Clean
Cut
Cosmetics

 

The real story of the once viral

Clean Cut Cosmetics

 We are still here everyday ready for a chance to earn your business 

 

 

Clean Cut Cosmetics was inspired by my very ambitious son Dillon T Latham. Recent events aside, Dillon has been the best son any dad could ever hope for. He gave me zero trouble growing up. The kid was never in trouble at school or at home. Anyone that has known him would agree that Dillon has a ton of natural talent. I mean he was amazing at just about anything he put his hand too. Dillon is an Incredible guitar player, was a goal scoring machine in soccer, I mean 4 goals in 1 game is not too shabby. Now I don't know how many kills is in Fortnite is considered a good game in 2024. I can tell you that in 2017, 2018 30+ kill wins playing in the late Friday and Saturday night lobby's was and still is impressive. He would never play conservative, what I called smart, he was just destroying everybody. His brothers still probably hold some animosity to this day left over from the FortNite days.  I still have the videos from a couple of his 30 plus kill FortNite tournament wins.

It was about that time that he asked me to sit down and watch a Mr. Beast video. I had heard the name but knew nothing about him. Dillon told me how much money he made, which at the time I didn't completely believe it. He said Dad, I am going to be a full time social media influencer. Unlike a lot of people he did not just talk about what wanted and wish it would come true. I watched this young man add fuel to his dream with hard work and stubborn consistency. Yes, there were moments when he wanted to give up, but he just refused to quit. He refused to fail. Him and I actually started researching what it would take. He determined very early on that the TikTok algorithm demanded daily content, everyday no exceptions. I can attests to the fact that no matter what else was going in the world Dillon had content to release daily. As a matter of fact he usually would have 2 or 3 videos a day. Dillons content became inspirational and his attitude was contagious. His content was 90 second snap shots of his day to day life. He shared the victories and struggles alike. His content revolved around his exercise routine, dietary discipline and relentless pursuit of self improvement. What you saw on the videos was exactly who he was and how he was living 24/7. He offered a positive encouraging message of hope that will always have an audience. His over all message was if he could do it anybody could. People of all ages began to follow him and put in work to improve their situations.

As his community grew he began to get brand deal offers for the first time. His social media had become profitable. It started out with $200 or $300 for a couple product ad videos, then $500 for a couple videos. I will say that he turned down a lot of offers for products or brands he did not believe it. Dillon began to challenge himself in different areas of his life. He turned his attention to improving products that he and his subscribers use in their daily routine. We didn't know how that would change our lives. We had just returned from a week long beach vacation in Nags Head North Carolina. He said he loved how his hair looked and felt while at the beach. Why was that? What about the beach that causes your hair to look thicker, have added texture and hold style easier. The answer was simple. It is the salt water that you swim in as well as the salt that permeates the air from naturally occurring ocean evaporation. Salt negates the oils in everyone's hair adding texture and volume. So we went out to the store to see if there was something like salt spray available. Sure enough we found some at the pharmacy. Once we got home we tried it out. The first thing that hit you was the smell of chemicals. Then looking at the back of the bottle we found a list of 25 ingredients. Most of which were hard to pronounce. We found terms like PHENOXYETHANOL, ETHYLHEXYLGLYCERIN, TETRASODIUM GLUTAMATE DIACETATE. Our initial response was this is suppose to be Salt Spray. That day Dillon said Dad I think I can make an all natural salt spray that will do a better job. That was when the idea for Clean Cut Cosmetics was born. So Dillon was in his senior year of high school at the time. He would be graduating in 6 months. At the time his Mom was in the hospital fighting a very severe medical condition. She had been in and out of the Intensive Care Unit. Due to this unfortunate situation I found myself in the role of a single parent with 4 school age children. The company OHA Heating and HVAC I worked for at the time required me to work several hours from home. This situation was untenable and required me to part ways with them. So as a way to keep the lights on resorted back to what I knew and that was doing HVAC repairs, service and installs on my own. During this time I began to research what was the legal requirements to start an at home cosmetic manufacturing business. I had no experience with Ecommerce, but I did have experience with starting and growing a business. I explained to Dillon the liability that is assumed when starting a business that serves the public. The first thing you have to do is to protect yourself in the case of any damages that could accidentally be caused from the products you sell. The first step is to choose a company name and to form a Limited Liability Corporation. I explained the necessity of getting liability insurance. Next we had to find out the legal requirements for at home manufacturing. We quickly learned that thanks to the covid shut downs at home cosmetics businesses were one of the fastest growing sectors of E-commerce. We found a clause that allowed for the use of ingredients approved by the FDA as safe for human consumption (ok to eat) and we would be good to go. So we formed a basic business plan outline. The plan was to have everything ready to launch a website as soon as he returned from his post graduation beach week. We spent many evening discussing ideas for company names and what products to develop. We had ordered some sample bottles and began testing some formulation ideas. Then one evening in when I returned home from a day installing duct work and visiting Mom at the hospital, Dillon said Dad I am in trouble, I need help. He said I was so excited to get started I launched the website on Shopify with a friend I met online named Tim. I was definitely shocked, but I said ok so what are you selling on the site. He said I used the test bottles to make ads and offered the Salt Spray for PreSale. To his credit he had turned 18 on February 15th so he did not need me to start an LLC, so it was legal. Also to his credit he had 100's of sales on the site, the problem was he had nothing to sell anyone. Weeks had passed and customers were getting very upset. In fact Shopify was sending notifications asking why none of the orders had shipped out. My initial response was for him to apologize to his customers and refund the money. Dillon approached me again the following day and asked was there anyway we can save this business. He said please help me to save this business and we can be partners. I thought he meant 50/50 partners. He did not mean that. He offered 75/25. We settled on a 70/30 partnership. We shook hands and that was that. I began to reach out for assistance to people that I knew in the retail and E-commerce space to get as much advise as I could. Dillon and I settled on a Himalayan Sea Salt as our key ingredient and then we finalized the exact formula. I researched how to make a product label and what was legally required to be on the label. I found a reliable bottle vendor Specialty Bottles and ordered 1000 bottles. Located vendors for all of the ingredients and placed expedited orders. Dillon designed a black and white label on his phone and we ordered labels from online labels. We ordered cardboard boxes and shredded packing material to represent our Pink Himalayan Sea Salt. We started making 1 bottle of salt spray at a time. On April 25th we shipped out our first order. That was one of the most exciting days of my life.

