With a lately opened second location on Airport Street, regionally owned vegan well being and sweetness retailer Oshun Organics is rising since its small beginnings of promoting merchandise on-line in 2016.
Karrye Flowers, proprietor of Oshun Organics, makes physique scrub and physique butter in the neighborhood market on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023.
Karrye Flowers, 32, is the proprietor and lead beauty formulator at Oshun Organics. She began in social work earlier than realizing her ardour for sustainable well being merchandise and mixing aromatic and natural substances collectively.
Flowers moved to Lynchburg from New Jersey six years in the past, after she visited a buddy and located the town to be lovely.
“Up north, all the things will get a bit bit grayer and dreary and colder, and I used to be like, ‘Why do not we go to Lynchburg?’ It appeared like an excellent place, so we got here down a second time and scouted out locations to dwell, and that was it,” she remembered.
When she first moved right here, she labored for a number of social work businesses earlier than deciding to department into entrepreneurship full time.
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“I’ve all the time needed to be an entrepreneur. I spent years looking for my factor and once I began making this, I simply realized that that was my factor and it’s one thing I am actually good at,” she stated.
Karrye Flowers, proprietor of Oshun Organics, in the neighborhood market on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023.
About eight years in the past, she stated, she went on a private journey to turn into extra educated about what she was consuming and what she was placing on her pores and skin.
“I began studying all of the ingredient lists after which going and researching and making an attempt to determine how issues had been made, the place they got here from, and with that I grew to become a lot extra empowered,” she stated. “And I needed to impart that information on different individuals, so I began making issues that had been extra superior than simply mixing butters and oils collectively.”
Initially, Flowers was simply making scrubs with espresso for her personal private use however as soon as she grew to become extra educated, she determined to ramp issues up a bit.
“I began making chilly course of cleaning soap, which was my first large endeavor into the entire science,” she stated. “Horrible cleaning soap however I fell in love with the method of doing it.”
From there got here deodorant.
“I went on a mission to attempt to make pure deodorant that wasn’t simply coconut oil or baking soda and that was the second large factor that I ever made, and I nonetheless promote it to today,” she stated.
She stated individuals are changing into extra conscious of sustainability and need to use secure merchandise.
“I began dabbling round and making an attempt to determine my very own formulation for issues and a few of them weren’t good, a few of them had been fairly good. It was simply trial and error and giving issues away to individuals and getting their suggestions on it,” she stated.
After discovering success promoting merchandise on-line, Flowers acquired a sales space on the Lynchburg Neighborhood Market on the weekends. When a storefront inside the market opened in 2019, she petitioned for it and has been there ever since.
The shop now sells physique butters, foaming physique scrubs, important oils, face scrubs, hair care merchandise, moisturizers and child care.
A satellite tv for pc retailer opened at 1765 Airport Rd. Suite E this month.
She enjoys speaking to prospects and serving to to teach them in regards to the merchandise.
“I am actually glad individuals all the time have questions on how issues work. I will speak you to dying about how these substances have an effect on your pores and skin,” she stated.
Jeanell Smith of Lynchburg met Flowers in 2017, was given a bar of lemon poppy seed cleaning soap and was hooked.
“I used to be thrilled when she started promoting her handmade tub and physique merchandise on the Lynchburg Neighborhood Market in 2018 and I might buy them frequently,” Smith stated. “In addition they make extremely cherished items. We use her soaps, lotions, shampoo and conditioner bars, lip balms, face scrub, and my favourite product, her curl cream.”
Smith stated her hair is curly and unruly and the curl cream is a pure product that retains her curls manageable.
“We’re so lucky to have Karrye in Lynchburg. Not solely does she craft superb plant-based merchandise, she listens to her prospects and their wants and responds by creating new choices to fulfill these wants,” she stated. “After I minimize my hair right into a mohawk, I wanted a distinct sort of product, and naturally, she had one within the works, clear hair cream.”
Smith stated she doesn’t need to learn the labels to verify for undesirable substances as a result of they aren’t there. She additionally stated she enjoys supporting a neighborhood, woman-owned enterprise.
Salina Khanna of Lynchburg stated she holds the identical ideas and practices that Flowers has constructed her enterprise on.
“The face behind the identify is all the things to me,” she stated. “Not solely had I been on the hunt for native merchandise once I met them, however I used to be thrilled to know that their ideas and mine had been aligned and we had the identical targets.”
Khanna stated she belief the soaps, shampoos and conditioners that she makes use of frequently.
“That’s saying loads. I’m not somebody who blindly trusts the substances which can be going into or onto my or my household’s physique,” she stated. “The pores and skin is your greatest organ and all the things that’s placed on it straight impacts your well-being.”
Strolling by the store out there, individuals can see Flowers making all the things in home.
“I make all the things proper right here. So I sit down and I work out what sort of product I need to make,” Flowers stated. “After which the most important half is how is that this going to work? How is it going to be efficient? And then you definitely base the substances off of what you need it to do. So I manufacture all the things from scratch proper right here.”
She stated she by no means needs anybody to have the identical worry she had about questioning what byproducts she was utilizing.
“I simply need individuals to know that they’ll take that again for themselves and go and look issues up and go and analysis. And it would not need to be scary,” she stated.
