By Chris Singleton
The Houma Courier, La.
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) Dionjhae Thomas said she started selling her products for people who don’t like wearing store brand lip glosses. She uses different organic oils in her “Scorpion Kisses” products.
Houma
At age 21, Thibodaux native Dionjhae Thomas has turned one of her favorite hobbies into a business.
Thomas, a former Houma Christian School athlete who now plays women’s basketball at the University of New Orleans, said she has always loved to buy and wear lip gloss products.
After having issues with store bought lip glosses last year, she decided to make her own to wear.
“Last year I broke out using hair store lip gloss,” Thomas said. “Everyone knows I love lip gloss, so I wanted to make some organic lip gloss. I made my own just to try it out. When I let my cousins and my mom (Monique Stepter-Green) try it, I knew it was time for me to put my product out.”
Thomas started making her own lip gloss products in April 2019 and eventually created her own business named “Scorpion Kisses” by the summer months of 2019.
Thomas said she started selling her products for people who don’t like wearing store brand lip glosses. She uses different organic oils in her “Scorpion Kisses” products.
“I’m not in it to make money,” Thomas said. “I’m just trying to help people out who don’t like to buy store products. I know sometimes lip gloss can be sticky. A lot of people don’t sticky lip gloss. I’m doing it for people who want something organic so it will help their skin and lips.”
Thomas said “Scorpion Kisses” will celebrate its one-year anniversary this summer. Since its creation, she said business has taken off.
“Business is really great. I got emotional because I didn’t know I had so much support from the Tri-Parish area, New Orleans people and Texas,” Thomas said. “It’s like everybody all over is ordering from me and it’s just great. It took me a whole year to get my business started and get a lot of support. Now I’m there and I have a lot of support.”
Thomas said she had to complete paperwork to receive a waiver to start her own business and gain approval from the University of New Orleans and the NCAA before selling her products.
During her free time, Thomas said she spends time thinking about new types of lip gloss to make.
“It’s fun. It’s a lot of work between school and running a business by myself,” Thomas said. “I have some help from my cousins. I’ll be up until 2 o’clock in the morning looking at Instagram to get different ideas. I’m trying to see what I’m going to do next. I don’t want to do the same thing over and over. I just want to do different things every time I put different products out.”
Thomas sells her “Scorpion Kisses” lip gloss products on her own website at https://scorpionkisses.godaddysites.com. Interested buyers can also visit Thomas’ Scorpion Kisses Instagram page at scorpion.kissess or e-mail at scorpion.kissess@gmail.com.
Thomas said her products are made for people of all ages and she has created up to nine different types of lip glosses.
“My favorite lip gloss is the ‘Krystal Klear,'” Thomas said. “It’s just regular clear lip gloss with the organic oils in them. I do different things with my lip gloss. I made glitter lip gloss. I make regular lip gloss with different colors. I use different organic oils and put different color pigments in.”
When she was growing up, Thomas said she spent most of her free time playing basketball.
She starred in high school basketball at Houma Christian School in Houma, where she won many accolades such as scoring more than 1,000 career points and leading the Lady Warriors to the Division IV state championship game in 2017 with a runner-up finish. It was the Lady Warriors’ first ever trip to the state tournament and state finals.
While basketball was her first love, Thomas wanted to find another hobby.
She quickly became interested in making her own lip gloss brand.
“I just thought about basketball. That’s all I was thinking about then,” Thomas said. “I was like I need to do something outside of basketball. All I did was eat and sleep basketball, so I wanted to do something different, so I became an entrepreneur and started my own business.”
Thomas said she is studying in college to have a future career in law enforcement.
“I want to be a state trooper and I want to go into the FBI,” Thomas said. “I’m going to go to graduate school and get my master’s degree and trying to go to the FBI and be an agent.”
Monique Stepter-Green said she is excited to see her daughter accomplish her dreams. She said Thomas was always motivated to do great things with her life.
“I’m very proud of her because she always was a go-getter,” Stepter-Green said. “She liked her having her own money and having nice things. I’m very proud of her because this is something she liked to do. She’s doing well with her lip gloss. She’s been up late at night with it. She means business with it. It has really occupied her time.”
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