Ode Eternal Beauty Emphasizes Simple Products For People With Highly Sensitive Skin

Take it from Felicia Kinlock, sensitive skin can truly suck.

Five years ago, pregnancy was the catalyst for Kinlock, a former social worker and now a mother of two, to reconsider her personal care purchases. She transitioned to natural products to help ensure her unborn child wouldn’t be exposed to potentially harmful ingredients. While her son might have benefited from the switch, natural products didn’t agree with her.

“I researched brands and read a ton of reviews to find products that sounded like they could be for me because they were created for finicky skin. I tried them, and my skin would go crazy,” recounts Kinlock. “I would break out terribly, and I had a lot of redness. My skin would become hot to the touch. I had very bad reactions even to brands that were advertised as sensitive skin-friendly.”

She had to develop her own super gentle products in order to tolerate them, and Ode Eternal Beauty is the result. The brand’s products don’t contain essential oils or highly active botanicals known to irritate skin. They stick to straightforward ingredients such as coconut fatty acids, sunflower seed oil, beeswax, castor oil and pumpkin seed oil to get the job done.

“To this day, I can’t find anything on the market besides Ode that is essential oil-free, doesn’t have a lot of ingredients, has a good price point and is pretty,” says Kinlock. “I wanted it to be pretty so it could bring me joy when I put it on my vanity. I didn’t want it in some crunchy-looking bottle.”

Ode Eternal Beauty originally debuted with a single item, the $9.99 Balm. Kinlock was concerned about entering the market with too many stockkeeping units, and reasoned the balm was an easy pick-up for women like her moving from conventional to natural products. However, when she pitched the brand to boutiques, retail buyers advised her to expand its product assortment. They also advised her to exchange black labels for white labels, which she did to enable Ode Eternal Beauty’s products to pop on shelves.

Kinlock has rounded out Ode Eternal Beauty’s product range with three more products: Face Oil for $18.99, Oil Cleanser for $14.99 and Pink Coconut Mask for $15.99. “It’s become a lot easier to talk about the line because it feels like a full line rather than just a balm,” she says. “Having four pieces still keeps it very simple. It’s not too much.” Across the board, Kinlock has stuck to accessible prices. “Honestly, I couldn’t do luxury even if I tried. It’s just not me,” she says. “As an indie brand, you should stay true to who you are.”

The brand’s name came to Kinlock during a personal and professional low point after she initially incorporated it in 2014 under a different moniker. She was then working full-time while dealing with a colicky baby, and her husband was often away from home at medical school. “Here I was trying to create my products and trying to launch a business, and I felt completely overwhelmed,” she remembers. “I felt like I wasn’t doing anything right.”

One day, in the midst of her misery, Kinlock grabbed for a pen and wrote a poem, a very unusual, but cathartic activity for her. It read, in part, “To the beautiful who perseveres in the face of obstacles, this is for you.” It donned on her that the poem was an ode to women, and she rechristened the brand for it. “We put a lot of pressure on ourselves, but we can do so many things,” says Kinlock of women.

Continuing about herself, Kinlock shares, “I’ve accepted that things aren’t going to be in balance all the time. There’s no perfect solution, but I can’t make excuses at my business because I’m a parent and, as a parent, I can’t make excuses because of my business.”

Kinlock is intent on building Ode Eternal Beauty slowly and manageably. She invested $5,000 to establish the brand and has set a goal of generating $15,000 to $20,000 in sales for its first year in business. For distribution, she’s currently focusing on retailers in and around Providence, R.I., where Ode Eternal Beauty is based. She’s found them receptive to bringing in a local brand.

Although her plans at the outset may seem modest, Kinlock has bold ambitions for Ode Eternal Beauty. “In five years, I think we’ll be talking about the little brand that started from nothing and is in major retailers,” she says. “I’m telling you, with every fiber of my being, I’m shooting for that goal. So far, my products are great. They work, and they look pretty. The pricing is right where it needs to be. It’s about me moving forward.”