Body Butter & Self-Care: A Business Built on Friendship
From best friends to business partners. These two busy-bodied student entrepreneurs find their passions together in a venture of healing, beauty & self-care.
Cocobee, a skincare company started by two Wesleyan undergrads, provides healthy alternatives to pharmaceuticals and cosmetics by emphasizing the value of ritualistic practices for skin care.
I wish there were a single word to describe the energy in the room when talking to Sadasia and Camila. It is high and passionate, and they project a confidence I admire. But it also finds ways to keep calm and grounded. Kind of like a really good cardio yoga workout.
The two Cocobee founders came into the skincare business in different ways. Camila, over the summer, learned about the lifestyles of holistic practitioners and eventually learned how to make chapsticks, creams and scrubs. Sadasia, after discovering that supposedly natural products irritated her skin, decided to do some research and created body butters of her own. They came together in school, talked about their newfound interests and grew Cocobee from there.
I stare at Sadasia and Camila as they talk about skincare products, all the while thinking about two things. First, is that body butter sounds awesome. I need to check their webshop later tonight and find out more. Second is how much I admire the strong friendship they have and how that ties into their venture. They were healing & growing together, and that’s partly what Cocobee’s about: more than just a skincare brand, they bridge communities and help them realize the value of embracing vulnerability, healing and self-care.
How do you do it as student entrepreneurs?
S: Our friendship in general is super supportive. We check-in. At the end of the day, this is really important to us and we want to see Cocobee continue growing, but we recognize that us being students and good human beings is priority. If Camila is busy, I’ll step up and vice versa. We’ll check in about our personal lives, and Cocobee just keeps going. I think that’s a careful balance. I couldn’t imagine doing it without Camila. I think the friendship sustains it. I think it’s a company of love and if we don’t love each other… hmmm, I don’t know.
C: It’s easy to do something I’m excited about. We get excited through brainstorming, and we get a lot of student support as well. We’re also both very responsible with our time. Like GCal is so underrated. GCal is life!
What is something you deeply, truly believe in, and why?
S: I think I deeply, truly believe in progress, in many ways. And I think everyone has moments like this: you at first can’t imagine getting through something, and then somehow, some way, you do. And then a year from now, you forget how much of a process that was. Like, when I was younger, I super, super, super didn’t have confidence because of my skin complexion until I was about 16 or 17. This summer was the first summer I discovered how amazing the sun was for my skin. I said, I’m dark anyway, I’m proud, I’m going to take in all this melanin. I truly believe in the power of progress and surmounting what might seem to be insurmountable. My whole life has told me that you can love yourself and you can love the world and you can try your best to believe in progress.
C: It’s a combination of a couple of things. One, the importance of being grounded and genuine. So much of what we do and so much of what I’ve learned is being completely genuine, both with myself and with my conversations with others and that translates to everything. Like in Cocobee, if we’re putting love in it, it translates to other people. And two: I think being receptive to other people’s intentions and other people’s energies, being ready for what the world is going to give you. A lot of my success in life stems from being so open to everything and I think receptivity is key.
What is the one thing you must absolutely do every single day?
C: I need to concentrate on my breathing. Not even meditate, but remember that I have a relationship with the world before I have a relationship with anyone else. It’s my way of being grounded in the morning or at night. That and yoga, or at least I try. So much of what we know is just within us already and we can ease it out by making our body receptive to different things. I think that’s a great way to feel yourself and respect yourself.
S: I must do three things everyday. The first is, before I go to bed I recite a gentle reminder to the universe:
“May the universe have its way in my life and may I always remember that I can be representative of where I want to be and not have to be there every day.”
Second, I must call either my grandparents or my mom everyday. I speak to one of the three of them everyday. Lastly, my body routine is so important. Every day, I invest in my body because it’s my time to meditate. When I’m rubbing body butter on my skin. When I’m using Camila’s amazing face wash. My whole head to toe routine is something I do everyday.
Describe the biggest adventure of your life thus far.
C: I went to Haiti when I was like 18 and my parents barely knew. I didn’t know the language, they didn’t speak English and in three months, I fell in love with the people and my spiritual life with them. I started volunteering at a school. I thought it was a regular school but it was a spiritual community school. Healing yourself and healing those around you. I went alone after freshman year and it was at first super scary and horrifying. I didn’t know where I was or anything, but yeah it was an awesome experience.
S: The day my ex-boyfriend and I broke up was such a wild day. The beginning of that day, we had a crazy adventure. I’ve felt no other way I’ve felt with him. It wasn’t even safe. It was this weird energy: just happy and ready and super receptive. We were walking, laughing, having so much fun. Then we went back to his place and watched House of Cards for the first time. We ordered some Thai food, and there was an issue with the food so we ended up walking around his neighborhood. Just a lot of serendipitous moments happening one after the other. At the end of the day, we got into a really bad fight. I took, like, a mental adventure. I saw the world so differently and saw my relationship with him so differently in an instant. That capacity to view things one way: having a completely great time and then seconds later, feel incredibly unsafe, is such a weird leap. But I took it and I still am trying to recover from the person I became in that instant. My greatest adventure is one where I learned how I can get when my emotions get really, really heavy. Yeah he taught me so much. He’s my greatest adventure.
C: Yeah, I see our past relationships as huge adventures of vulnerability and receptivity. Yes, we have different physical experiences, but there’s that commonality of being vulnerable with someone else.
Would you rather wear pink or purple?
C: Purple
S: I’m trying to think what color looks best in me.
C: I’m thinking a lavender. You look so good in that.
S: Okay, sure. Purple
Would you rather tell a story or listen to one?
C & S: Listen!
Remember the Turtles ← P R E V I O U S
N E X T → On Water & Energy
Order now on Cocobee’s webshop! If you want more stories featuring entrepreneurs and their quirky, fun and deeper sides, follow The Lemon Scope on Medium. We interview really cool people like Sadasia and Camila and write about them for you all to see!
