April 28, 2025 • 27 mins
Hi, guys! This week, we’re taking a stroll down memory lane. Back in 2009, I traveled all the way to China – by myself! – to develop my mom’s first perfume, JR. I’ll take you through my 3-week experience in Guangzhou, I’ll talk about what my mom thought about the final product, and I’ll also share how my mom reacted when she received my $6,000 phone bill – thanks to roaming charges. Plus, I’ll even tell you about the time I met a pair of strangers at the mall there and agreed to a photoshoot!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, everyone, Welcome in, Welcome back to this week's episode
of Cheeky's and Chill. Today, I'm going to take you
down memory lane all the way back to two thousand
and nine, I was twenty three years old. But we'll
get all into the nitty gritty right now. But this
story might sound familiar to those of you who have
read my books, but I want to expand on the
(00:25):
story even more. Today. We're going to talk about the
time my mom had me develop her first perfume. We're
also going to get into the argument we got into
before I left, and some things I learned while I
was in China. So buckle up, here we go. You
know what's crazy? For the past I want to say
(00:46):
two months three months, I have felt so close to
my mom. I feel like we've entered this new like
era or new season of our relationship. I know it
sounds weird because she's been gone physically for twelve years,
but I've been connecting with her on a different level lately.
So I also wanted to do this episode to kind
(01:07):
of just remind myself of everything we went through and
what a beautiful relationship we had, no matter how ugly
it was at the end right before she passed, and
how close we were in age, which caused a lot
of friction. We were so alike in so many different
ways and so different as well that it also caused bickering.
(01:29):
But the love was real and we accomplished so much together, guys,
and I should be proud of that. And I think
because for so long I was focused on my career
and focused on wanting to be seen as Cheeky's as
my own person, I kind of put her to the
side a little bit because I felt I needed to,
(01:52):
and it got me through everything that I was doing.
And again, I feel like I had been in her
shadow a lot, and I kind of wanted to just
show the world, Hey, I can do this, you know,
and I'm not gonna lie. I've told you guys a
lot here on the podcast. For a long time, I
was upset with my mom because of how things ended
between her and I, and I was disappointed in a
lot of things. And every year it's a different feeling,
(02:17):
and the more and more that I do things like
this like this episode, it makes me just fall in
love with her all over again. And I don't know,
I feel like this is going to heal my heart
and hopefully inspire you, guys. Because when I went to China, guys,
I was twenty three years old and I had never
(02:38):
gone to another country besides Mexico, right. I hadn't traveled
a lot. And I was very busy back then with
my mom, with the kids, with the house, with our businesses,
and by then I had already helped my mom develop
her skincare and her makeup line. We were like the Fionettas,
the pioneers when it came to this whole influence and
(03:00):
having your own business and everything. My mom and I
we were a freaking a power team. Guys. My mom
would tell me I want this, and I would execute it.
I don't even know how I would do it half
of the time because I was so young. I didn't
go to college. I always figured things out because that's
the way she taught me. And I'm so grateful that
she kind of would just throw me in like kind
of like a child that doesn't know how to swim,
and she just kind of just throws you in the
(03:21):
pool and then you have no other choice but to swim.
It was like that, literally anyway, I had never been
to another country besides Mexico, and I had only gone
to Mexico a handful of times then, So going all
the way to China, guys across the freaking globe, it
was insane. Sometimes I think about it, I'm like, how
(03:43):
did I do that? And I went by myself. I
went alone, and her and I were in a huge argument.
I don't even remember exactly what it was, but I
know that it was a pretty big argument and she
was pissed at me. So this trip was already planned,
I'm sure, like a few weeks before, or maybe even
(04:04):
a month, but we had gotten an argument and I
don't remember again, I don't remember why, but it was
pretty bad and we weren't talking, and I remember getting
on that plane crying. I was crying because I was nervous,
obviously that I was going to a different country where
I don't know the language, I don't know anyone. I
(04:25):
found someone online and I didn't even know what this
person looked like. I just knew their name and they
were going to have a little paper with my name
on it. But dude, so mavine. I've always been a
risk taker. I said, Okay, I'm going to figure this out.
My mom wants to perfume. She gave me a budget.
I can't get it done for that budget sixty thousand
dollars in the States, I had looked and everything was
(04:48):
crazy expensive. So I said, I have no other choice
but to go to China. And again I did all
my research, I figured it out. I met this lady.
How we figured things out, I have no idea because
she was barely learning English and I didn't know a
lick of Chinese, of course. So it was an amazing experience.
(05:09):
Three weeks in China by myself and I sit at
a hotel alone. I visited so many different karaoke bars
because Asians, especially in China, they love karaoke. So I
did visit a lot of karaoke bars. I ate a
lot of food, but the food in China, guys. I
(05:31):
was in Guangzhou, so I was in the south of China,
and it's more like the industrial side of China. So
I was where all you know, imagine La downtown, La
times ten, huge, a lot of people everywhere. It was
very congested, but very beautiful. And of course I get
(05:51):
there and I'm like, okay, well, where's the beef, broccoli
and the orange chicken, and that does not exist over there.
The Chinese food that we have here nothing like the
Chinese food in China, like at all. It tastes very different.
I had no idea what I was eating. I would
just order or let the people that I had met
there because we were doing business together. I would just
(06:13):
let them order and I ate everything, and it was delicious,
so I have to this day, I don't even know
what I ate. I don't know if it was chicken
or beef for pig or I don't know. It was
just good. But they did not have any of the
Chinese food that I was accustomed to. Also, another thing
that I learned there was they don't really eat any
ice cream, nothing cold, no ice water, no salads. Everything
(06:36):
is warm. There is hot tea before, during, and after eating.
Everything was warm. That's when I lost I feel like
I lost so much weight out while I was out there,
because I mean, I had no other choice but to
eat the way that the people that I was eating ate.
