Redefining Beauty Culture with Chicago’s BeYOUtifully Abundant

There is a new voice in the cruelty-free skincare and wellness game. BeYOUtifully Abundant is a growing Black, woman-owned business operating out of Chicago’s Woodlawn, Hyde Park, Bronzeville and South Loop that specializes in selling responsibly sourced, vegan skincare and wellness essentials.  

Their products are free of parabens, sulfates, mineral oils, artificial dye colors and fragrance oils. Formulated and designed to deliver the best results ideal for all skin types, the natural ingredients will leave skin healthy, youthful, hydrated, plump, moisturized and glowing. 

BeYOUtifully Abundant was started by founder and master skincare artisan Patrice Patterson. She is dedicated to creating signature skin care that’s handcrafted from organic ingredients for holistic and sustainable self-care experiences while promoting “self-love and self-awareness.” She desires to take an all-encompassing approach to skincare focusing on the emotional and mental aspects of feeling good, not just looking good.

BeYOUtifully Abundant is also the home of the Handcrafted Turmeric Oil and Divine Beauty Body Butta. They also offer an assortment of whipped body butters, body and wellness oils, handcrafted face washes and face masks.

The best skincare brands blend natural, effective ingredients with nourishing vitamins and oils in their skincare. The Handcrafted Turmeric Oil is their most popular product made from scratch to ensure your skin is the cleanest and most refreshed it can be, and it's dedicated to sustainability and ethics every step of the way. We love the multi-purpose serum for hydration, fighting against hyperpigmentation and leaving a radiant glow like no other. It can be used internally or externally as a face serum, body oil, healing wounds, treating pain due to inflammation, maintaining a healthy immune system and purifying the skin and immune system.

The skincare and wellness business started as an ode to the founder’s late great Aunt Brenda. Her Aunt Brenda was a single mother who worked hard to raise and support her family. Even though she had no one taking care of her, Brenda would set time aside to take care of herself by indulging in some of her favorite skincare and beauty-care products like Mary Kay and Oil of Olay. Patterson will never forget her aunt leaning into her mirror cleansing her face or removing her makeup. Her aunt taught Patterson self-care and these are the experiences that BeYOUtifully Abundant wants to share with customers through the use of its essence that are essentially self-loving and handcrafted with love.

“This inspiration led to the motivation of wanting to start BeYOUtifully Abundant,” said Patterson. “My vision is that the people of South Side Chicago have local access to affordable, signature, handcrafted skincare and wellness.”

Since starting the business in 2007 with no prior entrepreneurship experience, Patterson’s goal is to ensure local access to self-care resources, nutrient-rich skincare for all skin types and being a trusted “natural self-care healer” in her community.

One-of-a-kind skincare packed with nutrient-rich ingredients, vitamins and antioxidants, BeYOUtifully Abundant simply means staying true to you while always abundantly pouring into yourself, an essential to self-love, Patterson said.

The business owes its growth to farmers markets and pop-up shops in the Loop and across the South Side. “We vend at local farmers and artisan markets, but my goal is to launch BeYOUtifully Abundant Skincare and Wellness Bar that serves as a handcrafting, retail and social gathering place,” said Patterson. “The response from the South Loop farmers market has been amazing and we received great feedback on our essentials and gained repeat customers.”

Since the pandemic, BeYOUtifully Abundant had to pivot their business model and instead of using online sales and local delivery as a method to sell their products. They started to source out markets to bring essentials to customers. 

Patterson was happy with the way BeYOUtifully Abundant adapted to the challenges due to the pandemic. “We continued to put in the work to grow our business and never gave up despite the adversities of operating business during this challenging time,” said Patterson. “We continued to hardcraft our products, pack our trucks up with our essentials, and participate in the farmers market to provide quality essentials and excellent customer service.”

BeYOUtifully Abundant is dedicated to transforming the way people use skincare, creating products that are not only nontoxic and cruelty-free, but also healing and nourishing.

“Our primary goal is to bring more awareness to our brand by being staple vendors at local farmers and artisan markets,” said Patterson. “We want to increase our sales in 2022 and will be introducing new essentials to our line, and the ultimate goal is the skincare and wellness bar.”

The love BeYOUtifully Abundant received from farmers and artisan markets makes them a “word of mouth business” so they can let their products speak for themselves.

The brand also makes an effort to collaborate with sustainable organizations to further their mission statement of promoting all-natural, handcrafted organic ingredients that are made for holistic and sustainable self-care experiences. It’s partnered with Sweetwater Foundation and Mama Moore SMART Garden NFP.

Sweetwater practices regenerative neighborhood development that takes on a creative lens and regenerative social justice method, creating safe and inspiring spaces to curate health, intergenerational communities that transform urban agriculture, art and education in vacant spaces and abandoned buildings. 

Mama Moore is a community partner organization committed to developing healthy ecosystems in South Side Chicago. One of their operations is to cultivate, manage and sustain an organic food system.

BeYOUtifully Abundant is on a mission to reinvent beauty routines through intentional and organic formulas. Founded by a skincare lover and sustainability activist, the brand’s natural skincare and wellness collection is packed with nourishing botanical ingredients and high-performing antioxidants to give your skin maximum benefits.

“BeYOUtifully Abundant is a local, innovative skincare artisan that offers affordable skincare essentials while also educating and influencing its customers to be inspired and informed about natural ingredients used in our products. We thrive from promoting self-care as well as offering in-person, excellent customer service and satisfaction. Our essentials are handcrafted, hand-packed and hand-labeled in small batches within my home workshop and made available through our online store,” Patterson said.

Support BeYOUtifully Abundant through their online shop, with the option of having your essentials shipped or delivered locally. They are currently vending at L+A Healing Studio located on 2018 S Michigan Ave. Follow their Instagram for more skincare drops, pop-up updates and sales.

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Kimberly Kapela is a Chicago-based magazine journalist that has covered freelance topics in music, beauty, fashion, spirituality, activism and personal essay. She is currently living in her home city, working towards a bachelors of arts degree in magazine concentrated journalism and social media strategies at Columbia College Chicago. She is a libra sun and pisces moon and loves learning about crystals for self-love and mindful meditations. She over romanticizes everything in her life to see the beauty in everything. Find her on Instagram @uhm.kimberly or writing on her blog: https://kimberlykapela.wordpress.com/.