Pierce Mattie Public Relations New York & Los Angeles

Solessence began as a small act of kindness. Growing up, founder Hillary Fry’s mother shared from her heritage the wonders and uses of botanicals and herbs for healing, pleasure and pampering through creams, soap, salves. Her father, the one with wanderlust, enjoyed tracking down hard-to-find ingredients (this was before the age of the internet), and would share his stories from travels the world over. Family projects were learning experiences where beauty and art were always combined.

When friends who had moved to harsher climates began to lament of dry skin and cracked heels, it was only natural for her to seek a solution for them. It wasn’t enough to create a product that worked – it also needed to be a sensory experience worth repeating. She began personally blending oils and ingredients from her travels around the world to create natural/organic treatments for them...and they worked.

Since Solessence’s debut, the company has grown to not only pamper friends originally surprised with the products, but their friends, and their friends, and so on. Solessence is thrilled to be a part of the Billboard Awards, to be on shelves at Whole Foods Markets, and to be discovered by and invited to People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful issue for People en Espanol (Los Mas Bellos), the Emmy Awards and the SAG Awards. Most recently the company was featured on TV Guide Network’s ‘The Fashion Team’ show after a Senior Vice President called to say she was a ‘big fan’ of the product and wanted to help provide more exposure.

Although the application for the company trademark was applied for in 2000, it wasn’t granted until late 2005. During the (long) wait, a website was established and Hillary began marketing. Internet sales began to trickle in. Her first brick & mortar sale was made to a small health store for $200 after a casual conversation with the beauty buyer. Her second sale a few days later was to a larger health store chain, for $5000 – people were responding positively to the luxurious feel and upscale look of this natural & organic skin care line, to the point where they were emailing and asking for her formulations. Although there was a hesitancy to invest heavily if the trademark would not be granted, in 2004 Solessence made an appearance with only the soap collection, temporary scrub labels and unmarked lotion bottles at a New York trade show. It was important to find out if there was a substantial interest in this market to even pursue. It was at this event that two pivotal things happened:

1. The Vice-President of a well known body care company raved about how nice the scrubs were and asked if we would private label for them – to the tune of 70,000 jars a month
2. Whole Foods Market sought out the booth after seeing the soap in the ‘Best of Show’ display area (“That is the best soap I have ever seen!”} and picked up the line.