Ever considered what your favorite beauty brand would be like if it were run by a Washington University student? MadiMikay is an all-natural lip gloss business run entirely by sophomore Madison Mikayla Williamson.

Williamson first started MadiMikay in 2016, mainly focusing on selling apparel, but she decided to transition to selling lip gloss after noticing she was allergic to most glosses she would buy from stores.

“They would always break my lips out, so I was like, ‘How can I fix this?’” Williamson said.

Now she successfully sells her products in St. Louis and around the country.

“Beyond just getting the basics off of YouTube, I actually researched what other companies are doing, and I would go buy other lip glosses and look at the pigments,” she said. “For example, I went to Anastasia, and I bought this $23 lip gloss. I would never do that again. But I did it just so I could study it. I got it and did swatches of it and I just kind of looked at what I thought pigments in it looked like and how I could replicate that or make it better.”

Williamson’s all-natural glosses are vegan and chemical-free, which makes for a more wholesome line of products. She sells numerous shades of gloss and liquid bronzer, and she recently added lip balm to her website. Additionally, Williamson’s business is entirely self-run.

“I do pretty much everything by myself. When it comes to even making logos and social media posts, I manage all that myself,” she said. “I do production, I literally stir the glosses, make the colors and the formulas, I buy packaging, I make the labels. For in-person things, I make the labels and I ship them myself.”

A selection of lip gloss colors from Madison Mikayla Williamson’s all-natural lip gloss business, MadiMikay. Williamson started the business in 2016 and sells her products across the country.[/caption]The process of making lip gloss does take time, especially when handling a Wash. U. course load, so Williamson sets aside time in order to make new batches.

“I’ll sit down one day, like a day that I know I’m completely free, and I’ll make gloss batch after gloss batch,” Williamson remarked.

By dedicating a specific day to making her products, Williamson is able to better balance both her schoolwork and her business. She explained that in doing this, the glosses “will be ready-made so I don’t have to worry about making them” during her busier days.

Her target demographic is mainly adolescents and young adults, so she does much of her marketing via social media and her website, www.madimikay.com. When selling to friends, Williamson started by letting them test out her products so she could receive feedback, and when they liked it they told their friends.

“The word of mouth kind of takes care of itself,” She said.

When marketing to people she didn’t know, Williamson used social media more, whether that meant paying for ads on Instagram or self-promoting her business in Twitter threads.

“One time somebody messaged me on Twitter, and it was a girl who lived all the way in Utah and she was like, ‘Hey I saw your post and I ordered some gloss from you and this is the best thing I ever bought!’”

To fund her venture, Williamson explained that initially, “I was basically just using the last little bit of money I had…I would just save up a few paychecks and I would go online and research certain products I might try to use. I just kind of took it out of my own savings for a minute.”

Now Williamson’s business is more sustainable and profitable, and she even has her own separate bank account for MadiMikay.

“My average [profits] for the past quarter would be about $480, so hopefully that keeps going throughout the year,” Williamson said.

Williamson sells primarily through her website, but she does in-person orders as well.

“I accept cash, card, CashApp, Venmo, Google Pay, Apple Pay, all of the pays,” she said.

One of Williamson’s favorite parts of running her own business is the self-control she has gained from it. Rather than spending the money her lip glosses generate, Williamson makes sure to “recycle the money back into my business.”

Understandably, everyone loves to splurge or treat themselves, but Williamson believes that building her business should be her priority.

“If you’re really disciplined, you have to keep reinvesting in yourself,” Williamson said. “So I think that’s been one of my favorite parts, just actually gaining that discipline.”