Originally turned in as a journalism assignment for one of my classes this semester, it has been formatted for Lady Godiva’s Lavatorium. I couldn’t keep this for just my 83 year-old professor’s eyes only.
Her eyes are lined with purple eyeliner to make the hazel color pop in the most flattering way and her loose side braid makes her seem as approachable as a founder of a successful skincare company could be.
Catherine Scott, 37, and her hazel eyes light up when talking about her brand, family, and passion for helping people and their brands succeed as hers has. She founded her company, Honest Hazel, just five years ago and has since expanded to selling her one and only hero product, under-eye gels, all over America in Anthropologie, Credo, Free People, Aillea, and where every clean beauty brand aspires to be--Goop. These companies ship outside of the United States, so people abroad have come to love Honest Hazel’s under-eye gels too. Her product is something everyone with any skin type can benefit from and was formed with that exact thing in mind.
“What would I buy as a mother of two, working, with a working husband?”
Scott’s answer was a natural skincare treat formulated with natural ingredients in Asia, where the skincare market is booming. She explains that in America, many companies “white label,” which means they take an existing formula and add a different scent, color, etc. to make it look like their own. This did not have the integrity she wanted for her company, so she decided to outsource and remain extremely hands-on throughout the whole process of figuring out a formula, packaging, and logo.
While there are many under-eye gels on the market with brands like Patchology, Skyn Iceland, and even Chanel, Scott knows her product is different because of a standout ingredient: cactus collagen. It aims to hydrate and be anti-inflammatory, so the gels are great for tired, puffy eyes.
Before beginning Honest Hazel, Scott worked in the jewelry industry as a marketing consultant and went on buying trips to make sense of the wholesale market. Early on in her career, she founded Girl Candy, which was a collection of wholesale jewelry picked by Scott to be sold for under $20 for each piece. This theme of affordable luxury has carried on through Honest Hazel as well.
Her jewelry and consultant career made her and her family move around the country many times “job-hopping,” as her father-in-law described it. She graduated from Arizona State University in 2004 with a degree in marketing and married her high school sweetheart soon after. They stayed in Arizona for four years before moving to the Bay Area, back to Arizona, to Seattle, then Cary, Salt Lake City, and finally Wake Forest, where she has decided to stay. Even though Catherine moved around and had many jobs before starting Honest Hazel, she said she, “...always wanted to do [her] own thing.”
The decision to finally begin Honest Hazel came after moving to Salt Lake City and finding out her job was not what she thought it would be. After a short time with the company, she knew there was going to be a buyout and tensions were running high. The employees were lying to one another and, therefore, there was a lot of distrust. Because of this experience, Scott says she spent a lot of time “hiking and crying” and went through a bout of depression surrounding the situation she was in. She knew she needed to create a company based on truth and ethics. The name “Honest Hazel” was decided upon because of this experience and Scott’s unmissable hazel eyes.
Scott collaborated with a professional from her past in jewelry to come up with the logo of interlocking H’s and worked with the packaging firm that handles all of Starbucks items for the envelope-style holder for the under-eye gels. She explains that a sweet older gentleman from the firm gave her “the time of day” and helped bring her idea for the package to resemble a gift card holder to life. It is simple yet special and she now has a trademark for the design. She says, “I’ve been really lucky to have people sit down and hear my story” when talking about the success she has had in getting people to help carry out her vision.
When it comes to her team as of today, it is still a team of one. Scott works on Honest Hazel full-time now but quit her other full-time consulting job working in the wine industry in May of 2018. Before that, she was working her regular job and coming home to stay up until two in the morning to answer emails, package her product, and grow the business. When asked how she managed to do that and how she is still a one-woman show now, she says, “There’s no glamour in it.”
On top of running her business, she still makes time to be a wife and a mother to her ten-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son. She says her children make comments like, “When I start my business…” so it is easy to see she is inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurs. While her kids are apparently very different, they both come home from school inspired by the world around them and want to create things or make the world a better place.
After a family friend adopted a dog from a local rescue mission and Scott’s daughter heard the story, she started a donation drive around the neighborhood and collected money for abandoned animals to give to a local charity. It is easy to see where she gets her ambition since she sees the business side of her mother’s work so clearly. Sometimes, Scott says, the kids help her put labels on the products and make a game when they go shopping out of town for who can find the Honest Hazel products in stores first.
It is plain to see how important family is for Scott when she mentions that she wants to leave her children with something in the future. She says she grew up “very privileged” in San Francisco to a family of immigrants who helped her pay for college, but when it came time for her to start her own business, that capital was all hers to gain. She sold items on eBay and received a minuscule inheritance of “less than $5,000” from her grandmother’s passing to fund Honest Hazel’s humble beginnings. She said she did not “want to be in a boardroom of men” when asked about investors and expanding the brand in the future.
While Scott wants her business to grow, she assures consumers will “never see [her] in Sephora or Ulta” because she likes the direct-to-consumer contact she receives being in smaller stores and selling on her website. Before growing her line to include more products, though, she feels it would be a better idea to grow her team of employees. She feels it will be easy to find great people once the time comes because the beauty industry in Raleigh and the surrounding areas is growing so rapidly, especially with small beauty boutiques such as Aillea in Cameron Village and Trellis Beauty in Lafayette Village, who desperately wants to sell Honest Hazel but has not gotten the chance to speak with Scott yet.
At first, Scott admits she did not think there was going to be any business at these places but gave them a chance at selling her product anyway. Now, she has changed her tune. She says, “It’s about boutique beauty. It’s growing.” This is great for her considering her and her family are established here and it may be easier to expand the brand because the rent is cheaper than in other places she has lived, such as Chicago, New York, and Boston. Also, there are so many colleges around here that cheap labor from students or recent graduates will never be too hard to find. Because the press has found her here, anything seems possible.
Scott’s passion is admirable and radiating. In reference to her last job and what made her leave, she explains, “Wine is not my people. Not my passion.” Luckily for the beauty community in the Raleigh area, beauty is a space that makes her more comfortable. While growing the business has caused many late nights and stressful times, she says, “I don’t have balance. I’m never going to have it. I’m very goal-oriented,” and adds she does not want to feel “stuck” or “stagnant.”
As she drives away in her all-black Land Rover, it is simple to see why so much success has come to her. She is serious about her work, yet sprinkles in a joke about the time she accidentally equated a family friend adopting a child to someone adopting an abandoned puppy, like the ones her daughter tried to save, when trying to explain adoption to her kids. She is beautiful, yet in a warm way instead of intimidating. She is down-to-earth with knowing she would only want to spend around $12 on a small luxury item, which is the price of a three-pack of her eye gels, yet gives a barista a tip of over 20% after he rings up her order. She is a leader, a business owner, a wife, a mother, and an inspiration wrapped up into one.