This is The Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Stacey Hey everybody. I am so excited to be talking with a local business owner. Today we're chatting with Shirene Douglas and she's the owner of Cocoa Baby Organics. Welcome, Shirene. Thank you Stacey. So glad to be here. Yeah, we're excited to chat. So why don't you start off by telling us about Cocoa Baby Organics? Absolutely. Cocoa Baby Organics is a sustainable children's clothing brand that offers safe eco-friendly essentials made from organic materials such as bamboo. We're focused on offering comfort, quality, and conscious production. So make sure that any clothes we provide are made in the best ways and at factories that follow certification standards to make sure that labor is treated appropriately, though that's very important to our brand. We only offer clothing in small batches because we also don't wanna have so many overruns that there's a lot of our products going to the garbage or adding to what we already know's, going to the landfills and things like that. So we wanna make sure that we help parents, dress the little ones and pieces that are safe for sensitive skin and also gentle on the planet. Can you talk about your journey, what brought you to this and, why'd you get started and how this become a passion of yours? Absolutely. I started Cocoa Baby Organics about. Four years ago, and it's a very personal journey for me. And it's still a lot of emotion when I think about it. But I started it after a 16 year journey with secondary infertility. We tried for years to give my son a sibling and, but unfortunately we could not, and sometimes that happens. And my journey ended with a hysterectomy in 2021. And as a result I found a way to turn my grief into. A business to help me manage, and process things as I move forward. So I wanted to offer families clothing that was not only sustainably made from organic materials as I mentioned earlier, but also bright and fun. I believe that a lot of our joy is found through what we wear. And you find like even the accessories I wear are fun and bright and big and those things. So I wanted to make sure we incorporate that.'cause a lot of times when you see organic clothing, like oatmeal and white and, all these kind of bland and boring things. Yeah. And what we offer is not that a lot of fun sayings and prints, you find that in the, in our store. I also wanted to be able to give back to fertility nonprofits. There's a lot of families who are still trying to conceive their first baby or are having challenges and need to some other reproductive assistance and they don't have the money to do so we also use a portion of our proceeds to support nonprofits that do offer grants to families and things like that. So that's very important to what we do. But also I wanted to focus on sustainable clothes because I could have chosen anything, right? I could have chosen anything to sell. But I think that as moms, we spend so much time focused on what our babies eat, like what we're putting in the hair, et cetera. But we don't always think about what we're putting on their bodies, like the clothing and the fabrics and how that can affect things like. Children with eczema or system of sensitive skin. So I really wanted to offer those products too and create more awareness around the importance of sustainability and organic clothing. Because, every mom wants to make the best choices to protect their children. And that's why for me, cocoa Baby is not just a clothing brand, it's also a way of making it easier to make better decisions to protect our kids. Are there any myths out there about, children's clothing in general, or the, organic clothing industry that you'd like to address? Yeah I think there are some things out there that are, there's not really a difference. You can't tell. But if you ever touch a Bamboo, let's say sleeper as compared to a regular cotton sleeper, it is night and day. You can literally feel the difference. In the touch. And it's very smooth and sleek and it's better for baby's skin. It's also cooler'cause, babies sleep very hot most of the time, and so you can tell that it has, it's almost like a cooler and it's more breathable. Than regular cotton. So I think, that's a myth also. But additionally about the cost, some of the products we offer aren't, exorbitantly cost, like there's a range in our inventory. Anything from a$14 onesie, all the way up to how far you wanna go, depending on whether you wanna buy a set, et cetera. But. I do think it's worth the investment. Organic clothing does tend to last longer.'Cause sometimes after a few was you buy that onesie that's just plain cotton out of a store who shown remain nameless. And it'll shrink, like you maybe got one or two wears out of it and it may have been like eight bucks, but then you have to go buy another one. And then you're putting that into the landfill. Got it. Got it. Obviously this is a passion for you, but when you're not working, what do you like to do for fun? I am a