Meet the Founder | Cheryl Humphrey of Candy Butta
Welcome to our Spark! Meet the Founder series, where we introduce you to the amazing entrepreneurs who are participating in our 2022 Fall Spark! program with a quick Q&A!
Spark! is a small business accelerator that puts the right people, opportunities, and access in place for local entrepreneurs in Arkansas to take their ventures to the next level.
Please meet Cheryl , founder of Candy Butta, a very high quality, pure, organic, homemade & handmade shea butter based all natural full-body moisturizer!
The Venture Center: Tell us about Candy Butta!
Cheryl Humphrey: Candy Butta is a very high quality, pure, organic, homemade & handmade shea butter based all natural FULL body moisturizer!
NO water – just pure oils and healing butters (if you look on the back of most lotion containers, the first ingredient you will see is water, which is why you don’t stay moisturized for a long period of time and the scents do not last)
NO preservatives
NO alcohol
NO coloring dye
Candy Butta believes in nourishing your skin and feeding it THE BEST ingredients! It’s a homemade-handcrafted body butter that I make from scratch myself and It’s been helping a lot of people with skin issues such as eczema, psoriasis, and severely dry skin; Customers rave about the smooth creamy texture, saying it smells soooo good & the scent is long-lasting, and that they stay moisturized ALL day!!!
My slogan is “Moisturize the HEALTHY way and smell Delicious too!”
Why did you choose to become an entrepreneur?
I started Candy Butta because I got tired of putting chemical-filled, water-based lotions on my skin. I had a break out after using a popular lotion and decided to learn how to make my own using safe ingredients. I also LOVE fragrances and noticed lotion scents and perfume scents did not last long; I also had sinus issues and the alcohol in these products would bother me. So I created my own skin healing shea butter-based moisturizer using very high quality, all-natural ingredients, and high-quality long-lasting fragrance oils and essential oils; Candy Butta was born!
What are your biggest challenges as a business owner?
My biggest challenges as a business owner are having enough profit after paying my living expenses and purchasing inventory to hire someone to help me make enough product to supply the demand in a timely manner after marketing my product; learning how to use a software program for accounting and organizing money flow; knowing and UNDERSTANDING what all I am supposed to pay yearly to run my business and why (I want to make sure I am not missing anything such as franchise, business license fee, etc.); writing a business plan. In addition to Candy Butta, I also have 2 other businesses: CandyVocals (vocal performance coaching services) and CandySoul (recording artist/professional vocalist) which all fall under my umbrella company: Perfecting The Gift, I want to learn how to set this up where they all work together. As a vocal coach, my challenge is finding a low or no-cost space to teach private voice and entertainment coaching. I currently only support myself through all 3 of these businesses, which can sometimes be challenging when needing more income, so I am very open to gaining assistance in finding work outside of my businesses that pay enough, is easy for me to do, and still allows me time to run my businesses.
What do you hope for the future of your business?
I hope to have Candy Butta stores all over the world, and a Candy Butta manufacturing company. As a vocal coach, I hope to be hired out by TV Shows and record companies to train their artists. And as a singer/songwriter/comedic actress: CandySoul, I hope to have more of my songs in movies, tv shows, etc., and have more movie and tv roles.
What are you proudest of so far?
I am proud that my skincare product, Candy Butta, now has celebrity endorsements and international television exposure after having me and my product appear on ABC’s Match Game with Alec Baldwin and Neicy Nash. As a vocal coach with Candy Vocals, completing my Masters’s Degree in Music Education was a huge accomplishment for me, and as the singer/songwriter CandySoul, winning 1st place on Showtime at The Apollo and making it to Hollywood are some of my proudest moments as a professional vocalist!
What do you hope to gain from Spark?
I hope to gain from Spark! knowledge about things that I do not know that will help me successfully run not only Candy Butta, but my other businesses as well. I hope to gain help in learning how to better organize my income flow, how create a successful business plan, network, and learn about grants and contract opportunities, and more. I also hope to gain resources for low-cost web designers, logo creators, accountants, tax preparers, and other services that small business owners and entrepreneurs need to be successful.
Huge thanks to Cheryl for participating in Spark! We can’t wait to see your business grow!