Goodbye Glowdega
GLOWDEGA IS CLOSING AND I’M OKAY WITH THAT. This was a year in the making. I knew on May 11, 2025 that I would be closing the business and I've spent every day since figuring out how to do it right.
The past year has been heavy. Grief has a way of rearranging your priorities without asking permission, and mine shifted in ways I couldn't ignore. Running a business requires a kind of sustained optimism—you have to believe in the next quarter, the next launch, the next season. I didn't have that anymore.
Eight years as a business owner is an accomplishment and a feat for anyone. A global pandemic, state-mandated business closure for 11 months, government shutdown(s), economic downturn, and a war during that time too? It’s a wonder this business ever made it past 2020, really. On top of all that, I had the nerve to be running both a brick and mortar and ecommerce shop. Nothing was stopping me, until something did.
There are also other factors that ultimately led to my decision to close. Commercial rent in Oakland has become a crisis everyone seems to ignore. Downtown Oakland is vacant as hell—and Glowdega's rent still crept up to $4,000/month. I’ve been short every month for the last 10 months. The city I love and built this business for has made it increasingly difficult for independent operators to survive here, let alone thrive. (Why are we charging to park on Sundays?) On a broader scale, as soon as the politicians got to talking about tariffs, I knew small business would be cooked—which is why I ended production on my skin care line in 2025.
This was bigger than me. This was bigger than failures or gaps in marketing, operations, and consumer habits. This was America’s capitalism business model changing in real time. Eight years ago was a great time to have a brick and mortar business. Today, not so much.
“Instead of having a baby like many of my peers, I had a business. And I mothered it the same way I imagine I’d mother a child: with everything I had, often at my own expense, and with a ferocity that surprised even me.”
Fairy Glow Mother and Glowdega almost got the entirety of my 30s. Instead of having a baby like many of my peers, I had a business. And I mothered it the same way I imagine I'd mother a child: with everything I had, often at my own expense, and with a ferocity that surprised even me. My creativity. My savings. My weekends and my sleep and a few relationships that probably deserved more of my attention. I gave it all willingly.
And I don't regret it. But I also won't pretend it didn't cost me something real.
Very much planning to be more outside now.
The big question is: what’s next?
Freedom.
That sounds crazy coming from an entrepreneur. Isn’t that the main reason everyone wants to run their own business anyway? So that they can have the freedom to do things as they please? Maybe. But that didn’t exactly become my reality as a service-based entrepreneur.
I’ll finally have the freedom to write more (my true first love) and maybe actually finish the novel I’ve been working on in the background for years. Words have always been where I go to make sense of things, and I'm finally giving that part of myself the time and attention it deserves.
But I won’t sit here and pretend like Glowdega gave me the financial opportunity and stability to set my life up as a writer. It didn’t. Of course your girl got a job!
I accepted a Head of Lifecycle Marketing role at Healthspan—a longevity-focused healthcare company. Some of you might be wondering: how in the hell does an esthetician land this role? And that’s where I have to gently remind you, your girl was never just an esthetician but, surprisingly, becoming one and gaining all those certifications certainly didn’t hurt!
Then there's the freedom to do all the things in my personal life that I've put on hold for the last 8 years. Simple things, mostly. Finally finishing my Master’s. Cooking a real meal. Taking a class just because I want to, with no ROI attached. Being a person in my body instead of a founder in a brand. And logging off social media without it costing me anything—no algorithm to feed, my daily income no longer dependent on whether I posted today. That particular freedom might be the one I'm most looking forward to.
And the bigger things too. Falling in love, for real and without distraction. Becoming a mother to an actual human child instead of a business—I've wanted to adopt since I got my first Cabbage Patch Kid. (They come with adoption papers. The conditioning worked on me.)
It has been the joy and honor of my life to create Glowdega, to have the customers I've had, and to be your Fairy Glow Mother for these past 8 years. You didn't just trust me with your skin (your face!)—you believed in me, showed up for me, and made something real out of what started as a random hobby. I hope I made you proud. And I hope what comes next does too.
peace,
hadiyah daché
