Agamems Beauty, a natural skincare line born from a 911 operator’s battle with stress

When Danielle Copper was 12, she helped run her first small business: a jewelry-making collective with her 10 cousins. 

They ran the business from their grandparents’ house in Middletown, New York. Their grandpa would drive them to a nearby Michaels store and buy a truckload of beads and fabric paints. They would later sell their jewelry to adults Upstate and when they returned home to Queens. They even gave shoppers a receipt. They called themselves the Cry’n Company (an acronym of their last names). 

Cry’n Company was short-lived. Copper jokingly recalls that the older cousins got power-hungry and delegated too much. 

But that experience taught her about listening to customers’ wants and needs, and would help her decades later with her current business: Agamems Beauty, a natural hair, skin, and body care line. 

Crafting a new legacy

In 2014, when Copper was working as a 911 operator, her body began showing signs of constant stress: acne and eczema. Her dermatologist prescribed cortisone shots to treat the acne.

“You’re getting poked in your face, and it doesn’t leave your face looking very attractive,” Copper said. She didn’t like imagining what the cortisone and antibiotics her doctor prescribed were doing to her body. 

It also wasn’t working. So Copper started experimenting with making a natural face wash. 

“I [thought], ‘when you go to the spa, what do they put on your face?’” Copper said. “I started getting ingredients myself and once I saw results from more natural products faster than those I was buying from the stores, it was a no-brainer.”

She researched natural remedies online and also turned to a Cry’n Company standby: Michaels. 

“It’s a candy store for crafters,” Copper said.  

She tried their ready-made melt-and-pour soap bases but couldn’t stand the chemical smell, so she looked for natural melt-and-pour soap bases. She didn’t want to make soap from scratch because it would involve more chemicals and, if done wrong, cause a toxic reaction. 

She found an alternative in a goat milk soap base with safflower, coconut, and palm oils. The natural oils left her skin moisturized instead of dry after the harsh chemicals she was used to. 

Copper would make a small batch and ask family and friends for feedback. She wanted to know: Did it smell good? Did it last long enough in the shower? Did it lather enough for them on their body, on their loofah? How did their skin feel afterward? 

Once she perfected her product, Copper got rid of everything else in her beauty supply closet. But starting an organic beauty product line wasn’t on her mind yet.  

The birth of the business 

Copper had a baby shower in 2015 and gave samples of her hemp soap as party favors. She got calls the next day and through the week: “Everybody went home and said, ‘you have to sell this; my skin feels amazing, and it’s only the first time I’m using it!’” she said.  

Copper was seven months pregnant, and had free time on her hands for the first time in a while. She took full advantage to make plans. Once her son was born and she had a good routine with him, she started to experiment again. 

She found two soap molds that would become her signature shapes: a big flower petal, and the center of a flower. When she later took orders from men, she added a square mold. 

She decided on the name Agamems Beauty as a nod to her grandfather (not the one from Middletown) who had encouraged her to become a businesswoman before he passed away. Agamemnon was his Omega Psi Phi nickname at Ithaca College back in the ‘50s. 

“I think he would be proud,” she said. 

Her son, now 8, helps her after school and on weekends. He loves to weigh ingredients and cut soap bases. She also gets help from other entrepreneurs in the natural beauty and wellness industry who have mentored her. 

To Copper, perseverance is key, advice she would tell both her son and her younger self: 

“[Focus on] how much everyone loves what you’re doing, how you felt when you first started doing it, how you continue to feel when you use your products and in the process of making things and meeting new people and hearing their experiences,” she said. “You think, ‘I can’t give up. This [product] is literally what I use on myself.’” 

Agamems Beauty

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