February Feature: Shania Williams

This February, our feature comes from home and personal care auditor and organic cosmetic chemist, Shania Williams. During this interview, she opened up about her journey to becoming who she is today while lending some wisdom for folks who want to take the venture into cosmetics. We ended things off with some inspirational words that everyone can benefit from. I hope you enjoy it. 

Arnae: You can start off by introducing yourself, give us a little information about what you do, and maybe like, 2 or 3 fun facts. 

Shania: My name is Shania Williams. I'm a home and personal care auditor as well as a formulation chemist. Fun fact? I am such a foodie. I love going to different cities and going to restaurants that I've been told about and trying new food. Also, I love to travel. Something fun? I just recently got into painting birdhouses. That’s something fun I have got into.

Arnae: What's your favorite place that you've traveled to in the past year?

Shania: My favorite place so far… I would have to say Houston. It was my first time going to Houston. As many cities I've been to, I've never been to the city of Houston. And that was so much fun. It was amazing. We were out all day. Didn't get back to the next day.

Arnae: Yes we love Houston. So shifting focus a little bit here. You said you were a home and personal care auditor? Can you tell us more about that? 

Shania: Yes. What I do is I audit for the Cosmos standard. I travel all over domestically and sometimes internationally. I'll start internationally next year. I'm going to make up manufacturers and brand owners who hold this Cosmos standard on their products and check their formulas, systems, batch records, primary and secondary packaging. I check the flow of when they receive a raw material to when they're shipping out a finished product. I make sure that the ingredients that they claim to use they're actually. Just making sure everything is up to the standard and compliance.

That's a lot of fun. Getting to work in the beauty industry and actually making sure that people are getting the products that they are thinking they're getting and not something that's just made up and they just stuck it on a label. 

Arnae: It's nice to know that you were working for us. How did you get to this point in your journey, in your career? 

Shania: When I was in high school before YouTube was monetizing people, I was really into watching makeup tutorials. Junior year, my chemistry  class, Ms. Reynolds. It was the only class that I was getting a B in. I was an honor student. She asked me one day. She was like, well, what is it that you want to be? What do you see yourself doing? I said, Oh, I see myself being a makeup artist and she was like, you're too smart to play in makeup. So from there, it was Okay. I went to North Carolina and started to pursue a Bachelor's of Science in Chemistry. I was still kind of on the fence, but I knew that I wanted to live a certain type of lifestyle when I got older. So I had to decide between dance and chemistry. I chose chemistry. My mom told me chemistry will get you further than dancing in a sense. I'm glad I listened to her because it's kind of like she said, let chemistry be a career, let dance be a hobby, you know, and where I can still have both.

I got my degree in chemistry and then while I was in college, a church member of mine, Stephanie from the Tidwell family, who is well known at A&T. She started her own skincare business. She came to me and was like, “ I need someone to create scents.”

“Always have you as your first thought. When you're feeling lonely, think about what would set the mood to get yourself into a better mood.”

- Shania Williams, Owner of Self Worth Cosmetics

I was like, Oh, okay. I could do that. I could learn the basics of how to layer scents and fragrances. For a while, I was just mixing essential oils to create different scents. After I graduated, I went right into work.at Cosmex, USA, which I now believe is New World. One of the biggest makeup manufacturers in the world based in South Korea.

I was placed on the skincare team because they saw that I came from an analytical background with mixing essential oils. Even though it was under the table and it was kind of like an internship, I still took it as an opportunity.

I still put it on my resume. So I feel like that's what really got me to that skincare exclusive lab. After then, I got to make everything, like, everything. I worked with Fenty on her fat water toner, the red toner with Kat Von D, and with Bobby Brown. A lot of big names.

Eventually, I transferred into Tri K Industries where we did formulations to claims. Everything that is anti aging, anti wrinkling. We would do protein extracts. For example, if a product contained seaweed, we would look into all the benefits of seaweed when it comes to hair, skin, nails.

I was making everything from shampoos, conditioners, and cold creams. I really made more at Tri K versus Cosmax far as a variety of cosmetics and personal care. That's when I really got into personal care and skincare studies.

