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Date: 8/22/2023
NORTHAMPTON — Back when he was in high school, entrepreneur Aaron Andrews was experiencing dry skin and dealing with anxiety and depression, but when he searched for skin care products, he found that very few beauty products catered to Black men.
“I just couldn’t find anything,” Andrews told Reminder Publishing, in an interview.
After experiencing little luck, Andrews turned to his dermatologist, who directed him to use a certain type of soap to help his irritated skin. But that did not work either.
“I looked at the back of the ingredients of the soaps I was using and saw a laundry list of all these chemicals,” Andrews said. “I was like, ‘This is probably why my skin is on fire.’”
After running out of options, Andrews took matters into his own hands when it came to skincare. He turned his dad’s kitchen into a “mad science lab” and began making his own products that he could use.
The result eventually became “Beyond Happiness,” a personal wellness movement where Andrews offers his own skincare products and creates videos to capture the human element and stories around the products.
On the Beyond Happiness website, one can find natural products like lavender body butter, shea butter sun protection, lavender sugar rub, aloe shampoo bar and a lot more.
But this is much more than a business. As someone who found solace in using more agreeable, natural skin care products to cure his anxiety and depression, Andrews wants to highlight the deeper emotional element of it all.
He studied business, wellness, film and photography while at Hampshire College and began utilizing the film and photography components specifically to express the anxiety and depression he encountered during high school. He then eventually used that experience to capture the stories and inspirations around the products.
“I didn’t really have a lot of friends to talk to about that kind of stuff, so just telling people and expressing my emotions through content and video content was one way of me tackling the issues that I was going through at the time,” Andrews said. “It wasn’t until when I got to college when I was able to say, ‘hey, this component of video can really work well with products.’”
The lavender body butter, for example, was created so Andrews could mitigate the anxiety he was feeling.
“It wasn’t just the product itself that was helping me, it was also me actively using the product that helped me,” he said.
For years, Andrews has had an entrepreneur’s temperament, even as a child, when he created his own lifestyle magazine business at his grandmother’s house. But the seeds of Beyond Happiness were sewn in high school and particularly when he scored high during a pitch competition on a business trip with his financial literacy class. When he reached Hampshire College, Andrews was able to mold all his experiences and background together.
“I came into Hampshire knowing that I had all of these components of products, self-care, sustainability and content,” he said. “It was a place where I was able to put this all together and make a brand out of it.”
Since developing the brand over the past six-plus years, Andrews’ Beyond Happiness has been featured at the Northampton and Amherst Farmer’s Markets, and he now plans on opening a storefront on Sept. 15 with the hopes of continuing to provide an outlet for people to share their stories and find the products they need.
Part of that goal right now is finding more Black people in the area who are willing to try the products he is creating, which he said is difficult to do in a predominantly white city like Northampton.
“I feel like there are products out there that do work for Black people, but they are not marketing toward that demographic,” he said. “I’m trying to connect with a market that has been left out of the skincare industry for a very long time.”
Connecting with people on a human level is a predominant part of Andrews’ mission, and that will continue to be the case with the storefront, he said.
“The store will not just be a skincare shop, it will also be a place where people can connect with their products and their story,” Andrews said. “I’m also planning to have open shelf space so other craft vendors can share their stories and showcase their products.”
Andrews said a soft opening is expected on Sept. 15 before things really ramp up for Beyond Happiness.
In the meantime, people can visit the Beyond Happiness site to look at their vision.