The first ten units of what would become Velvet Lip Balm were poured in a borrowed kitchen, with a borrowed scale, into containers I'd ordered too many of. They sold out in a week. I thought it was a fluke.
It wasn't a fluke. The second batch sold faster. By the fourth I had stopped borrowing the kitchen and started buying ingredients in larger quantities. By the ninth I had a logo, a NAFDAC number, and a mild panic about storage.
What I got wrong early
I priced based on what I thought people would pay, not on what it actually cost me to make. Which meant I was technically selling but not actually building anything — every naira I made went straight back into the next batch with nothing left over.
The formula I use now: raw materials + packaging + labour time at a fair hourly rate, multiplied by 2.5 for retail. It felt high when I first landed on it. Then I ran the numbers on the first eighteen months without it and understood why nothing had accumulated.
What actually changed things
Three things, in order. A proper INCI label. Instagram, posted consistently. And learning to say no to custom orders that weren't worth the time. The third one was the hardest.
The studio off Allen Avenue happened because of a supplier relationship I spent two years building. The wholesale terms I can now offer came from understanding exactly what my cost-per-unit was. The trainings programme came from being asked, by the same five or six people, whether I would teach what I knew.
If I started again tomorrow
- Fix the pricing formula before the first sale.
- Get the NAFDAC registration done in month one, not month eleven.
- Stop trying to do everything — find one product that works completely before adding a second.
- Take photos in daylight. Always.
— D