Our Story - through the eyes of our Dad 23/9.

Our Story, by our Dad aka Caretaker, General Manager of Bossy Glossy.

Date - 23/9/2020

Hi Bossy Glossy Bloggers! :)

Firstly, thank you for visiting our page. Every visit means the world to us.

I'm James (or Daddy) & my girls asked me to write my side of the story to share as they find it funny, but also to tell you a little more about us all.

For background, my day job is essentially to build brands or rebuild brands in trouble. I've done this for 15 years & currently work for a Swiss Sportswear company & travel a lot. I work too much sometimes. The girls know I've always wanted to set up my own company, but it's never been the right time*. (*yes, a poor excuse).

My version of 'Our Story'

One day I came home from work & was surrounded by the girls who had something exciting to tell me (little did I know, this day was to become 'Day 1' of Bossy Glossy). 

The girls proudly announced 'We've started our own Beauty Company' & showed me all their ideas. I've seen pitches from £m companies & this idea was right up there, it got me engaged immediately & that rarely happens, even in my day job.

The idea

Their idea was to start a Beauty Company that was 100% Natural & good for sensitive skin as 2/3 of the girls suffer with dry skin & eczema regularly. They wanted to make Lip Balms first as they found an 'amazing natural recipe we can make at home'. My favourite quote 'when we sell them all, we can make even more products!'... I realised at this moment, they were 100% my children & I was very proud.

They wanted it to be 'Organic, Natural & Empowering'! Empowering came from a post they saw about Empowering Women & girls to be recognised as equals, which made me even more proud of my incredible daughters.

BG is born - The logo & 'cash'

The logo, designed by Summer, still remains almost exactly the same from the very first logo she designed. I loved it & it resonated with me immediately, so we just had it professionally corrected to make it easier to print.

Next they explained they had pulled together all their money, I remember it as £97.30, and wanted to use that to start their company.

Bossy Glossy was born! We ordered the materials & with help from Mummy, the girls made their first Lip Balms!

The girls made 200, they went in just over 1 week to friends/family & the feedback was amazing.

The 'Boring Stuff' - It got pretty serious, pretty quickly from this point...

- Trademarks / Cosmetic product certifications / Website / Sales Channels 

The first 4 big tasks we needed to do were protect our brand & comply with all legal requirements of cosmetic products while creating a website & other sales channels to pay for it all.

I couldn't expect the girls to do this of course, so a small loan from Dad & a few evenings were put in.

The website

All the 'boring' stuff was done/in progress & the website was now being built by my incredibly talented 10 year old Nephew, Harry. Harry is pretty much the smartest kid I know & he'd recently invited me to his own webpage/blog that he made. I asked him if he wanted to try & build a site for Bossy Glossy & he said yes! 2 weeks later & we had a fully functioning & beautifully designed website. Almost 100% exclusively done by Harry, my 10 year old wonder Nephew!

*side note for our Eagle eyed fans - We have recently changed web platforms & had to bring in some more expertise, but the set up & design is still from Harry's first site build.

The website went live with a soft launch & during the Covid period I was unable to travel, so it gave me the opportunity to set the foundations for the business & a strong launch pad for growth.

Expansion

During this period the girls came up with more flavour options, we looked into certifying the products, having them tested & making sure we covered all aspects. To be fair, our local Trading Standards team were & remain very helpful. I would advise anybody to link with their local TS office for their business as it ensures compliance & risks any unexpected/accidental breaches.

By now it was clear that Bossy Glossy was going to be more than a hobby & so I had to ask the girls if we could bring in some help, which they luckily agreed to. I bought our family friend Laura into the business & employed Simon part-time to help our Social media & other aspects of the website day to day requirements. Laura has been one of my BFFs since I was 13 & Simon I have known for 20+years. 

More products & certification.

Now we needed more products, so the girls made a shortlist & we started to create some ideas. We started with Handmade & launched;

100% Natural Lip Gloss / 100% Natural Body Bars / 100% Natural Hair mask / Sleep Balm & even some branded Face Coverings due to the current situation.

Bossy Glossy went from just Lip Balms, to 6 products, which was amazing. all certified with CPSR reports & registered on the CPNP so that they all complied with UK & European regulations on Cosmetic products.

Private Label

Next, was to find a company to help us in expanding our range with more complicated creams that cannot be handmade as easily, but that fit our Bossy Glossy product requirements.

We are currently finalising this & will share in other blogs, but it's really exciting & we placed the order in September ready to launch pre-Christmas!

TODAY

So, that's my side of the story so far. I look forward to the girls asking me to write my next Blog :)

Bossy Glossy is slowly becoming it's own High Quality Natural Beauty brand & the future is really exciting! 

Timeline

Here's a rough timeline overview, it's been a crazy 2020 for so many reasons, but this type of crazy is great for me!

Jan - Came home to girls & their amazing idea, they made the first batch 1 week later.

Feb - Company registered, trademarks applied for & website research

Mar - Website built & softly launched with our Lip Balms

Apr - Re-design of labels for Lip Balms to make logo look bigger

May - Brainstorming of new products & researching ways to certify our handmade products.

Jun -  Laura joins the team. Testing of new products & searching for a partner to help expand our product line.

July - Fully launched the brand & officially organised all our Social channels &  Simon joined to help with our Social side of the business.

August - Our biggest sales month to date with only our Handmade products.

September - 2 New Lip Balms, Site update & order placed for our next product range which will arrive for Christmas shipping.