We had a whole lot of catching up to do.

By this time we had over 1000 orders. I worked every hour that I was awake for weeks. I was labeling bottles, making salt spray, bottling spray and speaking to upset customers that were still waiting for there order. May the 7th Dillon went live boxing orders on TikTok. As orders would come in I would yell out the name of the customer and there location. Dillon would give them a live shout out and it was amazing. We actually had our first 1oo sales in an hour. This was like a dream come true. We had not caught up with all of these orders and Shopify was shutting down our payouts. The business grew week over week. During this time by the Grace of God, Dillon's Mom Shannon's health was improving and as soon as she was on her feet she began to work around the clock building the business. Both Shannon and I put our cell phone numbers on the website as the customer service contact numbers. I can tell you that we spoke to customers at all hours of the day and night 7 days a week. It was the best job any parents could have. We spent all day talking about how amazing our son was and explaining how proud we were of him. This growth continued all the way through December. During these months of experiencing expedited growth two of Dillons brothers, a sister, and family friends came to work full time for the business. During the month of December our small family business was mentioned in The New York Times as well as The Wall Street Journal. In December we were also approached by one of the oldest and most prestigious cosmetics distribution companies. We signed a contract to distribute our products in Salons and Barbershops from Virginia to Maine. Our best estimates were showing 2024 was on pace to double in the coming year. Our products were being sold locally as well. We were also beginning talks with Target for a trial run. Dillon had spent a great deal of his time over the previous 6 months traveling. He spent weeks in Nebraska, multiple trips to California, Texas and Florida. After a few weeks in California he came home and announced he was moving out of the house. He said he and his brother had rented a townhouse about 5 miles away. The week after that he announced that he did not want to be partners with me any longer. I asked why and his response was that payroll for February was to high. He said I was wasting money on payroll. Now Dillon had 100% access to every financial transaction nothing at all was hidden in any way. E-commerce is not exactly a cash business. Not to mention I had begun printing out Profit and Loss statements as well as payroll at the beginning of December and leaving them on his desk for when he would return from his trips. Dillon said that his Mom's salary of 60k a year was way to much so he randomly reduced her pay after she had received 6 weeks of paychecks for the same amount. Keep in mind his Mom worked from June 2023 until December with out a pay check at all. She insisted on working for Clean Cut. All she wanted to do was help Dillon be successful. We all did. And while working she was still healing from not one, but two major surgeries. We were told at least twice she may not even survive the pancreatitis or the surgery. Ironically when he decided to end the partnership with me her pay was the only one that he adjusted without warning or discussion. He just cut her pay and said he had to because she was making too m,uch money. I began getting pay checks in September the same time Dillon started receiving paychecks. Anytime a check was issued to me a check was issued to Dillon of at least the same amount or more. The idea was at the end of the year we would split the profits 70/30. That never happened by the way. Dillon changed the passwords on everything. He showed up at our house after just telling us Shannon would never be without a job with Clean Cut even though he didn’t want to work with me and he fired her. Again with no explanation other than saying she wouldn’t understand, but he had to. He then walked away. He hasn’t spoken to us since. He proceeded to announce to everyone else on Easter Sunday they were fired. Siblings, family, friends. Everyone except one of his brothers and one friend. As far as he was concerned he was intentionally leaving us with nothing.

I had completely forgotten about the very first advice that I had given Dillon at the beginning of all of this, and that was to PROTECT YOURSELF. I never even thought for 1 second that I needed to protect myself from my son. As it turns out sometimes you do