Michigan Social Worker Creates SexC Cosmetics Line

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Hey there, what's up? Welcome back, this is Side Hustle School. I'm your host, Chris Guillebeau. Today we are on to episode 390, that is 390. And I love highlighting stories of people who come from less advantaged backgrounds or have otherwise overcome some kind of struggle to start their side hustle.

You know, I really do believe in economic empowerment. That's a big part of a side hustle because when you have more than one source of income, you're not dependent on any one employer, any one company or organization. Even if you stay with that company or organization, you're doing so by choice, not because you have to. Economic empowerment has been even more important in all kinds of marginalized communities. If you're excluded from mainstream society by discrimination or some other form of separation, you have to fend for yourself.

And today's story is about a Michigan social worker who creates a cosmetics line. In doing so, she overcomes both external and internal obstacles. And in our conversation with her, she used the word insecurity several times. Thought that was interesting. I know it's something that a lot of people relate to in different ways.

I know I do myself, so perhaps we'll cycle back to that at the end. But first, let's say thank you to our sponsor and then on with the show. [Music]

Today's story comes from Kamisha Charmaine from Toledo, Ohio. By day, she's a caseworker for the state of Michigan. Her side hustle is Sexy Cosmetics, that's spelled S-E-X, capital C, which specializes in selling lip products.

Kamisha is a widowed mother of two kids, currently raising them on her own. The loss of her partner wasn't the only hardship she'd experienced. As a child, she struggled with her weight, and in adulthood, she's working on overcoming lots of insecurities. What does this have to do with her side hustle? Well, a lot.

When Kamisha thought about starting a new project, her thoughts went to lipstick. It's the only makeup she wears, she says it makes her feel confident and sassy. She wants to show women that a simple smile will go a long way. She had just started feeling good about herself when she decided that she wanted to bring that energy into a makeup line. She wanted a lipstick that was highly pigmented and long lasting, so people wouldn't need to reapply it 10 times a day.

At first, she thought she'd create her own lipsticks from scratch. So she went to the store to buy all sorts of ingredients, coconut butter, beeswax, anything else she thought she might need. She spent hours searching Google and watching YouTube videos on making lipstick, but the initial plan didn't work out so well. She wasn't able to create the perfect lipstick that met her standards. So she decided to look for a manufacturer instead.

In addition to wanting that perfect lipstick in the form of a quality product, she also had some clear specifications. She wanted to customize the colors and the logo branding, and remember, that lipstick had to have a long wear time. She sampled products from several different manufacturers until she found one she liked. In private labeling her own brand of lipstick, Camisha was looking to create something that represented her personality. She felt like she had just begun to grow into the sexy stage of her life, and since her first initial is C, she chose the name Sexy Cosmetics.

Once again, S-E-X capital C. In addition to lipstick, her goal was to sell lip gloss, lip pencils, and other lip products. By the way, quick side note, I have no idea what other lip products could be, but I bet that about half our audience may have some idea. Send me a note, let me know. Since she wasn't making her own product from scratch, and now that she'd found a manufacturer, all that was left was the marketing.

From the beginning, Camisha thought differently about her target market. She says she built the line based off of all the young ladies and women that are still battling with insecurities. She wants them to feel great about themselves. She chooses the name of each color based on characteristics she thinks are important. For example, she has a lipstick called Confident.

And in thinking about how to reach those women, she approached the goal from two perspectives, online and offline. Online, she'd use Facebook and Instagram ads choosing stock photos that she felt communicated the values of her brand. Offline, she began attending as many events as possible. Just like Destiny Lawson, who we featured last week in episode 382, Camisha used Eventbrite to find events in her local area. She focused on women's conferences and bridal shows.

She became more experienced in SalesGrew. She began to travel, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, and elsewhere. These days, most of her sales come from these vending events which currently bring more traffic and sales than the website. Each event usually brings in at least $500 to $1,000 and it also expands her reach and builds brand awareness. As she gains more understanding of what her target market wants and how to best reach them with her message, she hopes to ramp up online.

She also plans to launch eye products this summer and then continue launching one cosmetic product at a time. Are you familiar with the term psychographics? This is really important. It's basically another way to think about your target market. You're probably familiar with the word demographics.

That refers to target markets that can be broken down in these specific categories based on age, background, socioeconomic status, education level, all kinds of other factors like that. And often it is important to think about the demographics of your intended customer or customers. But psychographics is essentially a way of grouping people based on shared values or some kind of shared identity or sense of belonging. So in other words, you may have a group of people that are spread across all kinds of demographic lines, but they're linked together because of a common struggle or just a common interest or belief. People who wanna get out of debt, for example, people are in debt at all sorts of different stages of life.

Sometimes even wealthy people or people from wealthy backgrounds end up in that situation either because of some mistake they've made or just because of some circumstance where it's not their fault at all. And you very well could have a product or service that's marketed to this group. You'd really wanna understand a bit more about them, but the common value is their desire to get out of debt to have more control over their finances. Because just like a side hustle creates empowerment, so too does paying off debt or at least paying it down. And I mentioned that because in this case, the story that we looked at today, the product is lipstick and cosmetics and those other lip products, whatever they are.

But really the goal here isn't just sell lipstick to women. It's to do something that actually relates to that core problem of insecurity, of feeling not good enough, having low self-worth, discounting your own value. And if you have an authentic story like Camisha does and something that can make their life a little bit better, well, you may very well have found your project. So if you're thinking about your own project, think about what unites the people who are gonna be best served through it. Is it a common demographic or is it more of a psychographic or is it some of both?

That's my question for you today. I also wanna give a shout out to Brianna Faith, who we featured way back on episode 22. Brianna is also working on something similar from Victoria, Canada, where I actually happen to be today. Brianna has a lipstick line of her own and she actually started at age 16. If you've read the "Side Hustle" book, you may have read a bit about her story.

Well, as I said, I'm in Canada today. Wherever you are today, I hope you're doing well. I hope you're taking some steps, either small steps or big steps, toward creating more of an intentional life, having the security, the economic empowerment that comes from a "Side Hustle" and also asking questions about the rest of your life as well. How can you find more alignment? How can you do more of what brings you joy?

How is your life connected to other people on this planet? And what can you do to serve or help them? As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. This is episode 390. So today's show notes are online at sidehustleschool.com/390390.

Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back tomorrow. I'm Chris Guillebeau for "Side Hustle School." [Music]