Then COVID hit and I was furloughed. However, while I was in the lab, I was still making my own formulas. So, I would take those formulas and just give them out to people and they loved it.

It’s like something clicked into my head. So I started my own business, Self Worth Cosmetics. At the time and through this whole journey in the cosmetic industry, I was always questioning my self worth.

I really had to develop a sense of who I was and where I'm going. That journey led me to developing my self-worth. Hence the name, Self Worth Cosmetics. That came about and took off. It did really well in New Jersey even though I didn't have a website.

It was just a really good time for me. Then I moved down to Georgia in 2020. I was unemployed for about 2 years until the job that I work for now messaged me on LinkedIn. It was a different type of cosmetics but my main goal was to stay in the cosmetic world no matter what I was doing. 

Arnae: Why was cosmetics so important to you? 

Shania: I realized through the journey that the black dollar is the most dependent upon in the cosmetic industry. Yet there are not enough black people who are sitting at these tables who are reviewing these formulas or creating these formulas. If they are creating these formulas, they're behind the big company. There's somewhere in a lab being hidden and not there. 

Arnae: What challenges do you face as you go into navigating these worlds?

Shania: We are the least in the cosmetic industry as far as owning far. They make it very hard. The cosmetic industry is already a hard world, regardless of what color or background you come from, but as a black woman, I truly believe it's 10 times harder like anything else that we have to face. 

I'll just give you an example. In the cosmetic world, you get a certain response when you look a certain way. I was at Cosmoprof Miami. I was the lead on this trip. However, my coworker who was a white woman with blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. People were automatically drawn to her. Don't get me wrong. People are coming up to me, talking to me, but I feel like that's just because of how I carry myself and just me being attractive. That's one thing in the cosmetic industry I'm realizing. This is just my truth and what I've experienced.

It's made me want to upgrade myself in a sense, like it's made me want to take better care of myself because it makes you realize that's the whole point of cosmetics. It's literally to take care of yourself and to invest into yourself in a way where you are preserving your youthfulness in a way. 

You want to bring out colors, you want to highlight your best features, stuff like that. So it's very hard as a black woman. I faced, especially a black woman with natural hair, like locs. I feel as if I had a 40 inch bust down.

I would have got more people coming up to me versus me going up to people. I feel like that makes you more approachable in the cosmetic world, unless you're behind a bench and you're formulating. If you're out talking to people like how I am now as an auditor, you get a way better response by just looking your best. 

Arnae: How do you find motivation to keep doing what you're doing, even though you may get discouraged by something out of your control? What drives you in the morning? 

Shania: I've convinced myself I am doing what nobody else is doing. It's for all those formulating chemists, the greats, people whose formulas were used till this day, but were silenced or didn't get a chance to teach or come from behind the bench and say, “Hey, it was me who created this or formulated this.”

I want to basically open doors for those who look like me. I want to reach back and open those doors. However, I know that I have to climb mountains and go through valleys because no one, as far as I'm seeing, is going to be teaching formulation. I haven't seen that on a level where people are doing it personally. 

You see people on Instagram and on Tik Tok teaching cosmetics because you can reach millions. But I want more of a personal impact. Helping those who want to get into the STEM world and don't know how to do it or students who want to get into the cosmetic industry and don't know the steps about how to do it.

They've always been interested in it, or they just didn't think of it. I want to spark at least an idea and even if it may not be for that student or that person, just them talking about it. Like, yeah, I listened to this girl who makes cosmetics. Like, wait, what? We're running that back. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's an interesting topic. It's an interesting subject.

Arnae: What do you want to achieve from your cosmetic career?

If we're the biggest dollar, we need to be in it way more than right now. I need to have  a seat at the table or I'm building my own for my own people. That's my goal.

I remember being in the lab and the Korean girls would run to me and they would test stuff on me because their products would pass on blue undertone, the yellows, the greens, but it has to pass the reds. It has to pass the gold. It has to pass on the melanin.

If it's not passing on the melanin, they know that it's not going to sell. I just want us to be there, making decisions. It's these big companies are French dominated, Korean dominated, Indian dominated, Brazil is dominating, China definitely, but we're not dominating.

