from 2019 to 2022 has been exciting, challenging, and filled with lots of learning. As I reflect on the previous years, I’m amazed at how much I was able to accomplish in areas that I had no prior experience in. In the beginning I spent countless hours researching how to make lip gloss, working and re-working the formulas, scouring Song of Solomon to create product names, creating my website and marketing materials, setting up my social media accounts and much more. The process has taught me what it takes to be an entrepreneur and business owner, and that’s work ethic, dedication, perseverance, and of course faith! Being able to compare where I started to where I am now is what I’m truly most proud of. SoS Gloss has been my “baby” and being able to cultivate it and see it grow and mature is something I’ve been blessed to witness.
Who We Are:
SoS Gloss is a faith-based beauty brand inspired by Song of Solomon, a book in the Bible that sings the praises of the physical and internal beauty of a woman. Since 2020 our mission has been to help all women, regardless of their faith, look and feel more beautiful. We believe beauty is a gift from God, and what better to reinforce that message than to curate beauty products that inspire and empower women to walk boldly in their beauty and in their faith.
What Makes Us Unique:
At SoS Gloss, we do more than just sell great lip products. The names of each product was carefully selected from Song of Solomon, and we include that name as well as the scripture reference on our packaging. This is our way of connecting two areas that are very important to me and to many women: Faith and Beauty. Many women have a desire to feel more connected to their faith through the everyday products they use, but there are not many brands that incorporate a faith-based message. Our brand provides a solution to a desire that has largely been unmet in today’s beauty industry.
Our Products:
We offer handmade and private label lip products including Cream Lip Gloss, Matte Liquid Lipstick, and Gel Lip Liner. As an evolving brand, we will continue to grow and add more lip products to our collection.
Cream Gloss: Our handmade cream gloss line consists of twelve hand crafted glosses that range from high pigment lip stains to sheers and nudes.
Matte Liquid Lipstick: Our matte line consists of seven liquid lipsticks that are long-wear, waterproof and super mattifying while also provide moisture to the lips.
Gel Lip Liner: Our gel lip liners consist of eight shades that complement our cream glosses and our matte liquid lipsticks for a fully finished look.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
In the very beginning, I funded my business largely through my own income. However, in mid-2020 I was laid off from my job due to the pandemic, which made it very challenging to purchase the materials I needed and even get my LLC set up. I was unemployed for four months, and ironically, I didn’t have an abundance of money, but I did have an abundance of time. This was the time that I made the most progress in my business in the entire year. In those four months, I finalized my formulas, created my product names, sourced a vendor for my lip gloss tubes, established my pricing, created my website and marketing materials, created my logo, and even did product photography. In hindsight, it was a blessing to be laid off because I had the time I needed to focus on creating my business. My approach was to focus on making an impact in the areas that didn’t require much, or any, capital. Once I landed my current position, I was then able to focus on the goals that required greater capital. I will say that during those four months I was able to sell my first iteration of lip glosses to friends and family, which also helped me reinvest into my business.
Fast forward to earlier this year, I decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign through Kiva. I did some research on Kiva loans and it really appealed to me; especially with their loans being 0% interest. I applied and about a couple weeks later I was approved for a loan of $8,500. I had 45 days to raise this money and I used social media, word of mouth, friends and family to help me. On day 40 or 41, I reached my goal and was fully funded! This Kiva loan was instrumental in me being able to grow my business. I used the funds to purchase roughly 2,000 private label Matte Liquid Lipsticks and Lip Liners, purchase necessary equipment, enhance my marketing, and more. All these activities were key in helping me reach my business and sales goals. I highly recommend a Kiva loan as they are interest free and provide a very feasible repayment schedule.
We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.
Lip gloss is our foundational product and we currently manufacture this product. I did not have previous knowledge of making lip glosses, so this was a huge learning curve for me. I spent countless hours researching and watching YouTube videos to understand the basic ingredients that make up lip gloss. Then I spent lots of time researching suppliers for those ingredients. When I finally had all the ingredients and materials I needed, the real challenge began. I had to essentially learn how to be a chemist by figuring out how to blend all the appropriate measures of all my ingredients to create the perfect consistency. This process required a ton of trial and error and even more patience. Even now, although I make my formulas much easier, I’m still learning different things about which ingredients yield a certain result. It’s a demanding and messy process, but it’s also fun.
In terms of my product packaging, I had to source a vendor for my lip gloss tubes. I looked at several websites that offered wholesale product packaging and I decided that Alibaba was the most economical option. My priority in vendor selection was price, but quality was certainly a factor as well. It took several weeks of sourcing until I selected a vendor that was able to screen print my logo to my liking, offer a low MOQ, and competitive shipping options. Once I found these elements I knew I found my vendor. I also used Alibaba to source my vendors for my private label Matte Liquid Lipsticks and Lip Liners. Similar to my first vendor, it took a lot of time, research, and chatting back and forth with numerous vendors before I found two vendors that I liked. However, I knew I had to test the products out. I purchased samples from each vendor and tested their products for over a year before I felt comfortable purchasing in large quantities.
There are pros and cons to manufacturing my lip glosses vs purchasing them private label. The pros are that it’s cheaper , it’s very rewarding to see something I created be well received by my customers, it’s a differentiator to sell handmade products, and I am able to create my products exactly the way I want them to be (i.e.. shade, consistency, shine, scent, etc.). The cons are that it requires much more time and effort because I have to constantly make formulas and fill tubes versus having ready-made products. This can be very difficult to manage when factoring in working full-time and sometimes having to prepare 100+ glosses for an event or sale. This has been a lesson I am still learning when it comes to making trade-offs in my business. In the future, I am considering a different approach that will allow me to begin working “on” my business more than working “in” my business.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sosgloss.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sos_gloss/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sosgloss/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sos-gloss-268053245/
Image Credits
Liz Knapp