And I learned a lot, especially about the digestive system.
And of course throughout the years I started forgetting everything.
(06:58):
Because when I came back, I was very inspired and
I'm like Okay, all I'm going to do is drink
tea and no more cold stuff and all this. But
life goes on and life happens, and I was young,
and of course I forgot all about that until like now,
where I'm like, oh my gosh. You know, there's like
this crazy connection that I have with China because of
that trip, but also because I always say I feel
(07:18):
like I was Asian in a past life. I just
love the culture. I love everything about the Asian culture.
So AnyWho, my whole thing was develop this perfume. My
mom and I weren't talking, but it also gave me
(07:38):
that fire within me to show her. I am going
to make her so proud. I'm going to kill this project.
I'm going to freaking show her, and I did. I
told her I needed to stay out there a little
longer because I that's another thing. I didn't even know
how long I was going to be out there. I
just got a one way ticket because I wanted to
(08:00):
come home with the finished product. So even before I
get into the nitty gritty of how I developed the
fragrance and the whole process, I was wondering because my
mom and I think for like a week while I
was out there, didn't really talk. It was just very business.
She was still kind of upset with me for whatever reason.
I wish I remembered, but AnyWho, I would handle everything.
(08:24):
So the fact that I was gone for three weeks
was a pretty big deal in my household, especially with Johnny.
Johnny was eight years old, and I'm pretty sure he
told me when I got back home. I mean, because
him and I have always been so so close, he
was probably freaking out without me. But of course, my mother,
being a woman that's you know, in control, was never
going to tell me that she needed me. But I'm
(08:45):
pretty sure everything was kind of falling apart while I
was gone. But I was so determined to show her
that I could do this, and I was so proud
of myself, so proud of myself, So getting into the
whole production thing, I went to a chemist first. I
wanted to get the sent down because I was super important.
(09:07):
My mom was a huge fan of Trousaur, so that
was the perfume that she wore every single day, and
she wanted something very different from that because that's very
The perfume that she wore was very warm, and you know, vanilla,
so she wanted a little bit something, a little more daytime.
So I just had that. I just knew what she wanted.
She wanted a daytime perfume. She wanted a little citrusy,
(09:29):
a little sweet, but more citrusy. Mind you had. There
was no way that I was going to show her
the set. I just needed to follow my intuition and
her instructions and what she wanted and go with it.
Because even sending it, like through airshipping or whatever you
call it, it was going to take days. There was
We had no time for that. So I developed it.
(09:49):
That was the first thing. I went to a manufacturer
and we got the oils, and I spilled so many
different oils I think I went to three different factories
and manufacturers for the actual fragrance until I found it.
I mixed things together with the chemists and I said,
this is what we want. We let it sit for
a few days, and then we had the fragrance, which
(10:10):
was the most important part. Then I went to a
different manufacturer to find the bottle and the cap. And
because again the budget wasn't a lot, I couldn't get
like a specific mold made because at first she wanted
like a whole, like her body and her silhouette. I
was like, Mom, you got to chill a little bit
because that's expensive. Just the mold. To make a mold,
(10:32):
it's ten thousand dollars, okay. So I kind of got
her off that and I went with a generic bottle
and a generic cap. I was like, okay, I gotta
make this look nice. The most important thing is making
sure that the scent was top tier, and it absolutely was.
Till this day. It is still the number one fragrance
that is sold. It was the very first one, and
(10:53):
that's the one people love the most. Of course, the
other ones are great, but there's something special about that one, obviously,
but it does sell very well still to this day.
So that was that I got a generic bottle, something
that they already had in stock because there was no time,
and I wanted something very simple, and the name was
(11:14):
just going to be her logo, and that's what it
is to this day as well. It's just the logo
that her and I developed together, which are her initials JR.
And her little butterfly that I have tattooed on my foot,
and that was it. It was very simple, and I
wanted it to be not just a fragrance, but I
put like a little gift set together. So it was
the perfume and a lip gloss that had like little
(11:38):
sparkles in it, and also a hand lotion because my
mom loved the hand lotion and putting it in her purse.
So I did the whole thing and it was the
same scent the hand lotion. And I only made one
thousand units and that was it because that's all we
could afford. She gave me a sixty thousand dollars budget
to make everything. You know, it adds up. So we
(11:59):
did a thousand, remember a thousand units, and everything took time,
so I had to wait for everything to be filled.
I had to wait for the logos to be screen
printed on the actual components. It was just a mission,
which is why it took me three weeks, because I wanted.
I said, I need to leave China with the finished
product to show my mother exactly what it looks like,
(12:20):
the sizes, how much it's going to weigh, so that
we know how much we're going to spend on shipping.
How I knew this at twenty three, I have no idea.
Sometimes I feel like maybe because I had a little
bit more space. Mentally, things just stuck and now I
forget all these things. I'm like, oh my gosh, I
did so much, and how honestly it was the grace
(12:41):
of God. So what did I do? Because I think
it's important you guys didn't know what I did while
I was waiting. Once I got all the hard work
and all like the footwork done with the fragrance, with
the bottles, the components of packaging, all that stuff. While
they were doing their thing putting it together, I had
a lot of free time. So I was going again
to the karaoke bars with my new Chinese friends that
(13:04):
I met at the manufacturers, because they all knew I
was there by myself. I stated, a very nice hotel.
