Celebrating 10 Years of Fancy Free: From My Kitchen to the Fancy Factory

My business started haphazardly. If someone had asked me 15 years ago what I’d be doing in 2025, I would’ve confidently said, “Managing a hospital lab.” What I never would have guessed is that I’d be running my own GMP-certified cosmetics lab—complete with a full product line, private label clients, and a growing team. But here we are.

It all started simply. I couldn’t find a shea butter-based moisturizer that didn’t feel waxy or overly greasy. So I made my own. Whipped shea butter that felt good and worked even better. My Fancy Free Natural Hair Consults started asking to buy it—even though I gave them the recipe! Then my good-good girlfriend—let’s call her Olivia Pope—tried it and said, “This is good. Sell this.” And I listened.

So in March 2015, I took my first real step. I sent samples, invoiced through PayPal, and eventually got my own domain and opened an Etsy page. By 2016, I secured my first private label client, and my revenue was five times what I made in 2015. That was the moment I decided, “Okay, let’s do this for real.”

In 2017, I officially retired from healthcare to go full-time with Fancy Free Hair & Skin. I launched four new products that year and started building the brand. By 2018, I hired my first employee (she’s still with me—loyalty runs deep over here) and had a team of beautiful black women supporting the operation behind the scenes. In 2019, I expanded into product development for other brands, becoming the behind-the-scenes partner for some amazing makers.

Then came the real glow-up:
✨ In 2022, we opened The Fancy Factory—a beautiful 2,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility dedicated to clean, high-quality, handcrafted skincare.
✨ In 2024, we achieved GMP certification, aligning with ISO 22716 and ICH Q7 standards—making us officially Fancy and compliant.
✨ In 2025, we launched the Six-Figure Kitchen Academy to help other kitchen chemists transform their hustle into a legitimate, scalable manufacturing operation.

And through it all—accelerators, grants, vendor markets, hard lessons, great mentors, long nights, and big wins—we’re still here. Still Fancy. Still Free.

The Next Chapter

What’s next?
Global domination—obviously. 😏
We’re working on expanding Fancy Free Hair & Skin’s reach, continuing to educate and empower emerging beautypreneurs, and developing even more effective, luxury-meets-natural products for our community.

We’re making moves, and we’re not slowing down anytime soon.

Thank you for rocking with me these last 10 years. Thank you for every purchase, every share, every kind word, every repeat order. You’ve helped turn a whipped shea butter experiment into a legacy.

Here’s to the next 10.

Stay Fancy, Stay Free.