I went to that show. I maybe saw a handful of black owned personal care, this is from Nails, because it's a cosmetic show that covers hair, Teeth whitening, esthetician tools, cosmetic, anything personal care, nail polish, all that. I saw a handful, maybe five black owned businesses, and maybe two were from Africa. I saw like two from France.

That's why I say support. Support those small businesses, because It's not a lot of us in the game. If we are so big in the beauty industry, as far as our dollar and the profit that's made off of us, we should at least have a say.

We are beyond just being a tester. A skin patch to be swiped, swiped on or a piece of hair to be tested. We should literally be sitting at the head of these tables. 

Arnae: What advice would you give your 18 year old self from this phase in your life?

Shania: Woo, leave men alone.

Really, my advice would be the no’s that you're hearing now is nothing to the yes’ that you're living today. The rejections, the heartbreak, the disappointment, the fear. It was all worth feeling. Your power is within you. It's not with anybody else. 

I would tell myself to always be in the mood for you. Always have you as your first thought when you're feeling lonely, think about what Shania is or say to yourself, cause that's my name. What is Shania in the mood for, you know, set the mood to get yourself into a better mood.

Don't allow other people's beliefs and projections. Don't take it personal. I would tell her, throw everything over your shoulder, like salt, throw that sh*t over your shoulder. Let it go. Seriously. The law of detachment, you just gotta let it go.

I got that from my great grandmother. My grandmother used to say, her mother used to always say, throw it over your shoulder. Any tragic death, you gotta throw it over your shoulder because life is gonna go on. And time is gonna go by, and it's like, I'm learning that your true wealth is time and how you impact people with that time.

I've decided a long time ago that since my childhood was so negatively impacted that I'm now going to be the complete opposite and make sure that I'm teaching love. I'm teaching self worth. I'm teaching people that you should be able to have nothing and feel like you deserve and you're worth every f*cking thing that you desire, despite your circumstances, despite the no’s, despite hearing disappointing words from people who you looked up to.

That's what self worth cosmetics is about… always being in the mood for you. Like you may not be in the mood for work. You may not be in the mood for a test, but always be in the mood for you. When you're in the mood for you, you realize that that fills into other aspects of your life.

This morning, I literally got up and I said, I'm in the mood to dance, to work out. And I danced. The next moment, I was like, I'm in the mood to do my makeup and get pretty and put a little bow in my hair. And I did it. My day has reflected me being in the mood for me. 

That's why it's important to make sure that your thoughts are positive. When you close your eyes, you're okay. I'm not saying it's going to be 24/7 now. Oh God, No. But it's important to be around people who are doing better than you. 

That was my biggest lesson I learned so far. Do not hang around people who are not doing the same thing or adding something to your life. This may sound harsh and I'm not saying that will beat out evil people, but the majority of the time, it will help you.

You don't want to always be the leader. That gets exhausting. You always want to have room for people who are able to help you, put you on, network you as well as you're able to network them.

You have to also be resourceful yourself. That's one thing I always wanted to make sure that I had a skill to offer towards the public, whether it be teaching formulation. Whether it be I'm certified to be a doula or something where it was helping or encouraging someone else other than myself. 

Arnae: To end things off, I have to know what is your favorite product you have created or formulated? 

Shania: My favorite, ooh, my favorite product would be… it's so hard to choose, okay, so I have all three. 

Okay. So for my body, I would say my sea moss body wash because it's the same pH as your skin barriers. A lot of bar soups are alkaline, but your skin pH is a little bit acidic just to keep bacteria and other irritants off your skin. 

Then I would say the glow oil for my face paired with the last one which is my fresh face cleanser. It's an oil based cleanser that you wind up like a lollipop and it has little beads in it. You rub it on your face and it's really good for makeup removal and exfoliation. So those are my top three. 

Arnae: That was beautiful Shania. Thank you so much for the inspiration you have shared with us. Many life lessons we can all take with us as we navigate these new spaces. You can find more about Shania and her business by following her on social media @thecutestkhemist and @selfworthcosmeticsllc. You can, also, visit her website https://selfworthcosmetics.com/