Here’s What It’s Like To Have Coronavirus And Run An Indie Beauty Brand

After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011, Cynthia Besteman launched Violets Are Blue four years later to provide safe, effective skincare for cancer patients and survivors—and everyone else. In March, she confronted a very different kind of disease: the coronavirus that’s so far infected 1.2 million people and caused more than 70,000 deaths in the United States. Here’s her account of having the virus while running an indie beauty brand:

I started really paying attention to it when the elder care facility in Kirkland had an outbreak because my 85-year-old mom lives in the town next door to Kirkland, and they share a grocery store. I would call her every day and say, “Please don’t go to the store.” She said, “Your brother will go for me.” He lives four houses away from her, but my brother got really sick in early March. At first, I wasn’t equating it with COVID because, at that point, it was associated with the elderly. My brother is really fit and in his mid-50s. He’s a runner. When everyone started talking about the symptoms of COVID, I began to think of my brother, and two of my brother’s colleagues tested positive. He had gotten so ill that he was throwing up blood, and he said his lungs were on fire. He’s since made a full recovery.

Two weeks later, on March 27, I worked out in the morning. I live on 106th Street in New York, and I walked down to 77th Street to pick up masks from a mom-and-pop store. I walk down there all the time, but, this time, I was really tired. I thought maybe it was because I did a new workout. It reminded of the fatigue I had when I was going through radiation, just that bone-tired feeling. I took my temperature when I got home, and it was 100.5. Everything is very vague about whether those who have gone through cancer are at risk. My left breast was radiated, which is where my heart is, and there’s always a concern about heart or lung damage. My mom convinced me to call my oncology team, and they got on the phone with me at 6:30 at night.

My doctor said what I had could be the onset of COVID, but I should monitor it throughout the weekend. If your temperature gets bad, she said to call back, but told me there was no reason to be alarmed or feel I was immune-compromised due to my type of cancer. She was great at assuaging my fears. All you saw on the news was healthy people getting it and dying, which really freaked me out. On Monday, I had a low, throbbing headache, and I just didn’t feel well. On Tuesday, I went from my bed to the couch, and I was lying on the couch and started shivering. That’s when I was like, “Oh no, this is not good.” My brother had said he was so cold and shivering so much that even a 30-minute hot shower couldn’t stop him from being freezing, but he was burning up at the same time. I took my temperature, and it was 102.8.

I called my doctor and was transferred to a wonderful COVID doctor at Mount Sinai. We had an online appointment. He asked me 15 questions about what I was feeling: my headache, fatigue, fever, shortness of breath. He said you could feel like you’re climbing Mt. Everest when you are walking to your kitchen, but I didn’t feel that. He said there was no sense in me coming in, but that I should start taking vitamins C, B and D, and Mucinex. I heard from another doctor to start taking a supplement called NAC that helps with lung capacity and regulating cytokines. The COVID doctor at Mount Sinai informed me I was going to feel progressively worse until Friday and, from Saturday on, I should feel better. I haven’t been tested because, unless I wanted to go to the hospital or admit myself, they weren’t testing in New York City. The doctor told me I was in the database as positive, and the treatment was the same whether I was tested or not.

“People need to hear from people who made it through. There aren’t a lot of those stories out there.”

The mental aspect was way harder than any physical ailment I felt. It was very similar to my cancer diagnosis. You know you have something, and you know it’s potentially fatal. You don’t know how bad it’s going to be for you. You’re told it’s most likely going to be fine, but there’s this little voice in your head that says, “What if?” One day, I had tightness in my lungs, and it freaked me out way more than it should have. But, like the doctor said, as of Saturday, I started to feel better and, in two weeks, I was back to 100%.

The only thing I experience now is a ringing in my ears every once in a while. Nobody seems very concerned about it. I would love to give plasma, but everything is so overrun, so it’s a waiting game. I get a lot of questions from people who want to know about my symptoms and gauge how they’re feeling. I will tell them what I went through to help them. People need to hear from people who made it through. There aren’t a lot of those stories out there.

In one sense, the fact that I had an excuse to say, “I can’t get off my couch,” was a gift. Before, I had been traveling a lot and really feeling overworked. I don’t at all want to belittle anyone who is really fighting it hard, but, for me, it was my body telling me I needed to slow down and heal. My husband cooked meals for me and got my medicines. He was just incredible. He never had a cough or a sniffle. I was really nervous about not getting back to people and, if I told people, how they were going to respond. I told a woman at Credo and, when the founders of Credo were doing their monthly check-ins with brands, they sent out an amazing email mentioning I had the virus and showing their support. The amount of emails, calls, texts and direct messages that I got from brands was really heartwarming. I was a Broadway actress for 10 years, and I worked as a real estate broker. In those industries, if you get sick, someone takes your role or your listing. That’s not how green beauty works. When one goes down, we all go down and, when one succeeds, we all succeed. I have always felt that way about our industry, and the couple weeks I was sick proved that.

I’m the face of my brand, and I have no marketing or PR budget. It’s me out there in the stores and posting on social media. I felt that, if I wasn’t out there, it was all going to fall apart. I realized very quickly that it wouldn’t. I’m a bit of a control freak, but I let the people that work for me—there are three—take over, and everything was just fine. The brand stands on its own, which is a relief. Our sales have been good. Last month, we did triple what we did in April the year before. In the first four days of May, we’ve already done what we did in the first half of May last year, and we’ve gotten reorders from stores that have gone online. I think it’s because our products are perfect for self-care, and it’s another sign that my brand is strong and steady. It made me realize that people know and love the brand, and people will buy it whether I’m standing in a store or not. That made me feel the work I’ve put in has paid off. The lesson for me is that I don’t have to be everywhere at all times, that a rundown brand founder is not a good brand founder.