Why I Shut Down My Award-Winning Beauty Brand This Year

The Established Wrapped: A Subversive Act of Rest

Seven years after setting out on my entrepreneurial journey with just $200 in start up capital, I had created something aspirational—a dream realized through sheer grit and ingenuity. By most standards, my beauty brand, The Established, was a success. It had earned a loyal customer base, multiple awards, and mentions in the pages of magazines that I had once eagerly flipped through as a teen.

2024 began with promise, a stark contrast to the challenges of the previous year. A successful holiday campaign, a Vogue feature, and our first news segment had buoyed momentum. My goals for this year were clear: expand our social reach, raise real money, and close the gaps on our stalled mass retail partnerships by year’s end. For the first time in about 18 months, the business was undergoing a revival of our glory days and things felt like they were finally clicking back into place.

But by March, I knew I was done.

There was no crisis nor singular catalyst —just a familiar irritation I felt one morning while checking my email. The cold pitches, the relentless spam, the never-ending bills, the follow-ups, and somebody constantly needing me for something—it all felt like an exhausting cycle that drained me more than it ever gave back. Then, in an instant, it hit me with unsettling clarity: I don’t have to be doing this anymore.

I took a brief sabbatical before making my decision public two months later. The response was immediate and overwhelming—my inbox flooded with messages of shock, support, inspiration, and mostly, condolences. But behind every “sorry” lay a fundamental misunderstanding. I wasn’t upset. I was relieved.

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A Reckless Leap of Faith

Sometimes, I feel guilty when I say that 2020 was one of the best years of my life. That year marked the meteoric rise of my brand, The Established, and it showed me that with a stroke of seismic luck, your life can literally change overnight.

The very next day after I impulsively quit the much-hated 9-to-5 job I took on to support the business — my brand exploded. I woke up that morning with no clear sense of what I’d just done, my mind still tangled in the aftermath of a hasty decision and plans to fulfill a few modest orders. But when I checked my phone before heading to the post office, my Instagram notifications were flooded. The Shopify “cha-ching” dinged back to back and only stopped once we sold out. A viral feature in Cosmopolitan, sparked by the national reckoning after George Floyd's death, had thrust my Black-owned brand into the spotlight. That moment marked the start of my full-time entrepreneurship—a path I would follow for the next four years.

By that fall, I had stopped making products over my mom’s stove and moved into a duplex loft that doubled as both my home and business warehouse.

I remember lying on the bedroom floor of my brand-new, empty loft, the space bare of any furniture, save for cold metal shelving and boxes of inventory stacked in the corner. My heart pounded as I curled under the covers, seeking refuge from my racing thoughts. Not only did I have rent now, I had big girl rent—$3,000 worth, plus bills. Diabolical and unheard of for Philadelphia. Was I really about to support myself fully with this fledgling business? The weight of it all pressed down on me, but there was no room for doubt—only the knowing that I had to adapt, and fast.

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Pressure and Possibility

The press from the Black-owned beauty spotlight was still carrying our DTC sales through, and I wasn’t hard-pressed for marketing or awareness—sales were practically running themselves.

By year’s end, we had experienced a level of growth that most kitchen startups only dream of. I had tripled our month-over-month DTC revenue, had been featured in major publications from Essence to Elle, and launched with over a dozen new retailers—including a rising platform called Thirteen Lune.

A slew of luxury retailers started reaching out, actually—the lowest of them Bloomingdale's, whose lead buyer was a complete and utter bitch who joined the Zoom 10 minutes late, probably tardy from a chain smoke. There was also international interest—Lane Crawford in Hong Kong, Holt Renfrew in Canada. And yet, I couldn’t, for the life of me, shake the intimidation I felt to dive headfirst into these opportunities.

I was a one-woman show, handling daily orders, managing the website, overseeing production, inventory, shipping, and content—all on my own. I thought, there’s no way I have the knowledge, capital, or systems to follow through with these commitments, even though, in hindsight, most buyers were more than willing to guide me through the retail process. They were eager to have us in their assortment. Body care was a hot, emerging space, and BIPOC founders were carving out a piece of the pie. But I felt so hypercritical and insecure about my brand—especially since it was all mine, from the formulations down to the packaging design. That made it harder. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself, and I held back.

