MADISON COUNTY, Ky. (LEX NEWS) — 13 years ago, Brittany Berry knew she had to do something. She was disgusted with what she had allowed her life to become.
"I was doing things that I'd never in a million years thought that I would do, and I was living on the street. My family wasn't doing anything, you know, to help me. They enabled me, basically. I didn't want them to. I wanted to get out of that, so I just started imagining a better life," she explained.
Berry, while serving a 10-month jail sentence on drug possession and theft charges, used her time in a cell to imagine the better life she wanted. Two and a half years ago, she launched her business, The Scented Angel.
She began in her home by devising the formulas for various products, which include scented body lotions, deodorants, body sprays, facial scrubs, and wax to be used in scented candle difusers. Her business did well enough for the first 18 months that she was able to open her shop on in Richmond last fall.
"It's growing. I mean, we're still kind of new, so we're still trying to grow everything," she said of the progress she's made as an entrepreneur.
Brittany's products are available on her website, in-person at the shop, and even Amazon is carrying some of the items. She worked another job to fund this operation, still does, and usually spends four hours per day making and packaging her products for sale.
"We make our own labels. I design them and print them out myself," she boasted.
No one helped her do this, no one told her 13 years ago that she had to straighten her life out and kick the drug habit. She had 2 kids at the time (now it's 3) who needed her. And she knew she needed to do this for herself.
"Went to meetings. I've made new friends. I went to a different place. I just literally flipped my life around," she said, before getting back to work.
