Meet Geevie & Sophia Wood | Owners of Sustain Yourself

We had the good fortune of connecting with Geevie & Sophia Wood and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Geevie & Sophia, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
We’ve been making our own products since freshman year of college (2017) and it all started when we discovered the Zero Waste Movement through social media and were inspired to cut back on how much plastic we were using. At the time, we couldn’t find our favorite products plastic-free, so we started making our own! We became fascinated with the power of plants and the simplicity of natural ingredients. Along with this lifestyle change, came a mindset change. Not only did swapping our toxic products with natural ones heal our troubled skin, but improved many areas of our lives, and fueled our desire to change the beauty industry by making plastic-free products more available. We wanted clean and simple products that wouldn’t compromise our health, waterways, or the environment and we have had so much fun creating along the way!

In 2018, we started selling our homemade products to our followers on Instagram, by request. Our blog @sustainyrself, created in 2017 during our freshman year of college, was a source for inspiration, offering tips and advice on how to reduce plastic at home, routine, and day-to-day life. Little did we know that one year after starting a sustainable lifestyle blog, we’d be starting a small business as well!

We started our business in our mom’s basement in Minneapolis, MN and recently moved into a spacious studio office in North East Minneapolis! Our business is primarily online, but we do occasional market pop ups around the twin cities. Everything on our site is handmade by us, in small batches, using organic, pure, sustainably and ethically sourced ingredients. As we continue to grow, our values will remain the same. We are dedicated to providing products that work, are safe, low-waste, and have minimal environmental impact. We ship our products completely plastic-free and offset carbon emissions for every order. Because of these values, our products will never be available on corporate marketplaces such as Amazon, that value profit over people and planet.

What should our readers know about your business?
There is nothing completely sustainable about manufacturing and selling cosmetics products, but people need a more sustainable alternative to the ones widely available, so we choose to do things a little differently. We’re proud to that we only use plastic-free packaging, biodegradable labels, natural and organic ingredients, carbon offset, and being a small team all help us ensure we are doing everything we can to leave as little of an impact on the planet as possible. Furthermore, being a small business helps customers connect with us on a more personal level and gain trust, so they can feel reassured that they’re making a good purchase decision for themselves and the planet.

The one word we would use to describe our business is ‘intentional’. We are really proud of our ethos because we believe our transparency and genuine care for the environment sets us apart from our big-corp competitors. Everything we do to function as a business is done with the environment in mind. This means sourcing the best ingredients on the market, looking for purity, extraction methods, organic and fair trade certifications, ethical sourcing, etc. Not only that but we avoid using synthetic, harmful ingredients and opt for pure ingredients that can be found in nature. For example, we do not use artificial fragrances to scent our products, but use pure and organic essential oils instead.

Starting a small business, the way we did, was absolutely not an easy road. Our biggest challenges have been our lack of knowledge and experience, and competing with larger companies.

Having no business experience, no business plan, and a huge lack of resources and knowledge, we have had to learn along the way, learning from many expensive mistakes. Our business started on instagram out of demand, kind of by accident. When our followers began asking to purchase our homemade products, we were worried about taxes, certifications, licenses, ingredient sourcing, etc. We have been lucky enough to grow our business organically through social media and without financial aid, paying out of pocket as we grew, but with lack of resources came slow development. 4 years in and we are still learning!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
If one of our best friends was visiting us in Minneapolis, we would take them to a brewery on the first night. Minneapolis is well known for its brewery scene, and there are so many to choose from, but we’d probably go to Bauhaus because they have an outdoor courtyard and trivia nights. The second day we would take them to a Twin’s baseball game, then check out the Stone Arch Bridge. If it’s September, we would definitely go to the State Fair. Minnesota has one of the biggest state fair’s in the country! The next day we’d go to Minnehaha Falls and check out the water fall, eat at Sea Salt restaurant, and take a light hike.
The Minneapolis Institute of Art would be our final stop, for their expansive art gallery.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Our mom deserves the most recognition for helping us get to where we are today! We started our business while living at her house, and eventually expanded into her basement, transforming it into our office and fulfillment space. We now have our own studio space, but if it hadn’t been for that free rent the first 3 years starting out, our business wouldn’t have been able to grow in the way that it has. We have endless gratitude for our mom for her immense love and generosity.

Website: sustainyourselfshop.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/sustainyourselfshop

Facebook: www.facebook.com/shopsustainyourself