baseball mom. Oh, okay. I have been a baseball mom since my son was four. And he's 21 and he's playing professionally. And it is just been a joy. So it's also a pastime of mine. So I really enjoyed the World Series. It's one of the best I've ever seen. I, I was open to whoever won, but I could have gone either way, but the Dodgers, they just have it. They have it on lock right now for some reason. But I am a Braves fan at heart. But I'm also A Detroit Tigers fan. Okay. Are you from there originally? Detroit? Yes. No, I'm not. I'm a recent fan. I'm a recent fan. that's, yes, that's where my son was drafted, Yeah. That's awesome. And I know as a baseball mom, you've probably done a lot of laundry at your, in your house. A lot of stain remover and stuff like that. I just in terms of the organic clothing, are there special ways that people have to wash them or, is it just standard? What do you recommend? Yeah, it's standard. I think there's certain, depending on what you get, because there is like a cashmere option. So if you wanted to buy something that level, like of course you'd have to have like more special cleaning options there. But most of it's just, you put in the regular wash, it's a organic cotton onesie, Bamboo. You just wash it the same way you would with anything else. So yeah, no additional steps are needed. Do you recommend any specific types of laundry detergent? Where do you feel like it goes best with the clothing? I think for clothing in general, I like things like Buff City soap, like it's more homemade sustainable. It doesn't have all those extra chemicals in them, so I naturally use that for all clothing. Yeah. And I would recommend that to moms too. But when my son was little, I use drift. Yeah. Or all free and clear. Yeah. That's always been part of what we did with him as a child. Although we didn't know a lot at the time about organic clothing and the importance of it. But I don't know how much of it, was around, or how aware we were 20 some odd years ago, yeah. Even now, I think it's a difficult place, it's a difficult item to find, in a traditional store or, maybe someplace might just have one or two things, that are organic and not, the wide variety that, that you offer on your website. Can you think, I might have talked about this a little bit when you talked about your own personal history, but maybe like some of the ups and downs of your business and things you've had to overcome. Things you've learned along the way, that sort of made you stronger and made you, a better businesswoman. Absolutely. I think when I first started, there were a few things I did right and there were a lot of things I didn't do the right way. So I do believe that whenever you start a business, you need to find community of people who. Have been through it before. And I did that when I first started the business. I was in a boutique like coaching group that really helped me avoid some of the the challenges and pitfalls that would occur. Yeah. But what I did not do is I didn't really keep that going. And, I was like, okay, I made the initial investment, whatever I still needed coaching through the various steps of own a business. And I had to learn a lot of things the hard way. And if I could go back, I would've just kept investing in that and it's moving forward. That, that was a really tough lesson Yeah. That I learned. And also investing in things like marketing matters. Like marketing really matters. And I was thinking like social media would be the end all be all. And it's not. Like you have to really get out into the community and meet with people. Hence why we're gonna do a popup in a few weeks. But also putting ads in the local magazine. Know where your market is, know who you're trying to reach, and then do all the things to reach those folks. Definitely, I obviously agree with that. It's, and it's about connecting your brand to yourself and having people feel like they know you and trust you and they can trust the products that you're offering for their babies. You mentioned the popup. Why don't you tell us where are you gonna be and when are you gonna be there? Okay. We're gonna be at the tap seedling house. On on Saturday, December 6th from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM and that location is at 70 31 Main Street here in Woodstock. Okay. And it's a, it is a cute little house, but it's right by where, it's right where Pampered Peacock used to be. On Main Street, but now it's next to the Pampered Spa. I think they just changed the name. So it's right next door to that. It'll be so much fun. We'll be doing a few raffles. You'll be able to touch our clothing. When people actually experience the clothing in person, they're like, oh, okay. I've never touched the Bamboo once. Now I see the difference. Yeah, you have the opportunity. To experience our products in person. So it'll be our first pop popup, but hopefully not our last. So if you wanna come out and get some things for the holiday or, just come out and visit and meet