That's one thing. I was like, Mom, if I'm going
over there by myself and you're sending me coach, because
I was coach on the way there in the middle
seat and I was sad, crying. I left La crying
and I got to China crying. Fourteen hour flight. Guys,
in the middle seat, it was insane. I will tell
(13:27):
you this. I love garlic, but oh my gosh, smelling
garlic the entire way there was crazy. I mean, it
was insane, very tough. But I'm like, okay. So I
told my mom. I said, one thing, fine, you're sending
me coach, totally fine, mother, But I'm going to have
a nice hotel room. And it was very inexpensive, but
(13:48):
very nice. It was a beautiful hotel. And on television,
everything was in Chinese. So what I did was I
took all six seasons of Sex and the City with
me on DVDs, and that's what I watched the entire
time I was there. I watched all six seasons guys
of Sex in the City. That's when I fell in
love with Carrie and Samantha and just I was so
(14:12):
into like Sex and the City. Oh. Also, I would
go to the mall and I'm like, okay, well, I'm
just going to walk around and go to the mall.
And I remember this one time the lady she was
trying to sell me something, some type of diet pill,
and I remember her telling me that I needed to
be smaller. She's like, you need a smaller smaller. She
just kept telling me. And they would tell me you
(14:33):
have such a pretty face, but you need to be thinner,
like they would like, you know, you need to lose weight.
So they were always trying to sell me something to
lose weight, either a tea, a pill. It was just
insane the amount of times that I got hit up to,
like for me to lose weight, because I mean, I
was a thick ass girl in China. Everyone's very small
and here I am, you know, this thick girl walking
(14:55):
around by myself. And that time I was at the
and someone came up to me and they just said,
you know, oh my god, we love your face, you know,
and we want to take pictures. So I don't even
know how and why I trusted these people because they
could have taken me anywhere and I wouldn't be here.
But everyone was so nice and I trusted and I
(15:17):
went with this person. It was a guy and a girl,
and I went to their studio and I took pictures.
I have those pictures till this day. I was just
looking at the album the other day and they put
me in like one, two, three, like four different outfits.
Didn't pay me anything. They fed me and I took
the pictures because I didn't have anything else to do.
And I'm like, okay, well just give me an album.
(15:38):
They gave me this whole album to bring home. But
they used those pictures guys in China. One was for
like a skincare company, and of course I didn't know
what I mean, I didn't know they were going to
use them. I didn't know until like after like okay,
you know I signed something. Of course, it was like, hey,
we're going to use it for you know, a skincare
and then they were going to sell the pictures. I know,
(16:00):
it sounds crazy now, that would never happen to me
now I know that side of the business. But it
was fun. And I remember showing my mom the pictures
when we got back and she's like, this is what
you were doing, what you were out there? Like she
kind of wanted to be mad at me, but I'm like, dude,
I was waiting for like a week and a half
to get the finished product. I needed to do something.
So I learned a song out there too, the shingle
(16:22):
Ing a ling song, that's what I call it. It
was like the biggest hit in China. I heard it
everywhere at the grocery store, I heard it at the mall,
I heard it people were singing at the karaoke bar,
like all the time. Anyway, so I learned the song
out there. I do want to sing you, guys, a
little piece of the song that I learned. And people
have said now with TikTok and stuff, that it's not
(16:43):
true that this song does not exist. But I promise you, guys,
I was at the new shop one day and the
song came on. And then I was at a full
place and the song came on. Guys, like I'm not
I swear to you, I'm not lying. The song exists,
and I learned it because I was there for three
weeks and it was the most popin song. So anyway,
the song goes a little like this. It's a shingle
ling gulling. It's a shing young young young. And again
(17:10):
I don't even know if I'm saying anything, if I'm
even singing Chinese, And it's in no way to disrespect anybody,
because again I love the Asian culture so much, but
I swear to you, I remember the chorus. That was
the chorus, and again I'm probably not even singing anything
in Chinese, but I remember it going like that. Everyone
was on this song, guys. Everyone in the karaoke bar.
(17:31):
Everyone wanted to sing the damn song, and I had
to sing it a couple times, so I remember, next
time I hear it somewhere, I promise you, I'm going
to record it. I'm going to show you, guys, because
I would not lie about something like that, and that's
what I did. I just hung out. I went to
the spot, I got massages, I ate a lot of
cool food, and then I would just come home and
get in the bathtub and watch Sex in the City
for three weeks. Now moving forward to when I got
(17:59):
back home and I had a finished product. I was
so proud of myself when I got the finished product
that I told my mom. I said, Mother, just FYI,
I'm using the business card and I'm buying myself a
first class ticket back. I feel I deserve it and
I'm just going to do it. I just told her.
I didn't even ask her permission. That was the first
time I experienced first class, and I haven't been the
(18:20):
same since they give me slippers. It was a laid
down bed, Oh my god, night and day experience, guys,
from going coach in the middle seat. It was a lot.
I spent like an extra I don't know how much,
over one thousand dollars on top of what I had
already paid. Well, not me and my mom. So that's
(18:41):
that I get home. My mom, by this time was
a little happier with me. It took her like two
weeks while I was out there to just warm up,
and you know, I was kind of getting her excited
with everything that I was doing. She was really happy.
I remember walking into her office and she was sitting
on her chair and I said, Mom, I'm back. Hi.
She was very happy to see me. I was very
(19:01):
happy to see her, and she's said, well, show me,
show me what you brought. And I remember pulling it
out and her face. Guys, the look on her face priceless.
I lived lived to make my mom proud. Anytime I
saw that face and then just that sparkle in her eye,
it was just everything to me. And I'm getting emotional
(19:24):
because I remember. I remember the day and she was
so happy and so excited that she had her finished product.
And it worked beautifully because it was going to take
months before we got the shipment, you know, because everything
was going to come by sea. So the fact that
I stayed there to get a few made, because they
didn't just make me one, they made me like ten.
