Community Highlights: Meet Carrie Mapes of Hello Again

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carrie Mapes.

Hi Carrie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My journey as a cannabis entrepreneur began when I decided to put aside my preexisting impressions about cannabis and join my friend Patty Pappas to check out a dispensary. It was 2018 and dispensaries were starting to pop-up all over Los Angeles. I had never had a relationship with cannabis. I grew up during the war on drugs and in truth, was a little chicken to do much more than drink Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers in high school and beer in college. To be fair, cannabis was different then; back alleys, older-kid contacts and a grab-bag style of what-you-get-is-what-you-get prevailed. It would have been so easy for me to skip the excursion, but thankfully, I didn’t. What I saw and learned in that first dispensary changed the course of my current chapter in life. I was 50 years old and my youngest had left for college. I had a general uneasiness about sliding into a quieter lifestyle and held the assumption that I would pursue making art more seriously; I was happy but also restless.

What Patty and I learned in that first dispensary blew us away. First of all, it was beautiful inside with encaustic tile and Jonathan Adler ashtrays. The budtender who took care of us was charming, patient and very knowledgeable and he really dropped some knowledge on us that day. I remember it feeling like I’d been hit with a ton of bricks. What are these products? What do you do with them? How do they work? (With your body’s own built-in endocannabinoid system!) What issues does cannabis address? (Brain fog! Temperature regulation! Mood! Pain! Sleep!) How does it work in the body? (To restore balance and equilibrium!)

As women in menopause, Patty and I felt like we were composed of imbalance and disequilibrium. We stood there and drew a line directly between what we were experiencing and the use of cannabis for relief. The problem was, the product we were envisioning, one that was effective, consistent, predictable and non-psychoactive, did not exist.

We didn’t know it then, but that day, on the car ride home, Patty and I became customer founders. It took two years for us to find the right delivery system to use the power of THC without providing the typical head high (a vaginal suppository!), the right professional formulation partners, create our branding and get on our first two dispensary shelves, but in February of 2020, we launched our Hello Again Every Day and Hello Again Sleep cannabis-based vaginal suppositories for women in menopause. We now have two more products, Hello Again Period, formulated for pain, anxiety and focus and Hello Again Hangover for post-party relief. We are the only line of cannabis-based vaginal suppositories helping adult women of all ages with a myriad of physical, cognitive and emotional challenges. We exist to help women feel like themselves again.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
We launched our products two weeks before Covid shut down California, so we definitely struggled to grow during our first year. Everything was more difficult than it had previously been, although as first-time entrepreneurs and newbies to the cannabis space, Patty and I didn’t have the reference points to know how much harder doing business had become. We just put our heads down and forged patiently ahead. As women who had collectively raised five children, delayed gratification and a constant outpouring of energy was familiar territory for us. Eventually, adding additional talented women to the Hello Again team was a real game changer.

Our product is not immediately understood. We are an intimate care solution that uses cannabis in a suppository form to take on intimate issues. That is not an immediate sell for many women. Once we formulated an effective and product that we were proud to use, Patty and I chose, early in this venture, to be personally present in our brand. Neither of us was particularly motivated to be the Ben or Jerry of vaginal suppositories, but we knew that making our stories known would help open other women to the use of cannabis for wellness.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Hello Again vaginal suppositories exist solely to help women feel like themselves again. We have four products. All are suppositories, all are for either daily, semi-regular, or as-needed use. All have a soothing cocoa butter and avocado oil base, melt, absorb and take effect within 30-45 minutes with lasting effects for about 6 hours, and all provide physical, emotional and cognitive relief without the typical psycho-active high. We created the product we wanted to use; one that lifts away unwanted discomforts and allows you to fully participate in your active, busy life.

Hello Again Everyday targets pain, brain fog, anxiety, moodiness, temperature regulation and vaginal dryness.

Hello Again Sleep helps a girl go to sleep, stay asleep, or (if you’re like me and have to get up at least once in the night) go back to sleep. The sleep is deep and restful. The morning isn’t groggy.

Hello Again Period is formulated for monthly woes and targets pain, anxiety and focus. Younger women were using our original menopause product for endometriosis pain and menstrual pain, so we formulated a specific product for these needs.

Hello Again Hangover works great whether (like me) a second glass of wine can have next-day effects or you still party like a rockstar. Either way, Hello Again Hangover helps you feel a fraction of what you expect to feel based on the drinking the night before.

Hello Again is fully female-founded and female-owned. I am also proud to note that the entire staff at Hello Again represents talented females who have been out of the workforce, raising families, and are reinventing their next chapters. I love that Hello Again has provided a platform for this particular segment of women.

How do you think about happiness?
Family and friends top the list. I’m grateful to be able to call my family members my friends; and consider many of my friends as family. A full dinner table makes me very happy. I am also fortunate to have started a business with a terrific friend and business partner. I look forward to going to work every day. As Hello Again has grown, I’ve loved becoming personal friends with the members of our team. Lucky, lucky, lucky. I also love burger day at Hello Again.

I love to paint and create art. Whether in my studio or in a class setting, making art makes me lose track of time and tickles my brain in a way nothing else does. Additionally, I love to play paddle tennis, pickleball and mah jongg and have an occasional martini with friends. Traveling with my husband and adult children has been a new-found delight and is something I hope we can do together for many years.

Contact Info:

• Website: helloagainproducts.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/helloagainproducts/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helloagainproducts
• Other: tiktok.com/@helloagainproducts

Image Credits
Hallman Ray