Meet Destiny Harris | Inspiring Entrepreneur

We had the good fortune of connecting with Destiny Harris and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Destiny, what role has risk played in your life or career?

I believe that taking risks is essential to being successful. I love to go by the statement “without risk, there are no rewards”. Taking risks has played a significant role in my life and career. If I didn’t take the risk to start my business, there wouldn’t be a Charismatic Cosmetics. Starting my own business was one of the biggest risks I’ve taken in my life. I didn’t have a blueprint for anything, I was just learning as I went. I am still learning now, but I’ve learned from my mistakes. Every failure I encountered was another lesson I had to learn along the way. This one risk led to one of my biggest accomplishments thus far. I am now 21 years old with my own business. I created everything for my business, so it’s very special to me. I always aspired to be a successful entrepreneur, so I am very proud that I took that risk to start this career of mine.

As an entrepreneur, I take risks daily. When I’m ordering products from vendors, it is very risky. Sometimes what they show me has not always been what I’ve received, so with every order I place, I know for a fact I am taking a risk. However, I am not scared to take risks, and I don’t think taking risks is a bad thing. Taking risks helps you learn, elevate, and grow as an entrepreneur. Each risk I took has helped make me a better businesswoman.

The knowledge I’ve learned from my college university has helped prepare me for my career in biological science. If I didn’t take the risk to further my education, I wouldn’t be an Alumna of Tennessee State University. Going to college was a huge risk, I didn’t know what to expect. Although this was a huge risk, I am glad that I took it. While I was in college, I was able to get ideas for my brand. I even created most of my products in my dormitory. I launched my business in my sophomore year of college. If I didn’t go to college, I don’t know if I would’ve still had the courage to do these things. Both risks I took ended up being very beneficial for my life and career. As a sophomore in college, I also applied for an internship working in a Laboratory. I was accepted, and I finally was able to determine what career path I wanted to choose just from working as an intern in the laboratory. As an entrepreneur and college graduate, I had to be willing to take any and every risk that may benefit my life and business. Whenever I took a risk I told myself that regardless of the outcome, I would still be a winner. The fact that I was willing to challenge myself to take a risk was very courageous for me.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
A dream of mine finally turned into reality. My journey as an entrepreneur began at Wilma Rudolph Hall’s dormitory at The Illustrious Tennessee State University. In 2018, I began attending Tennessee State University, majoring in biological sciences. For years I’ve aspired to own my very own cosmetics business. However, I never had a blueprint on how to start a business. This was just a dream I had with no plan at the time. Many days I’d sit in my dorm thinking about this dream of mine, and ways I could bring this dream to life. The first thing I started to do was research how to make my own cosmetics products and where I could purchase inventory to make these products. I found a few different websites with the inventory I needed, so I purchased them. After making this purchase, I was ready to take the big risk of making lip gloss. On my first few attempts, I failed horribly. However, this one failure was not viewed as a failure to me, it was viewed as a lesson. This one failure showed what I needed to do differently the next time I attempted to make lip gloss. I was so excited and even more motivated, I knew that I was going to create my own cosmetics business. I began thinking of what would be the perfect name for my brand. I knew I wanted my brand to be built on inspiration, so I decided to look up words meant to inspire. I found the word “Charismatic,” and I said, “YES, my business name will be Charismatic Cosmetics.” After coming up with the name, I made it more official by getting an LLC. During this time, I was still in school, and I didn’t have a job that could help me afford to pay for my LLC, inventory, and survive as a college student. However, that didn’t hold me back, I joined a variety of mentoring programs at school that paid me a stipend, and I began saving my money. After my first year of college, I dedicated my entire summer to working and saving up. I saved up enough money to buy my LLC and all the inventory I needed before my fall semester of college in 2019. By this time, I had improved on making my lipgloss products, and I was very proud of my growth. I continued to work on my craft throughout the summer making all different shades of lipgloss. By the time I returned to school, I had plenty of products available in my dorm room. The only difference now was that it was hard to strictly focus on my business when I had to make sure my grades were amazing. So, I decided to work very hard in my classes on the weekdays, and my weekends were dedicated to building my business. I eventually set my launch date on my birthday, September 28, 2019, but things didn’t go as planned. I didn’t feel ready, and I didn’t want to rush it. I know there wasn’t going to be a perfect time, but I just wanted to prepare myself a little more. After pushing back my launch date, I began putting many different things in place for the new launch date, which was on January 1, 2020. I bought materials for an at-home photoshoot, I designed my logo, and I found the perfect platform for my website. As a new entrepreneur, I didn’t have a blueprint for any of this, so I was learning as I went. I decided to do an at-home photoshoot in the basement with a few family members on my iPhone during Christmas break. I wanted to save as much money as I could for inventory, so I had to do many things myself. After my shoot was completed, I was ready to launch! I began working on my website every day until it was launch day. Once launch day was here, I was so nervous but excited for the world to see my business. After launching on January 1, 2020, I sold out within a few days. I couldn’t believe I received so much support. When I returned to school after Christmas Break, I had so many customers to advertise to at the university. I even began participating in pop-up shop events to advertise my business and sell my products. It was such an honor to sell myself to those at my school. However, after a few months of launching, there were many setbacks due to the pandemic. For instance, a lot of shipping was delayed, and the world was shut down. It was not easy being an entrepreneur during this time. Being an entrepreneur comes with so much, and I always tell myself that I have to keep going. I learned how to adjust and keep my business going. I continued to advertise, drop new collections with creative photoshoots, and promote my business on social media platforms. During the entire year of 2020, it was very challenging being an entrepreneur and a college student, but I kept going! I continued to prepare myself to go bigger for 2021 and expand the variety of cosmetics products I had to offer. At the end of the year, I donated all of my old products to the Women’s Shelter in Cleveland, Ohio. Once the new year was here, I had lip glosses with my logo stamped on them, vegan-based lipsticks, and lip liners. I saw my brand transform, and the quality of my products began to get better and better. Fast forward to now, I have sold over 500+ lipglosses, launched more creative collections, created many more lip gloss shades, had a variety of photoshoots, and continued to innovate my brand for the better. Charismatic Cosmetics is a vegan-based & cruelty-free beauty brand built on inspiration. I want the world to know that I created Charismatic Cosmetics to inspire everyone, specifically through cosmetics. Beauty products have such a significant effect on how we feel about ourselves; they make us feel glamorous! My brand is built on inspiration, and I want to continue to “Inspire Through Cosmetics.”

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I would take them to Harold’s chicken, ice bar, milk & honey, the trap house, and Dave’s cheesesteaks for food. I would also take them to the ponce city market, the trap museum, perimeter, world of coca-cola, aquarium, MLK house, and cascade.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I would love to dedicate my shoutout to my mother, Jasmine Mason, and my eldest brother, Kotia Harris Jr. Throughout my journey as an entrepreneur, these two have seen my hard work, failures, tears, and success. Whenever I felt like I was close to giving up, I always had these two in my corner to keep me going. Having a strong support system is essential and that’s what kept me going on the days I doubted myself.

Website: https://charismaticcosmetics.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charismaticcosmeticsllc/?hl=en

Image Credits
Drico Lamar D. Pledger