(19:44):
So we could take pictures and we can also show
it to different stores, and WSS actually picked it up
and we sold all the units to them, and we
were selling it online. So it did very very well
and that made me so happy. That was great. We
were fine. But then a few weeks later comes the
(20:06):
phone bill, and this is where it gets a little sticky,
because I didn't turn off my data or data or
whatever the roaming. Okay, guys, the phone bill that came
was insane, six thousand dollars phone bill. My mom wanted
to kill me. It was such an expensive trip. And
(20:30):
I'm like, oh my god, I didn't know. I didn't
I never turned off the roaming. I'm like, Mom, I'm sorry.
We were on different time zones, like I needed to
send a lot of emails, I mean, back and forth
with the manufacturers with just everyone with her, and I
was on a lot of phone calls, you know, and
then I was talking to someone back then. So of
course at night I was bored, I'm gonna get on
(20:51):
the phone. Never did I think it was gonna be
six thousand dollars. My mom was livid. Then she got
over it because I was like Mom, It's okay. You know. Now,
I'm like, damn it, my mother. I put her through
some things. Anyway, she was upset, but then we got
over it and I gave her a thousand dollars and
that's when she told me. She's like, what do you
want me to do with these thousand dollars? Roll them
up and use them as a tampon. She told me that.
(21:12):
I'm like what, I'm like, Mom, a thousand dollars is
a thousand dollars. She's like, yeah, and you owe another
five thousand. But anyway, it was nice. It was a
beautiful experience. And I've grown out of this because I
think for a long time I wanted her approval on everything.
And it's also not healthy, you know, to live for
(21:33):
someone's approval all the time. But I just I wanted
to make her proud, you know. And I'm happy and
I don't regret anything. But I'm glad that I also
grew out of that and matured. I'm definitely grateful that
I was able to experience everything that I did, and
my mom trusted me as much as she did to
(21:53):
get things done. And again, we did a lot together.
I mean, we started the skincare and the makeup line
we did, the perfume, we did a tequila business together,
her genes as well. Like I learned everything really because
of her, because she threw me into everything and I
had no other choice but to figure it out and
(22:15):
look into everything and do my research and learn the
hard way. But it's helped me out a lot with
everything that I do now, So I wouldn't change a thing.
It was a very tough trip, but also everything that
I learned and what I was able to accomplish was priceless,
and I would do it all over again, even if
that meant her and I fighting on the way there.
(22:36):
It just because again it gave me that like motivation
to like, I'm going to show her and I'm glad
because I did, and I'll never forget her face. I
would go again to Gwanho. I want to go to Shanghai.
I've never heard beautiful things about Shanghai. That's in the
north of China. But my fragrance is made here, guys,
in the US. Not that there's anything wrong with manufacturing
(22:59):
anything in China, but I did want my perfume, my
personal perfume to be developed here in the US. It
is Raina and it was definitely inspired by that experience
in China and everything that I learned there. So I'm
very grateful and I love wearing perfume. I wear my
perfume every single day. It's the only perfume I wear.
And I wanted to make something very because I have
(23:20):
expensive taste. I do. Even the chemist that made my
perfume told me that, she said, you have very expensive taste.
And that's why I'm like, Okay, this is exactly why
I want to create my own fragrance. Because the fragrance
that I used to use was a three hundred dollar bottle, okay,
And when people would ask me at my meet and
greet's like, Chikie, you smell so good. What perfume is it?
(23:41):
I almost felt embarrassed because I was like, what am
I doing spending three hundred, five hundred dollars on a
freaking fragrance? Anyway, Like if you can do that, more
power to you. But it was I started kind of like,
I'm like, I know how much it costs to make
these things, Like I know, and that's why I wanted
to make my perfume. And that's why Reina is in
such a generic bottle, because again, I'm all about not
(24:05):
being worried so much about what it looks like on
the outside. Of course I want it to look nice,
but when you're first starting out, like you need to
get components or you know, things that are already in stock,
so you don't spend so much on that. When things
start being custom made, that's where it gets really expensive.
And I wanted to focus more on what's inside the bottles.
Like with my skincare, when we first started, the bottles
(24:28):
were very inexpensive because that's what they had in stock.
But I really wanted my product, what's inside, what you
use on your face, on your body, for that to
be the most expensive thing and what I invested in.
So that's what I did with my perfume as well.
I got a generic bottle, a generic cap. I wanted
to be very simple, very straight to the point, because
(24:48):
of course I would like to just go all out.
Now I can do that. Now something's coming like a
different bottle with like a custom made cap that cost
a lot. But again because you have to be smart,
and I saved some money and I said, okay, I'm
going to save X amount to make a more custom bottle.
But when I first started again, I didn't want to
(25:09):
spend that much on the bottle. So when people ask
me that, like okay, where are your bottles this? And
your bottles that? Because I got a lot of like
criticism at first with my skincare because of it, and
I had to explain this to people. I'm like, you guys,
it's expensive to make a freaking product, you know, and
I'd rather you guys pay for what's inside. And then
(25:31):
people when I told them that and they fell in
love with the actual product, then they understood. But anyway,
that's a whole you know, that's here nor there. I
just wanted to explain that. And there is another perfume
that's coming. It's a unisex perfume and it's going to
be called Michentthe So that'll be coming out around my birthday.
It is unisex, and I'm excited because soon I have
to find a date to make a whole video to
(25:53):
present it. So this will be my second perfume. I mean,
I've had Raina for years now, I want to say
at least five years, six years now, and people love
it and they come back for more, so that makes
me really excited. But now this one's gonna be very different.
It's gonna smell different. It's more citrusy, a little musky,
but completely different from Raina. So look forward to that.
(26:17):
And yeah, I just that's it, I think. I mean,
that's all I really wanted to share and kind of
just take you guys down memory lane and take myself
there and appreciate more everything that I went through with
my mom and all the beautiful moments that we live together,
because there were a lot, you know, So that's basically
what I'm doing. So you'll hear a lot more stories,
I think here on this season because I'm in that
(26:39):
mode in that like I want to connect with my
mom in a different way. Now. I will catch you
here on the next episode of Cheeks and Chill. Let's
getro mucho e. Yeah, make sure you share the podcast
with the people that you love, Okay, all right bye.
