Community Highlights: Meet Geevie & Sophia Wood of Sustain Yourself

Today we’d like to introduce you to Geevie & Sophia Wood.

Alright, thank you for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us how you got started?
We’ve been making our products since our first 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 used. At the time, we couldn’t find our favorite products plastic-free, so we started making our own! We became fascinated with plants’ power and natural ingredients’ simplicity. Along with this lifestyle change came a mindset change. 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! Not only did swapping our toxic products with natural ones heal our troubled skin, but it improved many areas of our lives and fueled our desire to change the beauty industry by making plastic-free products more available.

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

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 occasionally market pop-ups around the twin cities. Everything on our site is handmade 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, have low waste, and have a 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 the planet.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Starting a small business the way we did, was not an easy road. Our biggest challenges have been our lack of knowledge and experience and competing with larger companies.

Our business started on Instagram out of demand, kind of on 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, pay out of pocket as we grew. However, with a lack of resources came slow development. 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. 4 years in, and we are still learning!

Being a small business with limited finances, we can’t simply hire a marketing team or agency, at least not right now. We are firm believers in spending money to make money, which is one of the reasons we have grown, but small businesses can’t compete with larger ones. This is one of the largest challenges many other small businesses face, which larger companies with huge budgets are overtaking, teams of experts and resources. Small businesses often have higher prices because they cannot afford cheaper bulk sourcing, whereas larger companies have the budget to buy in huge quantities, which brings their costs down. Cheaper products are hard for small businesses to compete with.

We’ve been impressed with Sustain Yourself, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
We started working full-time on Sustain Yourself in the summer of 2020. We specialize mostly in natural deodorant (which we are best known for) but make many other body products such as body butter, lip balm, lotion bars, and face oil. As a two-person team, we handle almost everything on our own: handcrafting all of our products, developing new formulas, social media marketing, packing and fulfilling orders, sourcing ingredients, etc.

The word we use to describe our business is ‘intentional.’ We are 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 found in nature. For example, we do not use artificial fragrances to scent our products but use pure and organic essential oils instead.

There is nothing completely sustainable about manufacturing and selling cosmetics products. Still, people need a more sustainable alternative to the widely available ones, so we choose to do things differently. Our 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.

What was your favorite childhood memory?
We both share this one as one of our favorites, and as cliche, as it sounds (being in the sustainable scene), it was walking around our neighborhood picking up trash in our little red wagon. Our friends would come over, and we’d set off with a couple of trash bags and gloves and pick up litter until our bags were full. It made us feel perfect, knowing we were making a difference!

Contact Info:

• Website: sustainyourselfshop.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/sustainyourselfshop
• Other: instagram.com/sustainyrself