Colored Girls Hustle Blog

“On Her Hustle” is a monthly series of interviews with women of color artists, entrepreneurs, healers and activists who hustle hard for our communities. Colored Girls Hustle uses this series to amplify the work, talent, and passions of other women and girls of color. Click here to read more about our series and to nominate someone to be interviewed.

To kick off our series, we interviewed Jasmine Burems: a Bed-Stuy based entrepreneur, herbalist, doula and the founder of HONEY & GOLD, an organic women’s wellness beverage and bodycare company. She is currently running an Indiegogo campaign to begin production of HONEY & GOLD’s Signature Elixir, the first ever organic bottled women’s health drink made with 24K edible gold. Support her campaign and read her full interview below.

Colored Girls Hustle: What is HONEY & GOLD? What inspired you to start this business?

Jasmine Burems: HONEY & GOLD is a revolutionary, feminine body care company.

It’s a vortex of my passions and pleasures; and my desire for a world where people who are nourished and empowered lead society in the direction of wellness and collective advancement.

My life’s work is to inspire women to nourish themselves. Often we are last on our own list after family, friends, strangers, employers etc. HONEY & GOLD is the way I share my “self-love life” with the world. Its how I offer simple lifestyle alternatives to facilitate the cultural shift I seek in society.

Colored Girls Hustle: Tell us more about the HONEY & GOLD lifestyle. What kind of women can benefit from your products and services?

Jasmine Burems: Every woman can benefit from HONEY & GOLD products. Any woman who is interested in pursuing optimum wellness, any woman who hasn’t even thought about it because she’s too busy running the rat race, taking care of family, or meeting the superficial demands of society.

The HONEY & GOLD lifestyle is about integrating simple self-care rituals into your day: wellness teas, mindful meditation, energy cultivation, preventative breast massage treatments, optimizing your digestion and absorption of nutrients. Its about taking time to wallow in your own desires and passions, finding a pleasurable way to break a sweat daily or laughing so deeply that you massage your internal organs.

Colored Girls Hustle: Tell us a bit about your hustle philosophy: What does the word “hustle” mean to you and how does it apply to your life and professional practice?

Jasmine Burems: To hustle is to close my eyes, dig deep within, find the most inspiring otherworldly gem, fall deeply in love with every facet of it…and then open my eyes, stay woke and completely align my words, thoughts and actions to the manifestation of that jewel. That’s my true hustle. The work of it is just as much receptive as active. Left brain and right brain. Projection and surrender. To live my life on my own terms, I have to hustle. To hustle is to do the internal and external work to bring a vision into fruition.

Colored Girls Hustle: You just launched an Indiegogo campaign to begin production of HONEY & GOLD Signature Elixir, the first ever organic bottled women’s health drink. Tell us more about your campaign and why this drink is important for women’s health.

Jasmine Burems: Signature Elixir is the first ever woman-specific wellness, pleasure and beauty drink. It’s made with organic herbs, local raw honey and 24K edible gold. It tones, strengthens and nourishes the uterus and vagina.  It pairs with the Rose Quartz Yoni Egg, a semi-precious crystal used as a vaginal fitness tool that promotes wellness and pleasure.

I want women to fall in love with themselves. I want you to treat yourself like royalty. HONEY & GOLD is important because it’s an example of how we can do it in a truly responsible way. A lot of brands sell us cosmetic confidence, superficial benefits, body bashing ideals and environmental toxins. HONEY & GOLD is about cultivating an internal relationship. Signature Elixir and the other HONEY & GOLD products are all natural, support organic agriculture and are manufactured in a responsible way. No one and nothing has to suffer for us to feel and look good.  The Indiegogo campaign will allow me to make it happen. I have many innovative products to offer and I see Signature Elixir as the gateway product that will establish a foundation so the brand can offer women self-care products for generations to come.  

Choose the “Rose Quartz Yoni Egg” package when you contribute to the HONEY & GOLD Indiegogo Campaign. You’ll experience the benefits of Signature Elixir, a 30-day Signature Tea Cone Supplement, the Rose Quartz Yoni Egg and also receive a copy of My Self-love Life- Recipes and Rituals: An Essential Guide for the Woman Who Loves Herself.

Colored Girls Hustle: Describe yourself in 3 verbs.

Jasmine Burems: Cultivate. Nurture. Harvest.

Colored Girls Hustle: What do you like most about being an entrepreneur?

Jasmine Burems: I own my day. I wake up and devote myself each day to doing my purpose. I’m growing personally and professionally. As an entrepreneur my job is to create solutions, make decisions and raise currency to propel those solutions so they are accessible to the people who will benefit from them.

Colored Girls Hustle: Time management can be challenging for entrepreneurs, especially if this is the first time they’re working for themselves. How do you successfully manage your time? What advice would you give to young and new entrepreneurs?

Jasmine Burems: I think the best advice I can offer is to keep moving outside of your comfort zone.  Do what’s most important first. Don’t leave the least comfortable tasks for last. Courage boosts productivity.  Also, work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Give yourself small windows of time to complete defined tasks so you don’t lose morale.

Colored Girls Hustle: Clearly you have a passion for women’s health – you’re also a doula and an herbalist! How is your HONEY & GOLD work connected to reproductive justice?

Jasmine Burems: I believe that self-love, and self-care deepens our sense of bodily autonomy. Our bodies are one space in the world where we are truly sovereign. I hope to see women, especially women in the reproductive justice movement gradually move from using self-care as an antidote (taken to counteract a toxic lifestyle) to incorporating it as a daily way of life. 

Colored Girls Hustle: What advice would you give to people who are hesitant or resistant to pursuing their passion?

Jasmine Burems: Do it! Be “both and” not an “either or.” Say yes to yourself.

Colored Girls Hustle: What resources or rituals have helped you maintain your sanity and self-care?

Jasmine Burems: Prayer. I love to pray and lately I’m finding new ways to pray with my voice, my body, in the stillness of my mind, or in movement. Bathing is one of my favorite rituals. I find peace, center and release in the water.

Jasmine Burems is a Bed-Stuy based entrepreneur and founder of Honey & Gold. She was born at an Aquarian eclipse and believes that a gratified woman is the most precious and potent resource to her community. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and honeyandgold.us.

In a recent article entitled “Queer Women of Color Speak on Fashion and Body Image: What Makes You Feel Beautiful?” the Queer Women of Color Media Wire gives Colored Girls Hustle a shout out! 

“In a world where women’s bodies are constantly critiqued, exploited, and held up to impossible standards — i.e. ‘she must be tall,’ ‘she must be thin,’ ‘she must be perfect!’ —Colored Girls Hustle offers a fresh perspective. There are no judgments made on the bodies these creations will adorn, and women of a range of sizes model the jewelry.” Read more.

Indeed: knowing and articulating our beauty is an integral part of an embodied human experience. We should all know what makes us feel beautiful. Colored Girls Hustle is all about celebrating our beauty and our bodies, and Luminary Solwas especially created to encourage women to tap into their inner beauty and manifest it through adornment.