Deciding to release this has story been the most agonizing decision I can ever remember having to make. We have been asked by our customers countless times what really happened. This is a shortened version of the unfortunate circumstances that almost ended our family business Clean Cut Cosmetics. Our business was one of the fastest growing and most successful new businesses of 2023 according to Wall Street Journal columnist Anne Marie Chalker. We had just over 1 million dollars in total sales between April 1st and December 31st. Six months ago Dillon decided to fire everyone and take the business that we had built all for himself. The way he went about it was miss guided and completely out of character. Since that boy was born I have been my sons biggest fan. Needless to say this unexpected event was sad and heart wrenching. For all my flaws and shortcomings as a dad I did raise my sons to know very clear the difference between right and wrong. The way this was handled was terribly wrong and should not be rewarded. If I was not his dad that loves him more than anything this would have played out very differently. Over night with no discussion my son locked us out of the bank account, quick books, Shopify and everything else. That unfortunately was not enough. He then went on to create a false story about his business being stolen. He went on to make videos full of slander and false accusations against me and Clean Cut Cosmetics. If I was anyone but his Dad he would have likely found him in real trouble. So here is the rest of the story.
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. Dillon was hard working, talented and polite. 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, he 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. I would say why dont you take the high ground and play defensively. His answer was you cant get a lot of kills without taking risk.
His brothers still probably hold some animosity to this day left over from the FortNite days. Â 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 tried to tell me how much money Mr. Beast made on You Tube. Honestly at the time I didn't completely believe it. I though how could anybody get paid millions of dollars a month making silly videos. Turns out I was dead wrong. 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 he 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 message was "if I can do it anybody can do it, you just have to put in the work". People of all ages began to follow him and put in work to improve their situations.
Dillons first several years of making content he did not have any real viral videos. He would get a few hundred views and then a few thousand views. it did not matter he just kept grinding. 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 $75 for a video. That soon increased to $200 or $300 for a couple product ad videos, then $500 for a couple videos. Then one day he decided that he wanted get his hair permed. The boy has great hair except it is as straight as a board. He came up to his mom while making a video and asked her if he could get a perm in his hair, if his video got a certain amount of likes. She said yea I will get you a perm if you get 500,000 likes. She was suppose to say 50,000 likes but he just kept it in the video. As it turns out that video got Millions of views and well over 500,000 likes. The whole house went crazy and "The Dillon perm was born". The perm was definitely a hit. We found out in December while doing interviews for the newspaper that Dillon started the nation wide trend of young guys getting perms. Dillon started getting photos of other kids getting the perm. Now having a perm Dillon started using hair products to help with the curls. After that viral video the brand deals started really coming in. 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. This began Dillons desire to make his own products. We didn't know how that would change our lives.
So 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.
It was a very challenging time in our family. Dillon was in his senior year of high school at the time. He would be graduating in 6 months. He and I started researching home based cosmetics business's. 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 cosmetics manufacturing business. I had no experience with E-commerce, 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 I returned home from visiting Mom at the hospital after work. Dillon said Dad I am in trouble, I need help. He said I was so excited to get started I launched a 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. We had just completed our first year and were on pace to more than double the business in year two.
Over night with no warning everything changed. 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. Now I had been emailing and printing out Profit and Loss statements as well as payroll weekly at the beginning of December and leaving them on his desk. That way when he would return from his trips he could be sure to see them. So I have no idea how he did not know what anyone was making weekly or what the business was doing. Dillon said that his Mom's pay of $30 an hour 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 just naturally evolved to customer service because that woman loves people in general. She would be on the phone day and night and get off the phone at 3AM as excited as a little kid at Christmas that she had just solved another problem and met someone new. She would say they were going cancel there subscription and now they are keeping it. You can not buy that kind of excitement and enthusiastic customer service. That kind of service creates relationships and lifetime customer loyalty. The value that she brought to the company was priceless. All she wanted to do was help Dillon be successful. We all did. And she worked while 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. After her second surgery she was working from a hospital bed, we could not stop her. I have known her since we were 10 years old and I have never seen her so happy and excited about anything. 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 much money. She was working from when she woke up in the morning until she went to bed 7 days a week. From June to December she did not get a pay check. She never complained once. In December Dillon and I decided that January she would start getting a check. Her pay was $30 an hour. She was responsible for all customer service and anything shipping related. Dillon cut her pay to $20 an hour over night no discussion. Now 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, quickbooks, bank accounts, Shopify all of the accounts. 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. He then fired her a couple weeks later. 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. On Easter morning Fernando's mom passed away. He was one of our amazing employees that had never missed a day of work. We reached out to Dillon to let him know that Fernando's mom had passed away. He proceeded to announce to everyone including Fernando on Easter Sunday they were all fired. Siblings, family, friends. Everyone except his older brother and one friend.
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 after having a few months to think about it, I dont think I would do anything differently. How could I not trust my son utterly and completely. I love my son with all of my heart and the 14 months I was able to spend with him I wouldn't trade for anything. I may never know why Dillon thought that after 14 months of pouring our heart and soul into this business we deserved nothing. Despite how he ended it, I chose to think on the really good times we had along the way. There was alot of laughing, celebrating and dreaming of the future. I remember the couple times he came in my room and just hugged me and thanked me for helping him. Those hugs alone made it all worth it. We have a card that Dillon gave Shannon on Valentines day a month before he shut everybody out and left. The card says I just wanted to thank you and Dad for working so hard on this business. I dont know where I would be without you guys. I love you. Now that was my Dillon. That is the Dillon that we raised.
It has taken months for me to get my breath back, because he surely knocked the wind out of me. I began to think about all the things we had to be grateful for. This business allowed me to care for Shannon last year when she was so sick. Now against incredible odds and by the Grace of God she is by my side and doing great. I am grateful that we as a family learned how to operate a cosmetics manufacturing and shipping business. We learned how to start and grow an E-Commerce business from the ground up. Not to mention we love this business. We have thousands of customers that have come looking for us to see if we are still around. Yes we are here everyday and looking forward to speaking with you guys.
Anyone that has any questions we will try our best to assist just give us a call. If you have a question about shipping, tips for your hair type or even new product ideas just reach out. If you have questions about this post we are available anytime. You can reach Shannon or myself by phone at 804-781-3008. As many of you know we offer some great products. Recently we have released some amazing new products. Since day one we have offered a risk free 100% satisfaction guarantee. Working together as a family is like a dream come true and so we have chosen to continue doing just that. So please give us a chance to earn your business. We are grateful to all of you guys that have stuck with us through this crazy time. God Bless you all and have a great day.
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