““Oyin is the Yoruba word for Honey. It stands for the principles of sweetness, joy, and love — elements we seek to inspire in our customers’ daily acts of self-care.””
# OF YEARS “MAKING” IN BALTIMORE
# OF PRODUCTS “MADE” IN BALTIMORE
# OF PEOPLE ON OYIN HANDMADE TEAM
ABOUT OYIN HANDMADE:
When Jamyla Bennu couldn’t find readily available natural and organic hair-care products, she decided to create her own ingredient-conscious line. Since 2001, this family-owned and operated company has been provided hair-care products, geared towards styling dry, curly, and highly textured hair types. Oyin uses only the finest natural, cruelty free, and food-grade ingredients. Oyin started out in a family basement. Now, you can find Oyin’s products in Target, Sally Beauty, Rite Aid, CVS, or local Grocery store.
WHY BALTIMORE?
“One of the things that first attracted us to Baltimore when we were shopping for a new city, was the affordability and accessibility of commercial space. When we outgrew our basement in 2008, we were able to move into our first raw commercial space, which enabled us to increase our production capacity. I feel like the city, although changing fast, is still really accessible in this way, allowing makers and entrepreneurs to test concepts and build their businesses in sustainable ways.”
BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU’VE OVERCOME MAKING IN BALTIMORE:
This may seem like a direct contradiction to my last answer, but finding the RIGHT commercial space was a challenge. After we moved out of our basement, we moved the factory every year or two, trying to make different kinds of spaces work. We are a bootstrapped business, and couldn’t afford to lease an actual commercial kitchen, so we got creative with warehouse spaces, former salon spaces, storefronts, you name it. Finally, we found a raw space we thought would be able to grow with us. We’ve been at our Barclay production & shipping location for more than 5 years now.
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