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(27:01):
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Hello, everyone, Welcome in, Welcome back to this week's episode
of Cheeky's and Chill. Today, I'm going to take you
down memory lane all the way back to two thousand
and nine, I was twenty three years old. But we'll
get all into the nitty gritty right now. But this
story might sound familiar to those of you who have
read my books, but I want to expand on the
(00:25):
story even more. Today. We're going to talk about the
time my mom had me develop her first perfume. We're
also going to get into the argument we got into
before I left, and some things I learned while I
was in China. So buckle up, here we go. You
know what's crazy? For the past I want to say
(00:46):
two months three months, I have felt so close to
my mom. I feel like we've entered this new like
era or new season of our relationship. I know it
sounds weird because she's been gone physically for twelve years,
but I've been connecting with her on a different level lately.
So I also wanted to do this episode to kind
(01:07):
of just remind myself of everything we went through and
what a beautiful relationship we had, no matter how ugly
it was at the end right before she passed, and
how close we were in age, which caused a lot
of friction. We were so alike in so many different
ways and so different as well that it also caused bickering.
(01:29):
But the love was real and we accomplished so much together, guys,
and I should be proud of that. And I think
because for so long I was focused on my career
and focused on wanting to be seen as Cheeky's as
my own person, I kind of put her to the
side a little bit because I felt I needed to,
(01:52):
and it got me through everything that I was doing.
And again, I feel like I had been in her
shadow a lot, and I kind of wanted to just
show the world, Hey, I can do this, you know,
and I'm not gonna lie. I've told you guys a
lot here on the podcast. For a long time, I
was upset with my mom because of how things ended
between her and I, and I was disappointed in a
lot of things. And every year it's a different feeling,
(02:17):
and the more and more that I do things like
this like this episode, it makes me just fall in
love with her all over again. And I don't know,
I feel like this is going to heal my heart
and hopefully inspire you, guys. Because when I went to China, guys,
I was twenty three years old and I had never
(02:38):
gone to another country besides Mexico, right. I hadn't traveled
a lot. And I was very busy back then with
my mom, with the kids, with the house, with our businesses,
and by then I had already helped my mom develop
her skincare and her makeup line. We were like the Fionettas,
the pioneers when it came to this whole influence and
(03:00):
having your own business and everything. My mom and I
we were a freaking a power team. Guys. My mom
would tell me I want this, and I would execute it.
I don't even know how I would do it half
of the time because I was so young. I didn't
go to college. I always figured things out because that's
the way she taught me. And I'm so grateful that
she kind of would just throw me in like kind
of like a child that doesn't know how to swim,
and she just kind of just throws you in the
(03:21):
pool and then you have no other choice but to swim.
It was like that, literally anyway, I had never been
to another country besides Mexico, and I had only gone
to Mexico a handful of times then, So going all
the way to China, guys across the freaking globe, it
was insane. Sometimes I think about it, I'm like, how
(03:43):
did I do that? And I went by myself. I
went alone, and her and I were in a huge argument.
I don't even remember exactly what it was, but I
know that it was a pretty big argument and she
was pissed at me. So this trip was already planned,
I'm sure, like a few weeks before, or maybe even
(04:04):
a month, but we had gotten an argument and I
don't remember again, I don't remember why, but it was
pretty bad and we weren't talking, and I remember getting
on that plane crying. I was crying because I was nervous,
obviously that I was going to a different country where
I don't know the language, I don't know anyone. I
(04:25):
found someone online and I didn't even know what this
person looked like. I just knew their name and they
were going to have a little paper with my name
on it. But dude, so mavine. I've always been a
risk taker. I said, Okay, I'm going to figure this out.
My mom wants to perfume. She gave me a budget.
I can't get it done for that budget sixty thousand
dollars in the States, I had looked and everything was
(04:48):
crazy expensive. So I said, I have no other choice
but to go to China. And again I did all
my research, I figured it out. I met this lady.
How we figured things out, I have no idea because
she was barely learning English and I didn't know a
lick of Chinese, of course. So it was an amazing experience.
(05:09):
Three weeks in China by myself and I sit at
a hotel alone. I visited so many different karaoke bars
because Asians, especially in China, they love karaoke. So I
did visit a lot of karaoke bars. I ate a
lot of food, but the food in China, guys. I
(05:31):
was in Guangzhou, so I was in the south of China,
and it's more like the industrial side of China. So
I was where all you know, imagine La downtown, La
times ten, huge, a lot of people everywhere. It was
very congested, but very beautiful. And of course I get
(05:51):
there and I'm like, okay, well, where's the beef, broccoli
and the orange chicken, and that does not exist over there.
The Chinese food that we have here nothing like the
Chinese food in China, like at all. It tastes very different.
I had no idea what I was eating. I would
just order or let the people that I had met
there because we were doing business together. I would just
(06:13):
let them order and I ate everything, and it was delicious,
so I have to this day, I don't even know
what I ate. I don't know if it was chicken
or beef for pig or I don't know. It was
just good. But they did not have any of the
Chinese food that I was accustomed to. Also, another thing
that I learned there was they don't really eat any
ice cream, nothing cold, no ice water, no salads. Everything
(06:36):
is warm. There is hot tea before, during, and after eating.
Everything was warm. That's when I lost I feel like
I lost so much weight out while I was out there,
because I mean, I had no other choice but to
eat the way that the people that I was eating ate.
And I learned a lot, especially about the digestive system.
And of course throughout the years I started forgetting everything.