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I was confronting the psychological aspects of entrepreneurship, driving myself more deeply into hyper-independence while also exercising the scarcity mindset I’d inherited from my financially turbulent upbringing. I wasn’t just learning to make money; I was fighting the discomfort around spending it.

I still remember the stomach-flutter I felt when I really went through my bank statements for the first time and learned I’d been going through about $10,000 a month. This was my first real encounter with my burn rate—the delicate balance between income and outflow. I was puzzled. You’re telling me I bring in this much money a month, and I’m still not rich? I lived a cute life, sure, but not cute enough to mask a harsh realization — the more you make, the more you need.

What I didn’t yet realize, though, was that this pressure would be a constant. Growth demands to be fed. Whether you’re running a $100,000 show or a $10M one, the need for more—capital, resources, bandwidth—will always prevail. It never ends until you choose to close the door. And it’s even harder to manage when you’re carrying your mental trauma along for the ride.

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Navigating Growth, Isolation, and Identity

At the top of the following year, I was riding a wave of inbound opportunities. Press, once a distant dream, became a monthly expectation.

As the brand continued to gain visibility, it caught the attention of Kourtney Kardashian, who had her team reach out about us partnering with POOSH. I was happy with the agreement and obliged—the partnership opening doors to a wider celebrity clientele. Simultaneously, we were nurturing a fiercely loyal, cult-like community, which led to unexpected opportunities for private gifting and collaborations.

Despite the growing momentum, the brand continued hemorrhaging cash. I found myself in a strange limbo: unable to move fast enough to meet demand, but too deep in to stop. Every cent earned was reinvested to keep the wheels turning. Thankfully, the POOSH deal provided the monthly revenue I needed while I thought of how I wanted to continue to fund the business.

Meanwhile, my personal relationships began to fray. A once-close friend, whose successful business mine had eclipsed in recognition, began posting jabs about me online. In new relationships, it felt as though people more interested were in what I could provide than in who I was — from wanting to stop by and see the loft, to endlessly picking my brain, to going out to eat and expecting me to foot the bill. I even stopped seeing my laser hair removal girl after she suggested I “be humble” in response to her asking me how the business was doing since I saw her last.

I became so isolated. The lifestyle many of you saw me enjoy on social media—enjoying a cocktail or an octopus dish at a trendy restaurant—was often experienced alone.

The hardest thing to reconcile was that I couldn’t figure out why strangers seemed to value me more than those closest to me. This is when I learned to seek refuge in The Established. I became so entangled with the brand and I began to anchor my identity and sense of worth in its success, because that was where life seemed to be showing me my value lay.

On an icy walk home from the post office one day that winter, my body stiffened as I sank into a park bench and had my first mental breakdown. It was then that I decided to start therapy. I was grateful that I could afford the $250 an hour out-of-pocket costs thanks to my hard work.

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Therapy didn’t last long once I realized it couldn’t fix my latest problem.

Days before my 31st birthday, our hero product Elixa won Cosmopolitan’s Holy Grail Award (I wasn’t expecting the news at all, and I felt like I had just won a Grammy).

But then just two weeks after, my brother died shockingly and unexpectedly at 29. Few people know this about me—that I have a dead brother. In all fairness, I carried on as if nothing had changed. Publicly, at least, I acted as if it hadn’t.

There were countless orders to fulfill that day, and as she did every Wednesday, my mom had come over to help. I’ll never forget the image of her collapsing to the floor when we got the news — her blood curdling screams will forever be etched into my memory.

I didn’t have the capacity to react. I just went numb. And then I went to the post office.

It was instinctive, the reflexive need to hold on to something familiar. During my “time off” between family matters and funeral planning, I found myself scrambling to submit supporting documents to the Glossier Grant Program, which I learned I had made it to final rounds in. The award that year had been upped to $50,000 and I really needed a lifeline.

In the days that followed, I knew that grief wasn’t a luxury I could afford to indulge in. It wasn’t long before I was back to work. I had to support myself, and I had customers that depended on me —the bills weren’t going to pay themselves after all, and I didn’t have a corporate grievance policy to protect me.

That same month, at the request of one of our retailers Thirteen Lune, I was asked to film a bit for Good Morning America — I don’t even think I had 24 hours to turn it around. Despite it being an especially emotional day for me, I obliged, pushing my grief aside. I applied makeup, got my living room lighting and set design together, scripted my own lines, and delivered. I smiled through it, but I couldn’t have felt worse. I remember thinking, “This is so fucking bad” as I recorded over 10 different takes, racing against the clock and fighting back tears.

