LAWTON – A manufacturer of beauty and skin products sold throughout the world is closing up shop one year after celebrating its 50th anniversary.
“Narrowing margins in manufacturing, the regulatory environment has changed considerably in this space, and all of those things became challenges, so we decided it was time,” Jennifer Ellis, president and chief executive officer of Cosmetic Specialty Labs, told KSWO-TV.
Cosmetic Specialty Labs was founded in 1973 by her grandmother, the late Edna Hennessee.
The company will remain open until all of their products are sold and they can complete their final orders, Ellis said.
Cosmetic Specialty Labs manufactured and distributed products across the globe to approximately three dozen countries. It is located on the south side of town in an unassuming building.
“We are a private-label, turnkey manufacturer of hair care, skin care, anti-aging products and dandruff shampoos, and overthe- counter drugs, such as acne products,” Ellis’ husband Mark told Southwest Ledger during a lengthy interview four years ago.
The company made, among other things, lip balms, anti-aging creams, moisturizers, body treatments, nail treatments, skin conditioners, makeup- dissolving cleansers, sea mineral moisturizer, body butter, foot creams, various lotions, shaving scrub, bath balms, bronzer artificial tanning product. The products came in myriad fragrances, too.
The lab has manufactured literally thousands of stock and custom formulations over the years, Ellis said. Materials used in her products were purchased from various vendors and distributors.
The company is housed in a building that encompasses almost 300,000 square feet under roof. It sits on seven acres and the market value of the site is an estimated $2 million, county tax records indicate.
One room is where the ingredients were combined in precise amounts to manufacture the products in 35 mixing vessels that range in volume from 5 gallons to 1,000 gallons.
Nearby is a room where local tap water was purified via organic reduction and ultraviolet multimedia filtration, including reverse osmosis. “We test for 30 parameters in our water” used in the manufacture of cosmetic products, Ellis said.
Another room in the building contains thousands of various sizes of product containers and caps. “A lot of my containers came from overseas,” she said, because many of the components and packaging in that industry are not made in the U.S.
Yet another room contains cardboard boxes and wooden pallets for shipping products. Besides the overseas markets, products manufactured in Cosmetic Specialty Labs have been sold in Ulta Beauty stores, in Walmart stores, at Walgreens pharmacy stores and on QVC and HSN, Ellis said.
At its peak the company had a diversified staff of 50 employees, “from line workers to clerical to lab techs to sales.”
Since Cosmetic Specialty Labs is a privately held company, sales and profits are proprietary information. However, Ellis did acknowledge that company sales reached several million dollars a year.
Ellis is a chemist; she earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Oklahoma. She also studied for a master’s degree in regulatory affairs, from George Washington University.
She graduated from Lawton Eisenhower High School, then moved away. She served almost four years in the U.S. Army, where she met her husband, Mark. Jennifer returned to Lawton 26 years ago to assume management of the cosmetics lab at Edna’s request.
The company has been a family affair. “We have a lot of family members who have worked here,” Ellis said. Cosmetic Specialty Labs was founded by the late Edna Hennessee; the late Odus Hennessee, Edna’s son and Jennifer’s uncle, previously was the company president; Jennifer’s two oldest children and their wives worked for the company; and Ellis has been the CEO for more than two decades.