(06:58):
Because when I came back, I was very inspired and
I'm like Okay, all I'm going to do is drink
tea and no more cold stuff and all this. But
life goes on and life happens, and I was young,
and of course I forgot all about that until like now,
where I'm like, oh my gosh. You know, there's like
this crazy connection that I have with China because of
that trip, but also because I always say I feel
(07:18):
like I was Asian in a past life. I just
love the culture. I love everything about the Asian culture.
So AnyWho, my whole thing was develop this perfume. My
mom and I weren't talking, but it also gave me
(07:38):
that fire within me to show her. I am going
to make her so proud. I'm going to kill this project.
I'm going to freaking show her, and I did. I
told her I needed to stay out there a little
longer because I that's another thing. I didn't even know
how long I was going to be out there. I
just got a one way ticket because I wanted to
(08:00):
come home with the finished product. So even before I
get into the nitty gritty of how I developed the
fragrance and the whole process, I was wondering because my
mom and I think for like a week while I
was out there, didn't really talk. It was just very business.
She was still kind of upset with me for whatever reason.
I wish I remembered, but AnyWho, I would handle everything.
(08:24):
So the fact that I was gone for three weeks
was a pretty big deal in my household, especially with Johnny.
Johnny was eight years old, and I'm pretty sure he
told me when I got back home. I mean, because
him and I have always been so so close, he
was probably freaking out without me. But of course, my mother,
being a woman that's you know, in control, was never
going to tell me that she needed me. But I'm
(08:45):
pretty sure everything was kind of falling apart while I
was gone. But I was so determined to show her
that I could do this, and I was so proud
of myself, so proud of myself, So getting into the
whole production thing, I went to a chemist first. I
wanted to get the sent down because I was super important.
(09:07):
My mom was a huge fan of Trousaur, so that
was the perfume that she wore every single day, and
she wanted something very different from that because that's very
The perfume that she wore was very warm, and you know, vanilla,
so she wanted a little bit something, a little more daytime.
So I just had that. I just knew what she wanted.
She wanted a daytime perfume. She wanted a little citrusy,
(09:29):
a little sweet, but more citrusy. Mind you had. There
was no way that I was going to show her
the set. I just needed to follow my intuition and
her instructions and what she wanted and go with it.
Because even sending it, like through airshipping or whatever you
call it, it was going to take days. There was
We had no time for that. So I developed it.
(09:49):
That was the first thing. I went to a manufacturer
and we got the oils, and I spilled so many
different oils I think I went to three different factories
and manufacturers for the actual fragrance until I found it.
I mixed things together with the chemists and I said,
this is what we want. We let it sit for
a few days, and then we had the fragrance, which
(10:10):
was the most important part. Then I went to a
different manufacturer to find the bottle and the cap. And
because again the budget wasn't a lot, I couldn't get
like a specific mold made because at first she wanted
like a whole, like her body and her silhouette. I
was like, Mom, you got to chill a little bit
because that's expensive. Just the mold. To make a mold,
(10:32):
it's ten thousand dollars, okay. So I kind of got
her off that and I went with a generic bottle
and a generic cap. I was like, okay, I gotta
make this look nice. The most important thing is making
sure that the scent was top tier, and it absolutely was.
Till this day. It is still the number one fragrance
that is sold. It was the very first one, and
(10:53):
that's the one people love the most. Of course, the
other ones are great, but there's something special about that one, obviously,
but it does sell very well still to this day.
So that was that I got a generic bottle, something
that they already had in stock because there was no time,
and I wanted something very simple, and the name was
(11:14):
just going to be her logo, and that's what it
is to this day as well. It's just the logo
that her and I developed together, which are her initials JR.
And her little butterfly that I have tattooed on my foot,
and that was it. It was very simple, and I
wanted it to be not just a fragrance, but I
put like a little gift set together. So it was
the perfume and a lip gloss that had like little
(11:38):
sparkles in it, and also a hand lotion because my
mom loved the hand lotion and putting it in her purse.
So I did the whole thing and it was the
same scent the hand lotion. And I only made one
thousand units and that was it because that's all we
could afford. She gave me a sixty thousand dollars budget
to make everything. You know, it adds up. So we
(11:59):
did a thousand, remember a thousand units, and everything took time,
so I had to wait for everything to be filled.
I had to wait for the logos to be screen
printed on the actual components. It was just a mission,
which is why it took me three weeks, because I wanted.
I said, I need to leave China with the finished
product to show my mother exactly what it looks like,
(12:20):
the sizes, how much it's going to weigh, so that
we know how much we're going to spend on shipping.
How I knew this at twenty three, I have no idea.
Sometimes I feel like maybe because I had a little
bit more space. Mentally, things just stuck and now I
forget all these things. I'm like, oh my gosh, I
did so much, and how honestly it was the grace
(12:41):
of God. So what did I do? Because I think
it's important you guys didn't know what I did while
I was waiting. Once I got all the hard work
and all like the footwork done with the fragrance, with
the bottles, the components of packaging, all that stuff. While
they were doing their thing putting it together, I had
a lot of free time. So I was going again
to the karaoke bars with my new Chinese friends that
(13:04):
I met at the manufacturers, because they all knew I
was there by myself. I stated, a very nice hotel.
That's one thing. I was like, Mom, if I'm going
over there by myself and you're sending me coach, because
I was coach on the way there in the middle
seat and I was sad, crying. I left La crying
and I got to China crying. Fourteen hour flight. Guys,
in the middle seat, it was insane. I will tell
(13:27):
you this. I love garlic, but oh my gosh, smelling
garlic the entire way there was crazy. I mean, it
was insane, very tough. But I'm like, okay. So I
told my mom. I said, one thing, fine, you're sending
me coach, totally fine, mother, But I'm going to have
a nice hotel room. And it was very inexpensive, but
(13:48):
very nice. It was a beautiful hotel. And on television,
everything was in Chinese. So what I did was I
took all six seasons of Sex and the City with
me on DVDs, and that's what I watched the entire
time I was there. I watched all six seasons guys
of Sex in the City. That's when I fell in
love with Carrie and Samantha and just I was so
(14:12):
into like Sex and the City. Oh. Also, I would
go to the mall and I'm like, okay, well, I'm
just going to walk around and go to the mall.
