Ginger King is a longtime cosmetic chemist and beauty product judge who began to feel the itch to create her own skincare line. The Parsippany, New Jersey-based solopreneur is also a longtime fan of the TV show, Shark Tank. She was inspired by ‘Shark’ and entrepreneur Daymond John, to create a line that was healthy for consumers, good for the planet and that donates a portion of its profits to charity. The result is Fan Love Beauty, an “Aspirational beauty brand devoted to the ones we love.” |
King’s story, as told to The Story Exchange 1,000+ Stories Project:
I am an award-winning cosmetic chemist and beauty product judge. There is a need for healthy and high performing lip balm, as many lip balms are often ingested because of their close contact with you mouth. Yes, there are natural options out there but very few are willing to put in clinical levels of research. My vegan lip balm is fueled with superfoods and clinical levels of sea asparagus prized at $1000/kg to deliver instant and long term hydration so you can have smooth lips and deliver a smooth speech no matter what stage you are on. Use it daily. Use it before your interviews, meetings, negotiations, pitch competition, or even your zoom calls!
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Success is being known as someone influential in beauty and becoming a household name. Money follows recognition so when I achieve this status, my financial freedom will also arrive.
My biggest success was being featuring in Allure beauty magazine as a breakthrough beauty award judge since 2017. I have also been a Yahoo diversity in beauty judge since 2018 and a beauty packaging judge since 2019. Another success for me was when Daymond John (of Shark Tank fame) said he loved my lip balm. As a fan, I was thrilled!
I constantly invest in myself with various training programs in business even though I already have an MBA in marketing and 30+ business certifications because things change so much these days it is important to never stop learning.
It is very difficult to run a solopreneur business without another stream of steady income. I do consulting for the beauty industry and most of them are project basis. A lot of people withdraw projects or stopped retainers because of uncertainty of the economic situation because of Covid-19. This has put an extra burden on my ability to push out my brand FanLoveBeauty because of a limited budget.
[Related: Women-Led Startups May Take Greater Financial Hit From Covid-19]
My biggest role model is Daymond John. My brand FanLoveBeauty incorporates everything I learned from Shark Tank to off screen life lessons. He is an advocate of saving the bees, so I choose to develop a vegan beauty brand (free of honey and beeswax). He advocates health should be the number one goal for entrepreneurs so my lip balm is the healthiest option you can have. He said we should always give back so since day one, my mission is to donate 10% of our proceeds to suicide prevention foundations. I want to help generate awareness about mental health issues.
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