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Female Disruptors: Psyche Terry of Urban Hydration On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Accountability. It’s incredible now to remember standing up in a meeting with a factory that told me they were not going to make the order that I had already committed to send to my retail partners. I had planned on them supplying my goods and they dropped the ball. I was left to figure it out. I decided to start a factory and make it ourselves. Our family came together and did it. While I was 34 weeks pregnant we made sugar scrubs night and day to save the order.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Psyche Terry.

Psyche Terry, Beauty Boss and Beauty Queen, most recently crowned America’s Most Beautiful, 2022 Mrs. Texas is a fashion and beauty expert and a co-founder and CEO of UI Global Brands, a global manufacturer and nationwide marketer of consumer products with its keystone clean beauty brand, Urban Hydration.

A seasoned executive, creative thought leader, and advocate for education, Terry funds college scholarship programs for students majoring in business at the Haworth College of Business. She also sits on the board of directors for both the Boys & Girls Clubs of Collin County and the WMU Alumni Association Board. She has been honored as Woman of The Year, Economic Empowerer of the Year, Outstanding Young Alumni, and Philanthropist of the Year, as well as being named one of the Top 25 Moguls and Influencers to Know. Psyche has done countless local and national media interviews including being featured in Good Morning America, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Steve Harvey Show, ESPN and Fox News.

Terry holds an MBA from the University of Nevada Las Vegas Lee Business School, and a BA from WMU Haworth. She is a wife of nearly 20 years, a mother of three, and fitness lover. Psyche enjoys spending time reading biographies, watching marvel movies, learning about new fashion and beauty trends, dancing, roller skating, and hanging with her kids and their new puppy. In her spare time, she teaches Zumba weekly and is also a certified fitness instructor.

A self-proclaimed “better maker,” Terry, and her husband started Urban Hydration to provide better-made packaged products for dry skin and hair. Founded as a small online store in 2010, today Urban Hydration products are sold in more than 30,000 retailers across the nation.

Driven by a dedication to community, giving back, and saving the planet through clean beauty, Urban Hydration committed to providing clean drinking water for communities in need through a keystone partnership with WATERisLIFE in 2016. With each purchase of an Urban Hydration product, one gallon of water is donated to a community without ready access to clean drinking water. Through an outpouring of consumer support, Urban Hydration generously contributed to the construction of four clean drinking water wells.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

As a kid all the way through my adult life I’ve suffered with dry skin and dry hair and I went from being teased in elementary to having low self esteem in my teenage years to finally as an adult visiting the dermatologist so that I could at least control my eczema and dry skin from getting in the way of my newly married life. I realized that I was prescribed over the counter creams that were filled with chemicals and made me really feel like a doctor’s Patient, more than a new sexy wife. I decided to research the problem that the doctor specifically said I had and look up natural plant based and affordable ingredients from all over the word to help resolve my problem. From there I worked with a local non profit that I sat as a board member for to create this bath and body line while giving them a new brand to use as a fundraiser. From there Urban Hydration was born.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

We still work with nonprofits. In fact now we work solely with WATERisLIFE. We provide more than a gallon of drinking water to communities in Kenya for every product we sell. We’ve disrupted Kenya all the way from the US by helping over 100,000 people have access to clean drinking water. We’ve disrupted their communities where little girls are usually known for leaving home on long journeys to get water for the family. In the villages we serve, which is a pastime. We disrupt the market because not only is our product plant based but it is also affordable. The pharmacist that gave me prescriptions had some pretty high ticketed items for me. But all of Urban Hydration’s products are under $15.00.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

My very first pitch to Walmart would have the opportunity to scale up from selling from our home and to church members.

I unfortunately printed my labels on something like food plastic wrap and when we went to pick up each product a sheet of black Inc remaining for days in your hands.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

The highlight of Women Owned, independent owned and Black Owned businesses over recent years is absolutely remarkable. The fact that retail stores are identifying with brands that can communicate with niche markets that they have a hard time reaching is a great example of how this new age is disruptive in a good way. Our company gets compliments and parts from all over the world and when governments get involved in business matters where it ends up costing small businesses like mine hundreds of thousands of dollars because the distribution impacts us negatively and even harder than a larger business. This is tough to get through. It’s why so many small businesses closed during Covid-19.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

3 best words:

Ingenuity. Being willing to use my savings on an idea that I was sure to help save me and my kids and husband was quite the struggle but I could just feel that the world was as thirsty as I was for plant based affordable care.

Authenticity. As a wife and Mother of 3 I’ve been able to be real and share when I’m up and when I’m down. I allow my kids to be real and authentic with me and I remember that I wasn’t raised that way. I was raised to be what “they” need you to be. I didn’t enjoy that part of my life very much. I’ve made it a point that at Urban Hydration we are all real with each other and our customers provide only the transparent best that we can.

Accountability. It’s incredible now to remember standing up in a meeting with a factory that told me they were not going to make the order that I had already committed to send to my retail partners. I had planned on them supplying my goods and they dropped the ball. I was left to figure it out. I decided to start a factory and make it ourselves. Our family came together and did it. While I was 34 weeks pregnant we made sugar scrubs night and day to save the order.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

We want to be the most affordable and recognizable plant based personal care brand in the world. That means if you have dry skin and or hair and you wash with it, moisturize with it, clean with it or deodorize with it, we want to be your go to for generations to come. It’s a lot to bite off but we are going for it.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

It’s tough when people ask me if Urban Hydration is for women only or people of color only. I think I’d never ask about a brand I’d been using for decades if it was specially for me. But now that more women are entering into spaces we’ve been asked to segment and segregate our offerings.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

I have a podcast that I absolutely love sharing our story with Women Winners. It’s called Girls That Win on Spotify. Please check it out. I’m working on a book so please stay tuned.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

My movement would be to be joyful. To have joy really means building a feeling that is unbothered, good or bad. I would love for a movement of people that care and are joyful all at the same time. I think our work places would be easier to work in and our homes would be warmer to live in.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”?

Be a better maker and earn it to own it.

Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

This is what I strive for everyday is to be better and do better and give more than I did the day before to myself and to the people and places around me that income into contact with.

How can our readers follow you online?

Please find me at psycheterry.com and shop our brand and help support WATERISLIFE at www.urbanhydration.com

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!


Female Disruptors: Psyche Terry of Urban Hydration On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.