Cosmonatural The Birth

Augisa (aw-jee-sah) & Co.'s founder and head chemist, Nikki Rodriguez, a Nuyarican (for those of you who don't know a Puerto Rican by way of New York) has always dreamed of doing her own thing. This is a trait she inherited from her father, August Rodriguez, who always had a business or two.
While working as a fragrance evaluator and new development chemist for various fragrance and manufacturing companies, she worked on projects for companies like Dial, SC Johnson, Procter & Gamble and on a more upscale level, Estee Lauder, Liz Claiborne, Lancome just to name a few. Nikki's wide ranging expertise, empowered her with the ability to develop products for all skin types and ethnicities. But because she was personally effected by the challenges of living with extremely dry skin this held particular interest. After several years in corprate America Nikki married and started her family. She made her own special butter cream to help her itchy, pregnant skin. She shared it with some close friends and never thought much of it.

Meanwhile, corporate America wasn't too kind on a mother's schedule and her rocky marriage ended soon after the birth of her third child. Alone in the Midwest with her 3 young children, she headed back home to NY. Her middle child has severely dry skin and sporadic eczema flare ups which was aggravated while living in the attic of her mother’s house. After several visits to the dermatologist and her daughters skin still aggravated, she ventured online, bought some ingredients and headed to the kitchen and whipped up an ointment. Her daughters skin was immediately soothed and after a week her skin wasn’t itchy and was silky smooth. She didnt think much of this either. She went back to college for business and marketing and visited with some old schools friend that had started their own handmade lotion company. She was so proud of them and that night she remembered she once had that dream before the kids. Now a single mother, in school full time how could this ever happen?

That's when God spoke to me and said it's time. Time for what? I had no idea what to expect but knew I was in for a ride. I didn't want to go back to corporate America. I knew I wanted my own and I knew I wanted to make a difference. I knew I wanted to develop quality products for my fellow sisters. I decided I would do it. I would make my own products! I was so excited! Now all I needed was a name. It took me 3 weeks but one night, I thought about what was most important to me and that's where it came to me. My children; August, Giovanna and Isabella. I played around with their names and came up with Augisa. Once I wrote it, that was it. I knew it wasn't a me too name. And it would always have significant meaning to me. Augisa was born.