And I remember this one time the lady she was
trying to sell me something, some type of diet pill,
and I remember her telling me that I needed to
be smaller. She's like, you need a smaller smaller. She
just kept telling me. And they would tell me you
(14:33):
have such a pretty face, but you need to be thinner,
like they would like, you know, you need to lose weight.
So they were always trying to sell me something to
lose weight, either a tea, a pill. It was just
insane the amount of times that I got hit up to,
like for me to lose weight, because I mean, I
was a thick ass girl in China. Everyone's very small
and here I am, you know, this thick girl walking
(14:55):
around by myself. And that time I was at the
and someone came up to me and they just said,
you know, oh my god, we love your face, you know,
and we want to take pictures. So I don't even
know how and why I trusted these people because they
could have taken me anywhere and I wouldn't be here.
But everyone was so nice and I trusted and I
(15:17):
went with this person. It was a guy and a girl,
and I went to their studio and I took pictures.
I have those pictures till this day. I was just
looking at the album the other day and they put
me in like one, two, three, like four different outfits.
Didn't pay me anything. They fed me and I took
the pictures because I didn't have anything else to do.
And I'm like, okay, well just give me an album.
(15:38):
They gave me this whole album to bring home. But
they used those pictures guys in China. One was for
like a skincare company, and of course I didn't know
what I mean, I didn't know they were going to
use them. I didn't know until like after like okay,
you know I signed something. Of course, it was like, hey,
we're going to use it for you know, a skincare
and then they were going to sell the pictures. I know,
(16:00):
it sounds crazy now, that would never happen to me
now I know that side of the business. But it
was fun. And I remember showing my mom the pictures
when we got back and she's like, this is what
you were doing, what you were out there? Like she
kind of wanted to be mad at me, but I'm like, dude,
I was waiting for like a week and a half
to get the finished product. I needed to do something.
So I learned a song out there too, the shingle
(16:22):
Ing a ling song, that's what I call it. It
was like the biggest hit in China. I heard it
everywhere at the grocery store, I heard it at the mall,
I heard it people were singing at the karaoke bar,
like all the time. Anyway, so I learned the song
out there. I do want to sing you, guys, a
little piece of the song that I learned. And people
have said now with TikTok and stuff, that it's not
(16:43):
true that this song does not exist. But I promise you, guys,
I was at the new shop one day and the
song came on. And then I was at a full
place and the song came on. Guys, like I'm not
I swear to you, I'm not lying. The song exists,
and I learned it because I was there for three
weeks and it was the most popin song. So anyway,
the song goes a little like this. It's a shingle
ling gulling. It's a shing young young young. And again
(17:10):
I don't even know if I'm saying anything, if I'm
even singing Chinese, And it's in no way to disrespect anybody,
because again I love the Asian culture so much, but
I swear to you, I remember the chorus. That was
the chorus, and again I'm probably not even singing anything
in Chinese, but I remember it going like that. Everyone
was on this song, guys. Everyone in the karaoke bar.
(17:31):
Everyone wanted to sing the damn song, and I had
to sing it a couple times, so I remember, next
time I hear it somewhere, I promise you, I'm going
to record it. I'm going to show you, guys, because
I would not lie about something like that, and that's
what I did. I just hung out. I went to
the spot, I got massages, I ate a lot of
cool food, and then I would just come home and
get in the bathtub and watch Sex in the City
for three weeks. Now moving forward to when I got
(17:59):
back home and I had a finished product. I was
so proud of myself when I got the finished product
that I told my mom. I said, Mother, just FYI,
I'm using the business card and I'm buying myself a
first class ticket back. I feel I deserve it and
I'm just going to do it. I just told her.
I didn't even ask her permission. That was the first
time I experienced first class, and I haven't been the
(18:20):
same since they give me slippers. It was a laid
down bed, Oh my god, night and day experience, guys,
from going coach in the middle seat. It was a lot.
I spent like an extra I don't know how much,
over one thousand dollars on top of what I had
already paid. Well, not me and my mom. So that's
(18:41):
that I get home. My mom, by this time was
a little happier with me. It took her like two
weeks while I was out there to just warm up,
and you know, I was kind of getting her excited
with everything that I was doing. She was really happy.
I remember walking into her office and she was sitting
on her chair and I said, Mom, I'm back. Hi.
She was very happy to see me. I was very
(19:01):
happy to see her, and she's said, well, show me,
show me what you brought. And I remember pulling it
out and her face. Guys, the look on her face priceless.
I lived lived to make my mom proud. Anytime I
saw that face and then just that sparkle in her eye,
it was just everything to me. And I'm getting emotional
(19:24):
because I remember. I remember the day and she was
so happy and so excited that she had her finished product.
And it worked beautifully because it was going to take
months before we got the shipment, you know, because everything
was going to come by sea. So the fact that
I stayed there to get a few made, because they
didn't just make me one, they made me like ten.
(19:44):
So we could take pictures and we can also show
it to different stores, and WSS actually picked it up
and we sold all the units to them, and we
were selling it online. So it did very very well
and that made me so happy. That was great. We
were fine. But then a few weeks later comes the
(20:06):
phone bill, and this is where it gets a little sticky,
because I didn't turn off my data or data or
whatever the roaming. Okay, guys, the phone bill that came
was insane, six thousand dollars phone bill. My mom wanted
to kill me. It was such an expensive trip. And
(20:30):
I'm like, oh my god, I didn't know. I didn't
I never turned off the roaming. I'm like, Mom, I'm sorry.
