Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Berry.
Hi Mary, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I was the kid that sold lemonade at my mom’s garage sales! I grew up with my mom selling painted t-shirts and sweatshirts in the 80’s (we all remember those, right)? So entrepreneurship has been ingrained in me from an early age. In college, I even sold scrapbook materials from my dorm room!
Post-college, after a brief stint as a wedding planner, I realized that my entrepreneurial spirit was such a big part of me and I decided to start my own body care line b.pure body! My small, at-home batches of sugar scrubs and cocktail lip balms (Sex & the City was HUGE then) quickly grew, and before I knew it b.pure was sold in over 350 boutiques nationwide. We made all of our orders by hand in my garage turned studio!
I started meeting other “makers” (as they were called back then) that were having trouble scaling their businesses. The minimums to go to a contract manufacturer to have one sku run was usually 10,000 units, something that an upstart entrepreneur couldn’t afford. They started asking me if I could make their products, and so I did. I became an unwitting contract manufacturer! There was a serious hole in the market for low minimum contract manufacturers, so I worked on filling that hole, and Texas Beauty Labs was born.
Texas Beauty Labs continued for several years with just a handful of great but small clients while I navigated having two babies less than two years apart. We were doing about $500k in revenue with eight employees, from me to the dishwasher, and had a 2,400 square foot lab (which was a huge upgrade from the garage!).
Throughout those years, TBL built quite a reputation for itself within the indie and natural/clean beauty space, and as a result, we were able to cherry pick which clients felt like a good fit for our capabilities. Ironically, one fateful inbound sales call I felt wasn’t a good fit completely changed the trajectory of the business!
When the founder of the Internet’s first clean deodorant contacted sales about a quick turnaround for a natural deodorant, I said no. After some persistence from my biz dev manager and the founder of said deodorant, I said we’d give formulation a try. While we were able to make a strong (but not yet perfect) formula, the weekly output needed to keep up with demand was a much higher volume than we were used to, but I thought–let’s give it a shot!
Fast forward 18 months later and we had perfected a natural deodorant formula — reminder, this was before clean and natural deodorant was what it is today and this was still the era of crystals and natural deodorant that reeked of patchouli. We had gone from manufacturing 500 units a week to 145,000 units a week, had over 100 employees that were paid a living wage, and we had moved into an 18,000 square foot lab. It’s incredible to think that my team and I accomplished all of this without funding of any sort. No investors, no loans, we didn’t even have a credit card. We bootstrapped it!
I sold Texas Beauty Labs in 2019, and in the summer of 2020, in the thick of the pandemic I was able to really reflect on what I felt passionate about and made the decision to return to the life of an independent entrepreneur. I planned to take a six months break or so before jumping into something new. I had big dreams of spending time lounging by the pool and sipping margaritas, but I soon realized I was bored out of my mind and knew I needed to find a new career path that would bring me fulfillment. After some soul searching, I kept coming back to my passion for self-love, kindness and wellness. I knew I had to figure out a way to bring all of that together in a community that encompassed all of these things in an uplifting and unexpected way.
I recently started Cosmos Vita as a wellness company that will meet everyone wherever they are in their wellness journey! The line of non-gmo, vegan and gluten-free gummy vitamins lean heavily into astrology as a form of self-care with the belief that universal events heavily impact our personal lives and experiences. We’ve started with gummy vitamins as a small step in the right direction of taking care of your health and wellness. We will launch in other categories in the coming months – but the underlying message of self-love and wellness will be at the root of everything we do!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s never a totally smooth road, right? I do believe that if you are doing what you are meant to do and work hard, the obstacles will fall away and let you be your best self. That being said, my previous experience is in manufacturing, so there has been a lot to learn in running a direct to consumer business!
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Follow Cosmos Vita on Instagram for some exciting content! We are curating an amazing panel of wellness experts including an astrologer, crystal specialist, meditation expert, yogi, and more, who will be giving their unique advice and insight. Try out our gummy trio (Beaming, Gutsy and Supportive) on cosmosvita.com!
Pricing:
- Beaming – $19
- Gusty – $19
- Supportive – $19
- Wellness Trio – $47
Contact Info:
- Website: https://cosmosvita.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cosmosvita/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cosmosvita
Image Credits
Cosmos Vita
