2021 was wild. As a mentor and friend recently said to me, “we are just white-knuckling this roller coaster called life.”
Throughout the year, we document every one of our monumental moments that happen to us–good or bad. It helps us remember that in the moments of extreme, there is always a moment right after it. Then another right after that. No single defeat is a final defeat. No individual win is the final peak. A reminder to ourselves and you that, often, we overestimate what we can do in a week and underestimate what we can do in a year. All we can do is keep the course and follow the vision.
By the Numbers...
- Our company grew 46% from 2020. All grass roots, no paid ads, still bootstrapped.
- We executed three collaborations with Yowie, Menu, and Rainbo. All beautiful and unique in their own ways and looking to do more in the new year.
- We launched two products, the Spirulina Botanical Bar and our Scent Mechanics Shirt designed by Kim Nguyen.
- We connected with 1773 new customers!
- We hosted three events, two of which were at our Redoux lab were we were able to grow meet our community in Philadelphia.
- We won a design award from Architectural Digest as one of the 50 products that will *change your life*
- We made 9792 bars of soap, and we are still going.
I’ve outlined some anecdotes of some of our most impactful, most painful, and most “wow, we are doing it” moments of 2021.
February
We moved into the Redoux Lab–hello Philadelphia, our new home :). One of the biggest “Are we dreaming?!?!” moments since only a year prior we were still making soap in my Brooklyn apartment. 950 square feet, that is all ours to do anything that we want to. Alejandro and I see hospitality as core to Redoux’s past, present, and future and this space gives us the grace to explore it.
March
We launched Redoux at Goop, which was one of our goals from the beginning! Back in 2019, Asia would go to the Goop on Bond St in Noho after work to study the other brands on the shelves and envision what Redoux would look like on the shelves.
Early June
Launched our first ever collaboration with Yowie. This was a super special project for me (hi, it’s Asia) because Shannon Maldonaldo, the kind genius behind Yowie, was one of the biggest sources of inspiration for me to start Redoux. I considered her a personal mentor before even meeting her and followed Yowie religiously, constantly inspired and learning from a distance by how she was building her dream. Seeing everything she was able to accomplish gave me the courage to follow my own aspirations. When she approached me to work on something together for Yowie’s 5th anniversary I developed a scent that “smells like a familiar place”. Through the collaboration we actually developed an IRL friendship and it just goes to show how crazy life can be when following your dreams!
August
We won the Architectural Digest Cleverest Award for candle “529”, making us an award winning brand. Specially awarding for the design of the product and how it improves the home. I am still not over this and probably never will be.
Beginning of October
We successfully got the brand back into financial health :)
Early December
After launching the Bathhouse Concept Book and getting such a great response on sharing more about the “world” around Redoux and Bathhouse, we partnered with David Eardley to launch our essay series “Ground Work” to explore how we will continue bring the Redoux World to life.
The Future
More events, more products, more collaborations with our favorite brands. More all around abundance!
xx Asia