We were on different time zones, like I needed to
send a lot of emails, I mean, back and forth
with the manufacturers with just everyone with her, and I
was on a lot of phone calls, you know, and
then I was talking to someone back then. So of
course at night I was bored, I'm gonna get on
(20:51):
the phone. Never did I think it was gonna be
six thousand dollars. My mom was livid. Then she got
over it because I was like Mom, It's okay. You know. Now,
I'm like, damn it, my mother. I put her through
some things. Anyway, she was upset, but then we got
over it and I gave her a thousand dollars and
that's when she told me. She's like, what do you
want me to do with these thousand dollars? Roll them
up and use them as a tampon. She told me that.
(21:12):
I'm like what, I'm like, Mom, a thousand dollars is
a thousand dollars. She's like, yeah, and you owe another
five thousand. But anyway, it was nice. It was a
beautiful experience. And I've grown out of this because I
think for a long time I wanted her approval on everything.
And it's also not healthy, you know, to live for
(21:33):
someone's approval all the time. But I just I wanted
to make her proud, you know. And I'm happy and
I don't regret anything. But I'm glad that I also
grew out of that and matured. I'm definitely grateful that
I was able to experience everything that I did, and
my mom trusted me as much as she did to
(21:53):
get things done. And again, we did a lot together.
I mean, we started the skincare and the makeup line
we did, the perfume, we did a tequila business together,
her genes as well. Like I learned everything really because
of her, because she threw me into everything and I
had no other choice but to figure it out and
(22:15):
look into everything and do my research and learn the
hard way. But it's helped me out a lot with
everything that I do now, So I wouldn't change a thing.
It was a very tough trip, but also everything that
I learned and what I was able to accomplish was priceless,
and I would do it all over again, even if
that meant her and I fighting on the way there.
(22:36):
It just because again it gave me that like motivation
to like, I'm going to show her and I'm glad
because I did, and I'll never forget her face. I
would go again to Gwanho. I want to go to Shanghai.
I've never heard beautiful things about Shanghai. That's in the
north of China. But my fragrance is made here, guys,
in the US. Not that there's anything wrong with manufacturing
(22:59):
anything in China, but I did want my perfume, my
personal perfume to be developed here in the US. It
is Raina and it was definitely inspired by that experience
in China and everything that I learned there. So I'm
very grateful and I love wearing perfume. I wear my
perfume every single day. It's the only perfume I wear.
And I wanted to make something very because I have
(23:20):
expensive taste. I do. Even the chemist that made my
perfume told me that, she said, you have very expensive taste.
And that's why I'm like, Okay, this is exactly why
I want to create my own fragrance. Because the fragrance
that I used to use was a three hundred dollar bottle, okay,
And when people would ask me at my meet and
greet's like, Chikie, you smell so good. What perfume is it?
(23:41):
I almost felt embarrassed because I was like, what am
I doing spending three hundred, five hundred dollars on a
freaking fragrance? Anyway, Like if you can do that, more
power to you. But it was I started kind of like,
I'm like, I know how much it costs to make
these things, Like I know, and that's why I wanted
to make my perfume. And that's why Reina is in
such a generic bottle, because again, I'm all about not
(24:05):
being worried so much about what it looks like on
the outside. Of course I want it to look nice,
but when you're first starting out, like you need to
get components or you know, things that are already in stock,
so you don't spend so much on that. When things
start being custom made, that's where it gets really expensive.
And I wanted to focus more on what's inside the bottles.
Like with my skincare, when we first started, the bottles
(24:28):
were very inexpensive because that's what they had in stock.
But I really wanted my product, what's inside, what you
use on your face, on your body, for that to
be the most expensive thing and what I invested in.
So that's what I did with my perfume as well.
I got a generic bottle, a generic cap. I wanted
to be very simple, very straight to the point, because
(24:48):
of course I would like to just go all out.
Now I can do that. Now something's coming like a
different bottle with like a custom made cap that cost
a lot. But again because you have to be smart,
and I saved some money and I said, okay, I'm
going to save X amount to make a more custom bottle.
But when I first started again, I didn't want to
(25:09):
spend that much on the bottle. So when people ask
me that, like okay, where are your bottles this? And
your bottles that? Because I got a lot of like
criticism at first with my skincare because of it, and
I had to explain this to people. I'm like, you guys,
it's expensive to make a freaking product, you know, and
I'd rather you guys pay for what's inside. And then
(25:31):
people when I told them that and they fell in
love with the actual product, then they understood. But anyway,
that's a whole you know, that's here nor there. I
just wanted to explain that. And there is another perfume
that's coming. It's a unisex perfume and it's going to
be called Michentthe So that'll be coming out around my birthday.
It is unisex, and I'm excited because soon I have
to find a date to make a whole video to
(25:53):
present it. So this will be my second perfume. I mean,
I've had Raina for years now, I want to say
at least five years, six years now, and people love
it and they come back for more, so that makes
me really excited. But now this one's gonna be very different.
It's gonna smell different. It's more citrusy, a little musky,
but completely different from Raina. So look forward to that.
(26:17):
And yeah, I just that's it, I think. I mean,
that's all I really wanted to share and kind of
just take you guys down memory lane and take myself
there and appreciate more everything that I went through with
my mom and all the beautiful moments that we live together,
because there were a lot, you know, So that's basically
what I'm doing. So you'll hear a lot more stories,
I think here on this season because I'm in that
(26:39):
mode in that like I want to connect with my
mom in a different way. Now. I will catch you
here on the next episode of Cheeks and Chill. Let's
getro mucho e. Yeah, make sure you share the podcast
with the people that you love, Okay, all right bye.
This is a production of iHeartRadio and the My Podcast Network.
(27:01):
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com