Base Butter’s Co-Founders Are Closing The 8-Year-Old Brand To Explore New Career Opportunities

Beauty brand Base Butter is closing its doors as its co-founders She’Neil Spence and Nicolette Graves embark on new career journeys.

The pair broke the news last month via the brand’s social media accounts, newsletter and text messages. Base Butter is giving customers a final chance to stock up on its products Radiate Face Jelly Gel Moisturizer, Body Love Cream Full Body Moisturizer and Antibacterial Pre-Cleansing Cloth Set, and plans to ship all orders by the end of August.

Communicating to customers, Spence and Graves wrote, “We’re filled with mixed emotions as we share this important announcement. After almost 8 incredible years, over $1M in lifetime sales, and numerous milestone moments, it’s time for us to say goodbye. We want to express our deepest gratitude to each and every one of you for being a part of our skincare journey.”

For the past year, Spence and Graves debated what Base Butter’s future could hold before concluding it should close. “It’s really a personal decision,” explains Spence. “The company is not and was not in the red. We weren’t having financial troubles. We just sat down and asked ourselves, do we take next steps to really scale the company, which looks like fundraising and getting investments and growing our team, or are we ready to do something else?”

Spence is moving on as marketing director for Rec, a members-only social club for creators with locations in Philadelphia and Miami. Graves, who worked in the startup and technology space full-time for companies like Greatest and Justworks in tandem with running Base Butter, is in the process of building a coaching and consulting agency for product and brand development.

“As people, we’ve changed. We’ve gotten more clear on what it is we want to do, who we want to be, what that looks like in life and ultimately, in order to grow and continue to do the things we want to do for our customers in the way we would want to do it, it would require a different version of ourselves that doesn’t exist right now,” says Graves. “Oftentimes, people look at closing as a bad thing, when really it’s just understanding it’s the end of a chapter, and it’s on to the next thing.”

Base Butter launched in 2015 as a passion project for Spence. She spent the start of her career becoming well-versed in consumer insights, design and tech as a user experience design consultant at IBM for luxury retail and e-commerce clients. Prior to Base Butter, she had a short-lived lipstick company Color Cosmetics and used the raw materials from it to create a multipurpose body butter in her Harlem apartment that led to Base Butter. Graves, who has a background in product development, was brought on to assist with formulations and nailing down product-market fit. The two met while attending Howard University.

Base Butter raised $10,000 from a crowdfunding campaign and $100,000 in grants. It was also financed by Spence and Graves’ personal savings as well as loans from friends and family members. Following the crowdfunding campaign, Graves surveyed 3,000 Black women about their skin issues and beauty industry struggles. “From there, we were able to identify, oh, people want skincare, not body care,” she says. “They want a company that is straightforward and focused on education and efficacy of a product versus keeping people focused on their insecurities, and so we ended up creating a Radiate [Face Jelly Gel Moisturizer], which then became our hero product.”

Black women between the ages of 24 and 34 made up 90% of Base Butter’s customer base. The other 10% was a mixture of men and non-Black customers who caught wind of the brand when the spotlight was on the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020. Base Butter’s retail network included Urban Outfitters and Target.

“We don’t care that much about being the next big unicorn, we care much more about the types of lives that we’re designing.”

Outside of Spence and Graves, Base Butter relied on freelance contractors to support its business. Spence says Base Butter was hurt from not having dedicated people in marketing and finance. She says, “I believe you will really set yourself up for success in the beginning if you start with those strong skillset sets on your team.”

Graves urges fellow indie beauty brand founders to make sure they’re solving a real problem. She also emphasizes collaboration over competition. Graves says, “People will talk about it being a saturated industry or saturated market, but there is a lot of space and room to help each other and have conversations and share resources.”

She adds it’s important for founders to consider the motivation for their business. “Is this a lifestyle business? Is this a business you want to just fund your life? Is this a business you want to be able to say, we hit $1 billion? Is it a business you want to say is a unicorn?” asks Graves. “Have that understanding ahead of time and also understand that that can change.”

Speaking specifically about Base Butter, she continues, “We realized that changed for us. We don’t care that much about being the next big unicorn, we care much more about the types of lives that we’re designing.” Spence echoes Graves sentiments and recommends that founders identify their desired exit plan. “When I was a very young founder in my early 20s, I was building for forever. I was like, wow, Base Butter is going to be a legacy company, I’m going to pass it down through generations,” she says, “But as I got older, I was like, man, no. I really want to build to exit.”