In the end, my segment never even made it to air.

I regretted not spending that afternoon in bed giving it a good cry.

That summer brought more news—I won the $50,000 Glossier grant—a much-needed boost for the brand, yet a quiet endorsement of my continued self-neglect. It became the perfect excuse for me to keep avoiding my mental health, as if the recognition of my success validated the very behaviors that were quietly unraveling me.

You Don’t Get Rich Doing This

As I outlined in Beauty Has Gotten So Fcking Boring*, by 2022, the stakes of my success had begun to shift dramatically. To counteract the rising costs of growing digital awareness, I began cultivating my personal brand as a marketing asset—recognizing it as the new golden ticket to visibility. The era of fast, splashy breakthroughs had faded, and the once-electric hype around indie beauty was cooling down. My progress had morphed into a series of steady, incremental wins and what had once felt like my wildest dream had gradually settled into the routine of a job.

Founderhood, despite its pressure and fatigue, did offer me a cozy lifestyle —but it wasn’t the fuck you money I had lifelong fantasizes about. In reality, I was piling on more debt, routinely over my credit limit, and watching my pristine payment history vanish.

The sacrifices didn’t even sting anymore—I just chalked them to the game. Lash extensions, fresh hair bundles, designer items, travel, birthdays (even my own) became indulgences I considered irresponsible. Even the glamour of the title “founder” had lost its shine. It became more of conversation starter, than a financial plan — a title that impressed strangers but felt hollow as I traded away more and more of my personal freedoms to keep the business growing.

While I acknowledge that living well as a full-time founder is possible, it comes at a cost: either you become “founder famous” or you have the financial reserves that earn you the privilege of growing your brand privately. What most people don’t see is that the founders who appear to live a luxury lifestyle are often cashing in on their likeness or thought leadership. They have multiple income streams—the enviable lifestyle they project likely isn’t coming from their business alone. For most others, this career is far from lucrative.

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The Beauty Industry Isn’t All That

Fun fact: By 2023, I was already toying with the idea of shutting the brand down. I had been quietly disinterested in the state of the industry for a while — it just wasn’t that thriving place of indie community and discovery anymore — and the idea of continuing to pour money into something that wasn’t serving me was starting to feel silly.

I thought an LA move would bring about the refresh I needed, but by the time I arrived, the panache of the beauty industry had worn off and so did my energy. I was running on fumes. Accolades, followers, and features were riveting at first, but they weren’t solving my real-life problems or tucking me into bed at night.

I once held the industry on a pedestal, but the truth is, the beauty space creates an illusion of success that doesn’t always reflect reality.

It’s about optics — and despite the community I’ve built and the relationships I’ve cherished along the way, I started to realize that I just didn’t care about that stuff anymore, so long as I was continuing to not live my life.

Despite that, I still hung on, driven by the curiosity of how much further I could push. I think another reason I kept going was that there was still some lingering piece of me that still gave a shit about what people thought. Plus, I had poured everything into my brand: my creativity, my finances, my time, my mental health. For years, I operated under the belief that this was my dream and I was in it for the long haul — that it was worth the sacrifice. By then, I wasn’t fully ready to confront the cracks in that narrative.

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The Established Reflects a Version of Myself That No Longer Exists.

At the top of 2024, I created a "mind movie" of my dream life — it depicted themes of myself not working, but still being rich, with images of the Amalfi Coast, lifestyle shots, and my dream bank account. I even included notes of myself becoming a writer and a more public thought leader. I would lay down every night and watch my movie on the projector like I was at the MGM theater. Hardly in my film did I include The Established, which, looking back, was a sign that chapter was over, even if I hadn’t fully acknowledged it yet.

Beneath this shift was a deeper desire to expand beyond the constraints of the brand. A quiet intuition whispered that I was meant to express myself on a larger scale, but I had buried these desires behind the business for so long. My gifts were begging to be activated, but I had convinced myself that building this brand was my only vehicle for success and achieving the life I dreamed of. Now I see how little I trusted my own expansive talents and ability to serve others.

In slowing down, I learned to see my light.

