23-Year-Old Akilah Releford Is Building Mary Louise Cosmetics Into A Million-Dollar Natural Skincare Brand

Akilah Releford was well on her way to following in the footsteps of her father, foot and ankle surgeon Bill Releford, to become a doctor when a series of about 40 tweets on DIY-ing oatmeal masks and detox water changed the trajectory of her career.

The tweets were forwarded close to 40,000 times and, suspecting Releford was a bot, Twitter suspended her account. “All of the ingredients were cheap. You could find them in your refrigerator or pantry, and that’s what gave it its virality,” she says, recounting she informed Twitter, “‘I’m not a Russian bot. I’m just giving girls tips. Leave me alone.’ The followers moved over to Instagram anyway, so I don’t think it was a big deal.”

Six months after her tweets went viral, Releford created a makeshift website for Mary Louise Cosmetics featuring the oil-based clay mask Mississippi Mud Facial Mask and Miracle Serum, a baobab, sunflower oil, vitamin C and essential oil blend for acne scars, hyperpigmentation and razor bumps, in December 2016 with the help of her father. It took her $200 to launch the natural skincare brand, and she named it for her maternal grandmother Mary and paternal grandmother Louise, Mississippians who taught her homemade beauty remedies that had been passed down from generation to generation.

Back then, Releford was a junior biology major at Howard University in Washington D.C., working at Zara during the hours she wasn’t studying, and her ambitions for the brand were paltry. She says, “I wanted extra money to order Thai food on the weekend.” Her fans had other ideas. In April 2017, Mary Louise Cosmetics’ orders started to snowball daily from two to seven to 25 to 40 and more. Releford’s dad would pack up the products in his Inglewood, Calif., office following his shift and send them out, but the extracurricular activity was becoming too much to handle. He and Releford began to wonder if she should get serious about Mary Louise Cosmetics.

“He said, ‘You should take a semester off, come back to LA and take control of your business.’ I finished my junior year, and I never went back to school,” says Releford, 23. She realized her brand could carve out a unique space in the natural skincare market. “I felt that the faces behind natural brands were either celebrities or actresses,” she explains. “I didn’t think there was really just your girl next door, come over to make an oatmeal mask type of vibe. That really set my brand apart from other brands.”

“The faces behind natural brands were either celebrities or actresses. I didn’t think there was really just your girl next door, come over to make an oatmeal mask type of vibe.”

This year, Mary Louise Cosmetics is on track to generate $1 million in sales from Miracle Serum alone. The hero product generated $500,000 from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the end of last year. The brand recently opened a store in Inglewood, a burgeoning neighborhood where it’s down the street from Hilltop, the coffee shop co-owned by Issa Rae, and across from a forthcoming Whole Foods, Target and 300-unit apartment complex, and is strategizing to build its wholesale network.

Speaking of Mary Louise Cosmetics’ Inglewood store at 212 E. Regent St., which has 500 square feet of retail space and roughly triple that amount of production space, Releford says, “It’s a great opportunity to experiment with new products. We can put them out on the shelves and have a focus group at our front door to test them before we mass manufacture. So far, people have been loving it.”

Currently, Mary Louise Cosmetics’ assortment has 13 stockkeeping units priced from $18 to $38. For the first year and a half of its business, Mississippi Mud Facial Mask, Miracle Serum and Green Tea Facial Cleanser were its only products. Last year, the brand introduced Turmeric Facial Serum, Turmeric & Honey Facial Mask, and Lavender & Chamomile Hydrating Facial Essence Spray. This year, Releford expects to increase the number of Mary Louise Cosmetics’ releases. Even as its selection expands, it’s not straying from an approachable price range suiting its core audience of largely 17- and 26-year-old customers.

“Mary Louise stands for making natural skincare products accessible for everyone,” says Releford. “We make the idea of having clear skin something that not only a few can have, but something everyone can achieve.”

“Mary Louise stands for making natural skincare products accessible for everyone. ”

Big-box distribution is a long-term goal for Mary Louise Cosmetics. Releford’s short-term distribution goal is to place the brand in e-tailers, specialty chains and clean beauty destinations. She lists Goop, Credo, Follain, The Detox Market, Anthropologie, Bluemercury, Ulta Beauty and Urban Outfitters as retail targets. Since 2018, when it debuted with 5,000 units, Ipsy has been integral to Mary Louise Cosmetics’ spread. This year, it’s elevating its participation in the subscription service’s Glam Bags substantially.

“While the market is flooded with emerging skincare brands, Ipsy takes a particular interest in supporting the next generation of beauty entrepreneurs with great products and great stories,” says Corey Weiss, head of business development at Ipsy Studios. “This is what you have with Akilah Releford and Mary Louise Cosmetics along with a female-owned, made in the USA, vegan, cruelty-free skincare product.”

Releford’s personal Instagram feed has been Mary Louise Cosmetics’ primary marketing vehicle. She educates her followers on ingredients and products, and finds they’re particularly interested in in-depth Instagram Stories posts with lengthy captions. Prior to Mary Louise Cosmetics unveiling items with turmeric and honey, Releford showed her exploration of turmeric and honey vendors at the Brentwood Farmers’ Market in several posts that were strong performers. This year, she shares the brand is delving into paid marketing—it anticipating spending $5,000 a month on marketing—and plans to assemble a roster of influencers to raise awareness.

As Releford gears Mary Louise Cosmetics up for its next phase of growth, she doesn’t regret the career pivot that made it possible to bring the brand to this point. “It’s so much fun to play with different products and talk to people on social media about skincare,” she says. “I go to so many cool events and meet cool people. I enjoy it, and it doesn’t feel like work. I’m glad I didn’t take my MCAT and go to medical school.”