7 Lessons I Learned Building a Beauty Brand From Scratch”

By Tahera Rene Christy | Founder & Creative Director, Amour Pro

💌 Love, Bottled

When I started Amour Propre®, which means self-love in French, I had no idea a simple kitchen experiment would turn into a national clean beauty brand.

During the pandemic, my mom suggested I make hand sanitizer. I did, just to stay busy with my kids. Within 48 hours, I had 130 Etsy orders. A month later, we had made $20,000 from our dining room table.

That’s when I realized I had bottled something bigger than sanitizer. I had bottled self-love.

1️⃣ Representation Matters, Especially When You Don’t See It

I grew up in Oakland, California, where Black entrepreneurship usually looked like owning a restaurant or a barbershop. Clean beauty didn’t look like us. It wasn’t marketed to us, and it definitely wasn’t made for us.

That gap became my mission. Amour Propre® exists so that women of color see themselves reflected in the products they use. I wanted to make luxury accessible, science-backed skincare that actually works, without making anyone feel excluded or overcharged.

2️⃣ Start Big Right Where You Are

When I say this brand started at home, I mean literally. My garage became my warehouse. My dining room became my shipping station. My twins helped me bottle oils and print labels.

I didn’t wait for a factory or a million-dollar investor. I used what I had, and that’s how I built a six-figure business that now sells on Amazon, Walmart, Etsy, Faire, and AmourP.com.

If you can build something great with what’s in your hands, you already have what you need.

3️⃣ Funding Doesn’t Define You - Faith Does

Access to funding for Black women is still limited. I’ve applied for hundreds of grants and pitched my brand more times than I can count.

And it paid off, literally! I’ve won over $50,000 in business grants from organizations like the Fearless Fund, BeyGOOD Foundation, and the BBB Ignite Program.

But here’s what I learned: grants don’t create vision, vision attracts grants.

Faith, consistency, and strategy make the money move.

4️⃣ Corporate Comfort Isn’t the Same as Fulfillment

Before launching my company, I was a top-ranked corporate sales executive. I was “successful,” but I was exhausted and unfulfilled.

Then I got shingles. My employer wouldn’t let me work from home, even though I could have. That’s when I realized that I was expendable.

That moment became my awakening: I would never again let someone else determine my worth or my ability to provide for my family. Freedom became the goal.

5️⃣ Motherhood Is a Superpower!

I’m a wife and mother of four. And yes, entrepreneurship with children is a juggling act. But my kids didn’t slow me down, they fueled me.

They’ve been part of the business from day one. They’ve seen the work, the faith, the late nights, and the wins. Now they know what legacy looks like.

Motherhood didn’t compete with my dream, it completed it. 

6️⃣ Neurodiversity Can Be a Superpower

I have ADD, and I’ve stopped apologizing for how my brain works. My creativity doesn’t fit into 9–5 hours. I’m most inspired at 2 a.m., when the world is quiet and ideas download like lightning.

Instead of fighting that, I learned to build systems around it. My “distraction” became my creative engine. Neurodiversity is a feature of mine that I have embraced with love. 

7️⃣ Education Builds Trust, And Trust Builds Community

My signature product, Sweet Yoni Oil, became Amazon’s #1 Bestselling Handmade Body Oil because it works, and because I educate people about it.

Feminine wellness is often surrounded by stigma, especially in our communities. So I decided to lead with education, not embarrassment.

I host Pamper Parties, teach body literacy, and show women that self-care is necessary and sacred.

🌺 Looking Back And Forward

Today, Amour Propre® has over 500 formulated products and retails 60+ of them across multiple platforms. But my heart remains in the same place: community.

We continue to donate thousands of products to women in shelters and transitional housing. We hire locally, mentor small business owners, and buy from other Black- and woman-owned brands to keep wealth circulating in our neighborhoods.

Because when you empower a woman, you don’t just change her life, you change the lives around her.

✨ My Message to Every Dreamer

“You don’t need perfect conditions to start. You just need faith, consistency, and self-love.”

That’s how Amour Propre® was born. That’s how it continues to grow. And that’s how I hope you’ll build whatever dream is waiting inside of you.

— Tahera Rene Christy

Founder & Creative Director, Amour Propre®