Next up in our beauty in-depth series is “The Indy Box”. I recently discovered this brand on Instagram, so am extremely excited to share this interview with you! The Indy Box is a beauty subscription service which offers customers the chance to discover and support smaller, indie brands. Beauty subscriptions boxes are becoming an increasingly popular service, with carefully selected products chosen and delivered directly to your door. What makes the Indy Box so special is their commitment to empowering and sharing independently owned brands, which often struggle to make their mark in the industry.

I hope you love this idea and interview as much as I do, and do not forget to check out the Indy Box

@theindybox or www.theindybox.com

Obviously it’s been a difficult few months so how have you found lockdown?

It’s been a terrible time for everyone I think, so much uncertainty and stress, it’s really scary! I’m very lucky that all of my friends and family are safe. I was on furlough from my full-time job for about 3 months, and I’m very lucky to be in a position to have a job to return to, as I know this isn’t the case for a lot of people. My mental health definitely did take a dip, like many people. I was blessed to start working on the Indy Box during lockdown though, so I had something to focus my energy on and keep my brain stimulated; it was very easy to slip out of routine and become unproductive. I think a lot of people had this misconception that they HAD to be doing all of these things; they had to use the time to get fit, or decorate or cook or whatever else. But in such a difficult time, there was no normal. I’m hoping that everyone can get back to normal life; if “normal” is even a thing anymore.

We absolutely love your business idea so would love to know where your inspiration for the Indy Box came from?

I’m quite new to beauty boxes! I love them, it’s such a nice treat to receive a little box of beauty products every month, and you get to discover so many new brands through them. I didn’t realise just how many beauty boxes were on the market, so whilst on furlough, I started looking into different ones and watching YouTube videos of previous month’s boxes for different beauty box brands. I became really intrigued by the process of how one would go about setting up their own. Then I started researching how to source products, just out of sheer curiosity. The more I researched, the more the idea of starting my own grew on me.

I decided to focus on independent beauty businesses because I have a lot of friends who have set up their own brands; not just beauty-related. I’ve always heard them say how difficult it is to get themselves seen or heard. I thought it would be nice to create a brand that also is an extremely supportive one and help other brand owners in the process. I carried out a lot of market research and found unanimously that people wanted to support independent businesses. I think that was a big focus point throughout lockdown too, for a lot of people – shop small and support small, because these are the people who need the recognition at trying times like these

Have you always had an interest in cosmetics and skincare?

I have! I’ve loved makeup since I was about 13, and I’ve gotten more and more into skincare as I’ve grown older. I’d say now I’m more into skincare than makeup, but that hasn’t always been the case.
I’ve always read beauty blogs and watched beauty YouTubers. I’ve actually tried to start my own beauty blog many times over the years, but never fully went through with it, because I didn’t have the confidence to pursue it. That’s why I’ve set up the blog as part of our website, so I can live out my dream of beauty blogging! Haha.
The amount of brands I’ve discovered through starting The Indy Box is amazing (my boyfriend doesn’t think so though, as there’s even more beauty products cluttering the bedroom now)

How does it feel to be launching your own brand at such a young age?

It feels great to be honest. I dropped out of university a couple of years ago, and came back home and started working full time in a job that isn’t my end career goal. I’ve never really had a career in mind that I’ve wholeheartedly wanted to do; a careers advisor actually once told me that I’ll never know what I want to do in life, because I’m so indecisive. That hit the nail on the head very well! I think that’s why I know this is the right thing for me to be doing, because I’m so determined and driven to make it work and get it right. Since dropping out and just working full time, I lost all motivation to do anything creative, so I’m absolutely loving the fact I’ve got something I feel passionate about, to focus my energy on. Nothing I do for the Indy Box even feels like work, because I love everything that I’m working on so much, it’s so exciting.

We love that your business supports beauty start-ups and indie brands, so how do you choose the products to include in your boxes?