I wrote in Hard Way Highway that your business is the truest reflection of who you are. If you want to learn something about yourself, just look at your business. The Established was me in a nutshell: a little chaotic, but brilliant. All of the trauma I had carried through the growth of my business was a phase. And once I began to let go of those feelings, I was overcome with the sentiment that it may be time for me to let go of my business too. In doing so, I was also accepting that version of myself — one I could honor while also saying goodbye.

I stopped projecting my sense of self onto the business. Centering myself in a new truth means acknowledging my desires not what the world thinks those desires should be. There has also come a knowing that I’m not only meant for something much larger, but something much easier.

Countless mentions, several beauty awards later, thousands of customers served — I remain deeply grateful for all of it. But those are external things that no longer validate me. I validate me.

Even if someone offered $1M to keep the brand open, I wouldn’t do it.

I’ve been overcome with an enormous desire to be at peace and at rest, and I’d reached a point where I couldn’t take another second of not living my life.

A huge part of my brand success was timing—launching when the industry embraced new voices and a willingness to rethink who could lead. But today, the industry has grown stale — I joke to friends all the time that there’s a collective punishment for the success many of us BIPOC founders capitalized off of in 2020.

The Established had a longevous intrigue that I think could have survived the cultural shifts happening in beauty (such as a return to austerity and conservatism, alongside the success of social media sensations like Rare Beauty and Rhode that proves that consumers aren't as over celebrity brands as they claim to be). Still, it felt irresponsible and selfish to dig deeper, embark on a next-phase fundraising journey, and bring even more people along for the ride for a vision I knew I no longer cared about.

If you asked me today if I’d be willing to make the same sacrifices I did when I first conceived the brand, my answer would be: absolutely and unequivocally no. I’m in a completely different space in my life and seven years wiser.

What people don’t realize is that you grow up — hopefully. You evolve alongside the journey. I’m not the same entrepreneur at 34 that I was at 27. I’m a lot less gritty, scrappy, and eager, and more concerted and unwilling to compromise.

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I Won’t Lie, I Was Angry

Kind of. I was angry about how much I had sacrificed for the brand. As I approached my 34th birthday, I became furious at how much of my life I’d placed on hold: the birthdays I didn’t celebrate, the girls’ trips I’d skipped out on, the summers in Europe I’d postponed, the romantic life I hadn’t nurtured.

But it hadn’t occurred to me that people might expect me to feel sorry for myself.

There’s this prevailing narrative that walking away from a business is inherently difficult—that it must be fraught with regret. For me, it was the opposite. Letting go was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made—easier, even, than the decision to start in the first place.

What infuriated me most following my brand closure was the question, “What happened?” It was a trigger, like asking how someone died in a Facebook comment.

I sense the anticlimax people feel when I tell them I just didn’t want to do it anymore; that I’ve been better than I’ve felt in a long, long time—a disappointing answer that defies the narrative that Black-owned beauty brands just can't seem to make it.

Our goals and experiences as founders are not one bucket of alignment.

The implication that money rules our brand success story is such a harmful, lazy and narrow stereotype.

I know it’s hard to reconcile, especially since not everyone has the privilege or the bravery to walk away from their career on a whim —but there’s a truth I’ve come to understand: if you can imagine something better for yourself, you can create it.

There’s no failure and there’s no story. It’s just a chapter that ended, without the need for a grand finale. Which begs the question — who deserves rest and for what reason?

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Know When To Hold ‘Em and When To Fold ‘Em

What I hope you take away from this is that being a founder isn't just about creation—it’s about endurance. It’s about knowing when to push forward and when to let go.

I think my only real misstep in seven years was not being mindful of how to manage the delicacy of my own energy.

Even still, I’m beyond proud of everything I’ve accomplished—and I’m amazed at what I continue to accomplish, not by pushing harder, but by existing in my value and being of service to others, whether through this platform, my coaching practice or just smiling at a stranger.

I’m at a point in my life where I choose to be paid to exist, and I say this with zero irony.

I’m also astonished by how far I've come from where I started at the top of the year, which only proves that time is a non-factor. Sometimes, it feels like my first founder journey was just a blip in time, so far removed from where I am now. Maybe it’ll really hit me once this last bottle of Elixa runs out.

Until then, cheers to a transformative 2024 and an even more revolutionary new year! 🥂

xox,

E