Part 1: The Beginning of Inherent Sweetness

I didn’t plan to start a business. I just wanted to survive.

Years before there was soap or sea moss or market tables, there was loss. I lost my husband to violence when I was twenty-eight. He was twenty-six. I had children who still needed everything from me, and all I could think was that I had to keep going. Somehow.

We moved to a new city where we didn’t know anyone. I was trying to start over with a broken heart and no idea what that meant. That’s when I met Natalia. She and her family took us in, no hesitation. Her daughter became best friends with mine. Our kids grew up side by side like they’d known each other forever.

Natalia was one of those people who gave without thinking twice. She was funny, stubborn, smart, and loud in the best way. The kind of loud that fills a house, that makes ordinary moments feel alive. She was there through everything. My rough days. My rebuilding. My attempts at being both mother and father. She made things feel lighter.

Then came the cancer.

I watched it change her body, but it never touched her spirit. She fought hard, went into remission, and we all started to breathe again. But it came back after her youngest was born. I was there through it all. Watching her made me look at life differently. How short it is. How beautiful it can still be, even when it hurts.

When she passed, the world felt quieter. I wanted to find a way to keep her close, to keep her name from fading into the noise of everything else we lose over time.

Her Instagram handle was @inherent_sweetness. I loved that. It fit her perfectly. She carried sweetness in everything she did. Even when she was in pain. Even when she had every reason not to. I decided that if I ever built something of my own, it would carry her name.

That’s where the name came from: Inherent Sweetness.
It’s more than a brand to me. It’s a promise that her spirit will always have a place to live.