Inspiration Behind The Brand: Ariel DaCosta, CEO of Natari’s Gift

Happy Women’s History Month We Empower Magazine readers! Today we are so thrilled to spotlight Ariel DaCosta, the founder & CEO of Natari’s Gift who discussed with us the inspiration behind her brand, her biggest women inspirations, life as an entrepreneur, and more.

Ariel created her Natari’s Gift to spread self-care through natural skincare, wellness products, and holistic practices to the world. The name, Natari’s Gift, was formed by fusing the words nature and her nickname, Ari, together to express that they provide products aka gifts that she creates with nature’s powerful ingredients and her healing intentions. The business officially launched in October 2022 and has launched 3 starter items. At the moment, the brand has handmade, all-natural lip balms, lip scrubs, and facial oils, which have received such great feedback from their customers.

What was the inspiration behind your brand?

Ariel: The inspiration behind my brand, Natari’s Gift, is my love for the healing power of nature, as I truly feel nature was created to bring nourishment, healing, beauty, and peace to human beings and all living things. My mission through Natari’s Gift is to promote the healing & effectiveness that products made from nature can serve us. Many of the elements and minerals found in nature are also found within our bodies, supporting that we are part of nature and it can provide us with all that we need to thrive. This belief has led me to stop using mass produced products made with harmful chemicals & artificial ingredients toward living a holistic lifestyle and using only natural products on and within my body. I was then inspired to create my own handmade, natural products to empower others to incorporate intentional self-care into their lifestyle. I hope Natari’s Gift can be a brand of inspiration to others, as using all natural products has introduced deeper wellness and alignment with nature into my life.

Do you believe in work-life balance? If so how do you maintain it?

Ariel: Finding balance with something so time-consuming like work in our lives, can be a difficult task to balance, yet it is very important. I am also at a stage in my life where I have my own business and a full-time job, which has made it challenging to balance my work and life even more. Nevertheless, I am still actively working on trying to accomplish a healthy work-life balance through consistent planning and strategic thinking. I use a digital planner to plan out my days and I constantly create to-do lists to jot down all of the daily tasks I have to do. To be very honest, I do have moments of inconsistency with my planning and executing, which causes me stress and overwhelms my work-life balance. But the most important thing of all, is that I always continue to get back on track by remembering my “why” to spark the passion & drive within me to execute my plans. I also know that our mental, emotional, and physical health is most important above all so giving myself that grace to live my life without judgment when needed is important, as well. Life happens, but when I flow through it, I trust that it’ll lead me back into balance.

It’s Women’s History Month. Name 2 women who inspire you and why.

Ariel: In honor of Women’s History Month, the two women that inspire me are Queen Afua and my grandmother. Queen Afua has always been a great inspiration to me ever since I came across her and her mission over 4 years ago. She has lived a long life of healing herself and others, especially women, through a holistic lifestyle and has been very passionate about her mission to spread the knowledge and practice of healing, since the day she started many decades ago. She is about 70 years old now and still continues to spread healing to others through holistic practices because she knows that this is her purpose. She continues to live out her purpose with so much passion and grace that she has been able to create so much success and longevity for herself, which I admire deeply.

My grandmother is such an inspiration to me because she is the epitome of gentle strength and power. She has created such a big, beautiful close-knit family with my beloved grandfather and has persevered through so much throughout her lifetime with such grace. She is a Jamaican immigrant that has excelled in her education to earn 2 master’s with 6 kids in her 50s, held a high position at her job in the US, and continues to bring so much peace and guidance to this family. We have gone through a lot recently as a family with the passing of my uncle and grandfather within the past 6 months and the way my grandma has dealt with these tragedies with such understanding, love, and strength is a true testament to her inner power and beautiful spirit. She always emphasizes the importance of keeping family close which I am so grateful for and has been such an insightful guide for me with the deep wisdom and love that she withholds. Natari’s Gift is an ode to my family, as a gift for our legacy. It makes me so happy to see how proud my grandmother is of me, as I am so proud of her. I keep her strength, love, and perseverance in mind throughout my life and I am so grateful to have an amazing woman like her as my grandmother, my role model.

You’ve been in business since last year and I’m sure that you have learned a lot even in that short time. What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?

Ariel: My best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs, as a new entrepreneur myself, is to always believe in yourself and your capabilities. Even when you don’t have much support from others, as long as you support yourself and feed positivity and abundance into your mindset, success will follow. I know it sounds cliche but our unwavering belief and confidence in ourselves, our businesses, and our mission is pivotal for our businesses to be successful. If you don’t believe in yourself or your business, it makes it that much harder for others to believe in your business too. With that being said, no matter what the caliber of success your business brings, you should celebrate and be proud of every accomplishment you make, as it brings you that much closer to your goals.

What would attract listeners to your story?

Ariel: What would attract listeners to my story is that I am a young, new entrepreneur that created my business from a place of passion and purpose. Through this passion, I realized how I can make my contribution to this world through spreading self-care, healing, and wellness with my very own creations using nature’s gifts. I genuinely feel that this lifestyle and purpose chose me, as it would be a disservice to myself and the world to not use my knowledge and skills to bring more healing in a world that needs so much of it. I am very intentional and passionate about this path I am on and it’s something that will take a lifetime for me to fulfill to the depths that I envision it to be.

What is your proudest business accomplishment?

Ariel: My proudest business accomplishment is honestly starting my business because it took me about 2 years of planning to actually feel ready to launch Natari’s Gift. I finally launched it in 2022 because I was able to build up enough belief in myself to make it happen. Once I officially created my first product, the Honey Bliss Me Deep Moisturizing Lip Balm, everything else just followed in divine timing and that’s how I knew I was in alignment with my purpose.

Keep up to date on social media @natarisgift