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Our Founder's Story

Hi, my name is Jennifer. I founded SURFCHIQUE to share my passion for the ocean’s surf to a wider audience beyond just surfers and have some fun with beauty and personal care products in the process. I’m not a makeup artist, model, celebrity, or famous surfer, however I do have a background in the beauty/personal care industry with some of the brands I’ve worked on in my agency days, including Unilever and Clarisonic! I am a very curiously minded person and dig deep into researching everything that I get involved with. I’ve learned a lot so far in launching this brand. 

SURFCHIQUE founder

 

I’m not one that’s going to follow the trend and say I saw a void in the market for natural, organic, & cruelty free products and I thought I could bring something new to the table. Nope. That exists everywhere now. I curate amazing and safe products (*more on this at the end of this article) that manufacturers make and I do the marketing, while incorporating sustainability into our business and giving back to the ocean and those it helps.

 

I'm also involved in custom formulating an upcoming product as well as have made some tweaks to current products in our collection.

It's best to let the manufacturers focus on what they do well and I can focus on what I have experience in!

 

I do have a day job that I love in digital marketing, but sometimes working in the corporate world, you don’t have as much decision-making power (or it takes forever and a village to get something approved) and it’s great to have side hustles like these that you can get more creative with and try different things at the drop of a hat.

 

 

This is the real deal.

 

The idea for this brand came to me when I discovered this one multi-purpose beauty product that I’d never heard of before, and thought, this is a perfect simplistic beauty offering for a simple non-makeup surfer type person like me. However, it was a pretty pricey for what it was and I couldn’t imagine spending that much for multiple colors of the product and I was determined to find a more cost-effective way to produce one for myself.  I started trying to make home grown versions of all kinds of products then, from lip gloss, to lip balm, and even body butter.

 

However, I realized, I needed to leave it to the manufacturers who have professional equipment & specialize in manufacturing quality product. With many industries, everything seems to be sourced in China, but this was one industry where there are a lot of options in the USA, which is another reason I was excited to get into this category. I found a manufacturer in the USA who could make this product for me, and develop a custom formula, although it’s a bit of a more timely process. 

 

I had some savings I could use for it but thought it would be ideal to start a brand with a few products and grow an audience/customer base before this product was ready (that required a larger order quantity).

 

When I was trying to make lip glosses at home, I was striving to recreate the sparkle of a blue Caribbean sea and had some success but it looked prettier in the bottle than it did on my lips. Later, I found a manufacturer who made the exact type of product I was looking for (for our Sea Shimmer Lip Gloss - which I'm wearing in this photo) and the SURFCHIQUE brand idea was official. 

 

Through my research into this project, I also found many manufacturers that make great, safe, quality products that align with products surfers might use/need and contain natural/organic ingredients and ingredients from the sea, while also offering the ability to customize the product’s ingredients to your vision.  They were also able to manufacture in small quantities, as launching a new brand I wanted to ensure I didn’t waste a lot of resources buying extra product that may not sell and be wasteful.

 

So that’s pretty much it.  I also have some other surf related side projects that I dabble in from time to time – my new YouTube channel, Surfershops.com (where I mainly focus on selling inflatable surfboards but any indie surf brand is welcome to join), my Seashine Surf Co apparel line, and daSurfengine.com (a blog/community/surf spot finder & surf buddy finder for surfers).

 

Yeah, I don’t have much of a social life, as I spend all my free time on these projects, actual surfing in the ocean, and a live music concert here and there (Iration, Wheeland Brothers, & Ballyhoo! are some of my faves).

 

Enough about me, I hope to connect with many future customers out there as SURFCHIQUE grows!

 

*I like to use term safe vs free of this and free of that. Our products are obviously cruelty free as most brands don't test on animals anymore unless they are required to because they sell in China. We incorporate as many natural products as we can into our products but don't believe natural always means safe, when some synthetic ingredients can actually be more sustainable and better for the environment while also being safe. Check out our Keeping it Real in Beauty blog for more info.

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