Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexis Avery.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Alexis. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
When I was 18 years old, I suffered my first syncopal episode – random, unexplainable fainting.
For the next ten years, I would suffer from a host of random and sporadic symptoms with seemingly no cause or reason. Doctors le brushed me off. I was too young, too attractive, to put together to be sick. Test after test after test showed up negative. All the while, I was constantly passing out, my heart on the verge of stopping, my blood pressure and sugar bottoming out, constant pain.
By this time, I had spiraled into a deep depression. Making it through the day was nearly impossible, I was simply taking it hour by hour.
I was emotionally exhausted and physically overwhelmed. About five years into my battle to find a diagnosis, I restarted with making my bath and body products, a hobby I had picked up several years earlier, but with a different mission in mind: to bring relief to my aching body and to clear my mind.
I started making products to specifically help provide relief to the ailment I was currently suffering through. My buttermilk salts moisturized my hard bathwater and allowed me to soak my aching body in the tub for hours on end. I had friends run my aching, inflamed joints and peeling skin with my skin rejuvenating body butter.
I was simply trying to make it through the hour until I made it through the day.
Fast forward several years later and I finally received a diagnosis, several in fact. All invisible illnesses and disabilities.
I also met a community of people who were experiencing the same things I was. I shared my products with them, they shared their stories of relief through tears of joy and relief.
Parents, loved ones and caretakers begged me for more product and started giving me money for supplies.
And hence, Hour X Hour Bath Co was born.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Lol, a smooth road? That’s laughable. While it’s been an enlightening and fulfilling journey, it’s been filled with bumps nearly every step of the way.
In addition to the normal struggles of a bootstrapping, first-generation, minority entrepreneur, I also juggle the obstacles that come with being chronically ill.
My conditions forced me out of my job, my body simply couldn’t handle it and my accommodations just weren’t enough. As I type this, I have been on a leave of absence about six months, with me being off for the remainder of 2020 and then resigning after my year of leave is over.
Some days I’m too sick to work. Sometimes the pain is too much and I can’t work, even though I’m in the comfort of my own home… I worry about making enough money to replace my salary. But I am blessed enough to be surround by people who love and understand me, fortunate enough be have the most empathetic and supportive customers.
While it hasn’t always been easy, the journey has always provided me with what I needed, at the times I needed it most.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Hour X Hour Bath Co – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Hour X Hour Bath Co is a bath and body company that makes high-quality products that provide a mental escape and a rejuvenated body.
What I’m really known for amongst my supporters and customers is providing education regarding life with chronic illness- living as a Spoonie.
I specialize in making products that help alleviate some of the common physical ailments people with chronic and invisible illness live with, along with leaving them in a better mental state.
As far as what sets me apart from others, you’ll be hard-pressed to find another company that has zoned in and made it thrower mission to not only bring awareness to invisible illness but to help those who live with them.
Not only do I cater to the body, I cater to the mind state of those who live with invisible and chronic illness, which is evident in my Letters To Spoonies that are found on each of my products. I understand what it is like to live with these illnesses and disabilities, along with the emotional toll it takes on those who love and care for us so I am able to truly and empathetically speak and cater to my audience.
To toot my own horn, my products are phenomenally made. My three core products – my brown sugar scrub, whipped body butter and soaking salts – were formulated and developed by me over 24 months. And as a result, they are amazing at what they are made to do. My body butter has been known to stay solid in hot weather where others have melted. My sugar scrub exfoliates and moisturizes without leaving the skin oily. People say I’m lucky but it is all through design. I make my own luck.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I am currently working on both a men’s and a children’s line. Due to stigma men with invisible and chronic illness tend to go through it silently and alone; I want to cater to them. Show them that they are alone, that someone cares and is interested in providing them relief, in addition to erasing the stigma through education.
My children’s line is going to be fun and interesting. I am actually enlisting an expert to help understand what items should be included in the line: my nine years old daughter and my four nieces. With suicide attempts, depression and anxiety skyrocketing in kids ages 6-13, I am eager to talk with these children, preteens and teens about their thoughts on invisible, chronic and mental illness.
My ultimate goal by the end of 2021, going into 2022 is to be in a position to provide private label and wholesale bath and body products to other small businesses.
Pricing:
- Whipped Body Butter – $18
- Brown Sugar Body Scrub – $18
- Buttermilk soaking salts – $18
Contact Info:
- Website: www.hxhbath.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: hourxhourbath
- Facebook: hourxhourbath
Image Credit:
Jolene Martin – www.jolenephotography.com
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