Emilie and her team did an amazing job in creating a unique ambiance in Mama's Bath & Body. What started off as a hobby has transformed lives for the better. Find out how this trailblazer turned her back on the entertainment world and found joy in her passion.

Website: http://loveyourmama.com
Follow: @mamabathandbody

About: In 2002, I was living in Los Angeles and freelancing in the film industry. I worked my way up from production assistant on movies to a Producer on music videos and commercials. I ended my career in 2008 as Executive Producer at a local commercial production company. My college degree was in video production and I had no formal business training, but the film industry provided a great base for running my own business. I learned operations and management and budgeting while on the job for 14 years. As a freelancer, I had a lot of time on my hands and the desire to be in control of my destiny. I was deeply influenced by the natural lifestyle that was popular in California and I had always loved body products. I knew I wanted to create something and eventually started playing around with making lotions at home. This was before this kind of information was readily available on the Internet, so I got a bunch of books and put myself to through Natural Body Product School. I learned everything I could about carrier and essential oils and natural butters and what was good for what kinds of skin, etc. Around this time, I discovered a friend of a friend had a small shop called Urban Natural Body down the street from my apartment in the Silver Lake area of LA and she was looking for a business partner. I dove in and started working with her but the partnership didn't work out, so I bought the name and the product recipes from her. She was mostly buying bases and adding scents to them at the time and I knew that I wanted to make my products from scratch. So I spent the next couple of years selling at small fairs and festivals while working on creating new recipes and a new brand. I launched Mama in 2004 and continued to do street festivals and markets on the side while taking freelance work as it came. My then boyfriend (now husband) and I moved to Atlanta in 2005 and I continued to run Mama as my side hustle while freelancing. I took a full-time job as theExecutive Producer of a commercial production company in Atlanta in 2007 and negotiated a day per week where I could work on Mama. I rented a studio space from a friend knowing it would help me take it more seriously, but managing the 2 very different jobs became increasingly difficult. At the end of 2008, I made the decision to focus on Mama exclusively. My next move was into a dog bakery that a friend of mine owned to share manufacturing and retail space. Turns out dog biscuits and body products don't make the best bedfellows, so I made the jump to my own tiny studio/retail space in summer of 2009 on the outskirts of Decatur. This happened to coincide with the big recession, so Mama grew slowly but steadily in this off-the-beaten-path location for 5 years. We had retail hours in the store and I continued doing street festivals and markets to help build my business. I did a few trade shows during this time but realized that to make any money doing wholesale, I would have to change my business plan and I didn't want to do that. In my heart, Mama always felt like a retail business. I wanted me and my staff to educate customers about

our products the way we wanted to and curate the store experience in which customers experienced Mama. This felt essential to our brand. I looked for a busier retail location in Atlanta for a couple of years and couldn’t really settle on anything that felt right. In 2014, I found out about Ponce City Market and set my sights on opening a store there. After a promising meeting, I never heard back from them. Around this time Krog Street Market was also under construction and they were much more accessible. We were totally out of spaceat our current location and right down the street, Avondale Estates was experiencing a rebirth. I signed 2 leases that spring, moved to a big, beautiful storefront in Avondale in July and then opened our Krog store in November.

In 2017, we moved production from the back of the Avondale store into a 2000 square foot warehouse space behind the store. We were in negotiations to open a 3rd storefront in Brookhaven, but decided not to move forward with that for a variety of reasons. We are still waiting for the right 3rd location to reveal itself. In the meantime, we added medicinal herbs to our offerings and we are developing a larger, more long-term goal to help increase the herbal economy in Georgia.

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Ash Brown is a gifted American producer, blogger, speaker, media personality and event emcee. The blog on AshSaidit.com showcases exclusive event invites, product reviews and so much more. Her motivational podcast "Ash Said It Daily" is available on major media platforms such as iTunes, iHeart Radio & Google Play. This program has over half a million streams worldwide. She uses these mediums to motivate & encourage her audience in the most powerful way. She keeps it real!