How I got started

My name is Kiara Stitt and I am the owner of Blonde by Kiara Joyce. I am majoring in Business Management with a concentration in small business and a minor in Marketing at Clarion University. I have always been obsessed with lip balm since I have been a little girl. People always ask me how I got started with my business or why. The only thing I can tell them is when covid and the pandemic hit, I was fascinated with skin care / ingredients and lip balm happened to be one of the products I was always checking the ingredients list for. I figured it would be easy to try and make my own so I ordered everything I needed one night and started there.

I launched Blonde by KJ on October 1st, 2020 officially, but I started working on it about 8 months before that. I was also a waitress as I worked on building my business, so it took long hours to complete the process. I started with lip balm. I had lots of trial and error with my formulation of ingredients and what I wanted to use. I wanted to make sure I used the most beneficial ingredients without having to use anything else that wasn't necessary. I let all my family, friends, and co-workers use my lip balm to see if they liked it or what they didn't like about it and I took their feedback seriously, because inevitably they would be my customers someday and I wanted them to love it just as much as I did.

I also had many months of trials for what I wanted my scents to be when I first launched. This was important to me because my mission statement is UNIQUE skincare that delivers ultimate hydration and I wanted to differentiate myself from regular lip balm brands and their fragrances who were in the market already. I went through about 7 or 8 different fragrances before I found the 5 fragrances I launched with - Honey and Bourbon, Salted Caramel and Kahlua, Maple Chai and Sweet Cream, Coffee and Cocoa, and Spiced Pear and Whiskey.

Feel free to leave comments or ask any questions.

-xoxo, Kiara

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