Ambitious, loyal, and mentally strong are just a few words to describe Britni Ricard, the mastermind behind the skincare company on a mission to provide the perfect regimen that targets all skin types.
As someone who is goal-oriented and always full of ideas, Ricard has never been one to shy away from making her dreams come true, but says it all had to start with a shift in mindset.
“I pride myself on being mentally strong mainly because there was a time when I was mentally weak and I had to really identify what was going on,” Ricard expressed in an exclusive interview with REVOLT. “I was not optimistic, instead of looking at a glass half full, I looked at it as half empty and it was then that I realized that my thinking needed to shift. I had to get myself out of that type of thinking and once I did, life around me just began to change.”
To date, her COTA Skin brand continues to thrive by bringing in millions in revenue over the course of 2020 and 2021. Thanks to Ricard’s hard work and having the formula of all formulas centered around the customer, the brand is well on its way to becoming a household name for those of all skin types looking for products that are the perfect match.
The Vision
Ricard attests her own desire to maintain a skincare routine to her late brother who she says took the maintenance of his skin very seriously. In turn, she would also become serious with having healthy skin too and thanks to his help, she was able to succeed in doing so. Now, she wants to help the rest of the world to do the same.
Not to be confused with thinking that there was a special formula that he handed down to her, Ricard wants people to know that witnessing her brother’s moments in the bathroom taking care of his skin is what led her to create the business, which is affectionately named using the abbreviation of his musician stage name, Chev Off The Ave (COTA).
“I would come home and I would see him in the bathroom and he’d be doing different things and little routines to maintain his skin and that’s what made me start to say, ‘You know what? I need to really start taking better care of my skin,’” she shared. “I remember all of the steps he used to take. He would have a cleanser, a toner, a moisturizer and so that’s where the whole routine aspect of the company came from.”
Like most people, Ricard found herself spending hundreds of dollars just trying to find products that worked for her and when that didn’t work, she decided to create her products.
“I tell everyone in skincare, you have to really find what works for you because what works for someone else may not work for you,” said Ricard. “When I finally decided to create something on my own, I wanted to make products geared toward our melanated skin because I honestly didn’t see anything.”
The rest is history and now COTA Skin is helping people achieve healthy skin one regimen at a time.
The Road To Success
While there are tons of skincare lines out in the world, Ricard never allowed that to dissuade her from launching her own. Much like everything in her life, she went in fully prepared — and that continues to pay off.
“Before I go into anything that I do, I do my research thoroughly to really cut down on possible losses and prepare for anything that may come my way,” she continued. “When I started, it kind of was just up from there. Now, I’m not saying that when I started, the business just took off because starting out, I definitely was not getting the sales that I needed to truly build. You have to know that when you start. You’re not just going to start selling out with thousands of orders or whatever.”
In fact, Ricard says that there were even times where she would get one order every other day, but she refused to give up. Instead, she decided to completely switch up the entire brand.
The Revamp
A part of the journey to the success of COTA Skin includes Ricard’s decision to start over. “It wasn’t until the pivotal moment to revamp the brand that things truly started to kick off. I started to educate myself on marketing when it came to my products, packaging, and things like that. For me, it was being overly prepared that helped us to avoid any potential losses and going through any lows, while building the company from the ground up. By the grace of God, I’ve been blessed not to experience that and I can say that a lot of that came from me watching people who came before me,” Ricard explained.
At one point the businesswoman decided to completely shut down shop for the span of four months, not only for a full facelift of the brand, but to switch out everything from the name to the packaging.
“Originally we were called COTA Essential Skincare which is a long business name and so I decided to change the name to just COTA Skin. I had the packaging redesign and got heavy into the formulation and the reformulation…” she continued. “That was a key moment where I just decided that I needed to stop and go back to the drawing board to start over. So, I really recreated the brand in the middle of launching.”
As a company that really took off within the pandemic, Ricard says that she had no choice but to get creative with making sure that her line stood out among the rest.
“When COVID hit and businesses began to really suffer, we were able to excel. I made $5 million during COVID and a huge part of that was making sure I was up to speed with what was really going on in the world,” Ricard explained. “I found out the date that the president was set to release the extra checks and that’s when I went in really heavy, investing in a lot of promos because with the world sitting still and [with] nothing to do, I knew that more people were showing interest in beefing up their self-care routines. I took that as an opportunity to advertise heavily and it paid off in the end.”
She also paid attention to what customers were saying about what wearing masks were doing to their skin too.
“I also centered my promotion around the acne with the face masks because a lot of people were suffering due to the masks holding a lot of bacteria,” she continued. “So, I created a campaign around mask acne and pushed and that took off. My advice for any business owner is to remain innovative and use the things around you on a daily basis and figure out how they can be used to the advantage of your business.”
Now, as a company that is just under two years old, Cota Skin continues to trek toward success. On Black Friday 2021, the skincare brand set a personal record raking in over $1 million in sales.
Click hereto learn more about COTA Skin and add the regimen to your routine today.