Today we’d like to introduce you to Adria Marshall.
Hi Adria, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I created Ecoslay by an accident. When I decided to ditch my hair relaxer years ago, I was unable to find products that worked well for my hair type. I became what they call, a “product junkie” because I nearly tried every product on the shelf! Over time, I learned to turn the bottle around and look at the ingredients (listed by volume) to see which ones worked best for me – this yielded 2 surprises: 1) Products with more plant-based ingredients seemed to work best 2) There were a lot of less-than-stellar and filler ingredients in products. When I discovered that I could easily purchase ingredients for my products from my local farmers market (shout out to Your Dekalb Farmers Market), and the rest was history. I created my ‘Orange Marmalade’ product in late 2018 and it almost immediately went viral. A few years later, I had a staff of four, still mixing concoctions in my kitchen (my house and stress level were a complete mess at this point) and now we’re a crew of nine in our own location. We have 12 products available on our online store and are in over 100 retailers worldwide. Having a strong vision has enabled us to constantly innovate– in the summer of 2021, we ditched our plastic bottles in favor of refillable mason jars and recyclable pouches. We also have a partnership in the works with a local black-owned farm so that we can ensure that the best ingredients go into our products while supporting our community.
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?
Oh goodness, absolutely not. Being a small-business owner means that you never know what the next day will bring – this is a blessing and a curse! Each day is different from the previous one, which means constant excitement. But this also means that your best-laid plans are most often a complete joke!
I clearly remember waking up one morning after a long night of jarring around 400 deep conditioners; I walked into my den (we were still making all products from my home) and all of our deep conditioners were exploding! Thank goodness that we hadn’t shipped out any conditioners from that batch but this meant that they all had to be remade, plus I had to figure out the issue.
Another struggle was figuring out our tax system. I’m grateful for fellow entrepreneurs who were able to make great referrals to help get my books and taxes figured out before it became an issue!
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Ecoslay?
“Slay Your Look, not the Planet”. This is our motto and it pretty much sums us up. We are a black-owned and operated, sustainably packaged, plant-based hair care company for textured tresses.
Our values are:
1. Choosing good ingredients
2. Educating our customers on their hair type and the best ingredients/methods for them
3. Being kind to the planet
4. Being kind to each other.
Any big plans?
Yes! As mentioned earlier, our pending partnership with a local black-owned farm will help us close in on our “Farm to Pouch” goal. We are also constantly evaluating our ingredient and packaging choices to choose the absolute best combination of products, packaging and delivery methods for our customers.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ecoslay.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ecoslay
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ecoslay
- Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@
ecoslayllc - Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ecoslay
Image Credits
Jaxon Photography
