Honey Pot’s Message: Self-Care Begins With Community

In its third year, the Reclaiming Wellness campaign, featuring wellness brand Honey Pot and sponsored by Target, took center stage at Howard University in Washington, DC, during Black History Month. This event wasn’t merely a gathering; it was a powerhouse of community revival. Founded by Beatrice Dixon in 2014, Honey Pot has emerged as a beacon, offering innovative products and spearheading educational initiatives that redefine Black health.

For Honey Pot, which was honored as part of Glamour’s 2023 By Women initiative, reclaiming wellness is about fostering an internal connection—nurturing mind, body, and soul through transformative self-care. This movement’s roots run deep within our community, tracing back to Black-led organizations in the 1970s that advocated for prioritizing health and well-being alongside the liberation struggle. Thus, self-care has always stood as a cornerstone of community empowerment.

The full-day event, produced by Beyond 8, started with an intimate master class featuring Dixon and Melissa Butler, who is founder and CEO of The Lip Bar and Thread Beauty. These two entrepreneurial powerhouses, longtime friends, shared their transformative journeys to the helm of their brands with members of Howard’s Black Girl’s House chapter and students from diverse fields, all eager to forge their own paths.

In this candid session, Dixon and Butler addressed the tough realities of entrepreneurship: the importance of rest for fostering creativity, the challenges of fundraising and inevitable rejections, and the harsh truths of scaling a business. Their message was clear: Failure is merely a stepping stone, not a roadblock. As Black women entrepreneurs, they didn’t shy away from discussing the added challenges they faced, from community perceptions to systemic barriers. Yet their resilience shone through, leaving a resounding message of gratitude: “Thank you for seeing us!”

Continuing the day’s momentum, Howard students engaged with wellness groups, and community partners, and explored the Honey Pot’s “six dimensions of wellness”—mindfulness, balance, vessel, nature, ritual, and community—through immersive micro-activations. These included a mini library and resource center designed for students to explore mindfulness practices. The curated selection featured reads such as Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration and Heart Talk: Poetic Wisdom for a Better Life by Cleo Wade.

Students immerse themselves in the activation as Nadia Sims, Program Lead for Black Folx Wellness Collective Book Club, leads the mini library and resource center sponsored by Simon & Schuster Imprints.Hugh Media Company