Instagram plays a big part in how we choose brands, if we love the vibe and what they stand for, we choose to get in touch with them and it goes from there. We also listen to what our followers want to see too, community is a very big part of what I want The Indy Box to be known for. I’d say we portray ourselves as a very supportive brand. We’re constantly promoting the hard work and the people behind independent beauty brands. That’s why we run our Featured Friday posts fortnightly. We focus on a founder of a beauty brand who we either interview or write about a topic that reflects their brand. This gives our readers a great insight into the people behind the brand. These are the people and brands that deserve so much more recognition for the amazing work that they do. 

Every decision we make is with our brands and our customers in mind. Me and a friend actually set up a “beauty support network” on Instagram, with a small group of online beauty reviewers. These girls are great! They are very honest about what they like and don’t like with brands and beauty subscription boxes and they are my first point of call when I have a question about what they’d like to see from The Indy Box. We are very much committed to customer satisfaction. We want to create a box that people love and are excited to receive. In terms of brands and products, we are also fully committed to testing out every single brand and product that we feature in our boxes, any beauty box subscribers will know the disappointment when it comes to receiving a dud product in a beauty box! We are determined to never let that happen with our box.

It must be amazing to empower so many women during such a difficult time, what is the best thing about whilst setting up your own business?

There are two things that I’ve loved the most about setting up my own business. One is how free it is, the fact you can choose what you want to do and have full control over every decision is empowering in itself. It’s the whole idea of being your own boss, you don’t realise how good it is until you’re in a position to completely do your own thing. So, if anyone has an idea and they’re umming and ahhing over whether to go for it, my advice is to honestly go for it. You will gain so much confidence and build character for doing so. 

The second thing has to be the community, I’m only quite early on into setting up the brand, and already I’ve met so many amazing, like-minded people. Everyone’s so helpful and want one another to succeed, which is lovely to see. The aim of The Indy Box is to create a community that celebrates independent beauty brands, but also for our followers to engage with one another, share beauty tips and recommendations. We’re running beauty info posts on our socials too, as we like the idea of being a go-to place for people to also learn about beauty. Whether that be what ingredients will benefit them, or learn more about the industry and pressing issues about the beauty community. I want to build a brand that has depth and meaning to people, something special. 

You’re on a desert island and you can have one cosmetic and one skincare product, what do you choose?

I’d say my cosmetic product would have to be some sort of brow product. I’ve been testing out the Absolute Beauty brow pencils. The brand reached out to me as they are interested in working with us (which is so cool, as they’re a New York based brand). They claimed their brow pencils are dupes for the Anastasia Beverley Hills Brow Wizz and honestly, I’m not disappointed. I feel like brows can really change a face and make you look more put together.

The skincare product I’ve been loving is the Skin Proud overnight mask, it’s absolutely just a drink for your skin. It’s so lightweight in its formula and leaves your skin soft and glowing in the morning after you wash it off. I suffer from my skin, due to PCOS, but I’m finding the fact that niacinamide is a main ingredient in the overnight mask, that it calms down any pesky breakouts I’ve been having. Having said this, I’ve also been using the Perl Cosmetics pearl powder clay mask recently. Since using this mask, I’ve never had so many compliments on my skin. It’s super illuminating and customisable to whatever your skin needs, so is very versatile for everyone to use.

What’s next for the Indy Box?

We’re working on our launch now! Working full time as well as trying to launch a beauty business can be quite overwhelming as I’m always busy. But, as I said The Indy Box doesn’t feel like work.

I’m constantly liaising with new brands to work with, and I can’t see this ever stopping because we’re always needing to discover new hidden gems from the indie beauty market. The main priority right now though has to be getting our packaging right. There are so many things you don’t think of, but we’re just testing the waters and figuring out what we want to use, as we want it to be perfect for when we launch.

In the meantime, we’re working on building up our website and our socials to spread the word about what we’re doing for when we launch, so far it’s going well and I’m super excited to see what’s to come for the Indy Box.

Well, I am sure you’ll agree the Indy Box is an incredibly exciting and empowering business, which here at WowHow we cannot wait to watch grow. Times like these highlight how important it is for us all to support small businesses and each other, which is everything the Indy Box embodies. Don’t forget to check them out on their socials and website!