us and yeah, the products in person, it'll be really neat. And so we will have some, like I said, raffles and especially if you're coming at the very beginning, like if you're there as soon as we open at 11, we really have some treats in store. Nice. Nice. And what do you have, for the holiday season? Anything special that you're offering? Any gift baskets, things like that? We can definitely do gift baskets. But we have the cutest sets for the holidays. Like we have a gingerbread onesie. It is a, it's beautiful. It has little gingerbreads all over it. And then we have a set that is a candy cane. I call it like a candy cane. I don't know. It's a candy cane sweatshirt. With the candy cane on it and then like little red and cream tights. They're so cute and they have booties with candy canes on'em. Then like a, you can get a red beanie or a cream beanie to go with it. And we have it from zero to three all the way up to six to nine months. It is adorable. Set. It really is so cute. We have some items that definitely will celebrate the holiday in a real fun way. Good deal. What else do you want folks to know about your business? I want people to know that we are here in Woodstock, we don't have a storefront, if you need a last minute, like a delivery or something like that, like we can definitely we can either ship it'cause the shipping's really fast'cause it's so close. Or if it's the day of. Just send me a note and be like, Hey, I have a baby shower at three o'clock and if I'm in town, I will definitely find a way to get that to you so you can get it to your person and we can actually even gift wrapped it for you. So we just wanna be that local provider of children's clothing. That's the one thing I noticed there, there are a couple of kids shops in the area, but not any that really focus on organic clothing. That's us. Seems you have a high level of customer service, which probably means you also have a high level of customer satisfaction. Can you think about maybe some of the things that people have told you over the years about, why they like the clothing and why they keep coming back? Yes. I recently had a customer tell me that they were sad because their child is outgrowing the products. And she actually asked me, she's can you like expand your inventory, like your range, because I would love to keep her in your clothes until she gets four or five. I was like I really had to pair that down and really focus on, that zero to 24 month window just so I could offer like deeper inventory for those folks that really need it. But yeah, that was probably the coolest compliment I've received. Yeah, so far. And I also had someone tell me that they didn't really know the difference until they got their first order and they were like, oh, this is such great quality. I did not know. Yeah. And so they've been ordering pretty regularly. We really have some cute offerings on the site. Yeah, for definitely. Where do you like to shop for yourself? Where, what do you find is the, a good quality spot? It's a little harder to find organic clothes for adults, I find. But I do banana Republic. They have a lot of cotton clothes linen that's the better clothes. They're really well made too. It's a little more of an investment. But I have, I've had their clothes for, 10 years. Wow. Yeah. And if you just take care of them, watch them normally, et cetera, you can keep these clothes a long time. So I don't mind making the upfront investment knowing that I'm gonna have them for a long time. That's great. And I'm sure with your clothing there's, people can hand down their cocoa, baby organics and just, that's great for saving some money. And it's also great for the idea of, recycling and reusing and being able to share that with some other people too. Yeah. We have a lot of folks who regift. Close to other people in their family or their friends, and they're still, they still look great. Yeah. That's awesome. So where can folks find you? If somebody's listening right now and they wanna shop, where do they go? What do they do? What's the best way to get in touch with you if they have any questions? If you could let us know that, that'd be great. Okay. Our website is www.cocobabyorganics.com and that is COCO. Baby organics.com. We're on Facebook, we're on Instagram, we're on TikTok. We will be at the popup shop on December 6th here in Woodstock. And we also have our clothing in t City market at the village retail. So there's lots of different ways to get our products or get in contact with us. And we would love to, to serve you. Good deal. Thanks so much for joining us today. Sharing. All right. Thank you Stacey. Yeah, this was great. I really enjoyed getting to know you a little bit better and learning about Cocoa baby. Yes. Thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, thank you. I. Thank you for listening to The Good Neighbor Podcast, Milton, and more. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gmp milton.com. That's GNP milton.com or call 4 7 0 6 6 4 or nine three.