Selling scrunchies saving species

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: STEPHANIE LAI
From left: Samantha Laliberte and business partner Sonja Fernandes make scrunchies to save endangered animals.

A Fanshawe College grad and her business partners are mixing social responsibilities with entrepreneurship.

Samantha Laliberte, a former student of Fundraising and Human Resources – now co-founder of lifestyle brand Ezzy Lynn – sells scrunchies to save endangered species through the World Wildlife Fund.

“Each product’s design is inspired by an endangered animal,” said Sonja Fernandes, a co-founder. “We want to be brand ambassadors for these animals to educate people while we sell scrunchies.”

“For every 25 we sell, we symbolically adopt one of those animals through the World Wildlife Fund.”

The pair met – along with their third partner – through what was formerly known as BizInc, now called Leap Junction.

“We all loved business. We loved entrepreneurship,” Laliberte said. “We bonded over being women, and there [weren’t] many women in that space, so we started a business together.”

Fernandes – a Philosophy major – has had experience since high school.

“In university, I started a small marketing consulting company helping small businesses with their online presence and social media,” she said. “I also started a not-forprofit organization called Volunteer Ya that still exists today.”

Laliberte says she knew she still wanted to focus on the social aspect of business when the trio began the business.

“I actually like meeting with people and fundraising,” she said. “When the social model for social enterprises came out, that was really attractive to me, because I could bring both passions and both skills and be fulfilled that way.”

One example is shoe company TOMS’ one-for-one model. Fernandes’ definition of a social enterprise is not a legal definition.

“The common theme is that it’s a businesss, and it sells a product and has some sort of social mission or purpose,” she said. “It’s not about financial return or social return – it’s about financial and social.”

“It’s achieving both at the same time.”

So when the three young women created Ezzy Lynn, they thought about their target market.

“We wanted [our target market] to be other young women like ourselves that had similar interests,” Laliberte said. “We couldn’t figure one specific style that fitted us.”

“It wasn’t just boho; it wasn’t just corporate chic; it wasn’t just grunge/hippy. We like to play with different fashion trends; we felt our target market would do the same.”

So then they created personas for Ezzy and Lynn to represent the two sides of someone’s personality.

“If you’re more of a Lynn, you might work in a corporate environment,” Laliberte said. “You love networking, and you’re more likely to wear a scrunchie and a sock bun or a sleeked-back ponytail.”

“When you go out at night or on the weekend, maybe you want to let loose a little bit – that’s more of your Ezzy side … Someone like that would wear more of our colourful, printed scrunchies in a top knot or side pony.”

Ezzy (Esmeralda) and Lynn are also the middle names of Fernandes and Laliberte.

They included their third partner into the company name too, though.

“When [Bianca] joined us, we couldn’t fit her name into the name anywhere, so she represents the jellyfish logo because [it’s] her favourite animal,” Fernandes said.

In addition to the girls’ WWF contribution, they’ve also been working with Goodwill.

“Goodwill has a program called Pivotal Services [that] creates jobs for people who face barriers,” Laliberte said. “So we are funding a sewing lab at Goodwill now, and there’s going to be five seamstresses actually making our scrunchies for us to help us scale.”

“We’re really excited about our growth and our scalability from that and how we can be even more socially conscious in the creation of our products.”

Ezzy Lynn also recycles old clothing from Goodwill to make the scrunchies.

“This is the most successful I’ve ever felt in my life,” Laliberte said. “Being able to quit a corporate job where at the time it felt great.”

“Any opportunity where we get to tell people what we’re doing, you never know who’s going to read it or hear it and we’re going to shake that right hand.”

The ladies of Ezzy Lynn will be in F Hallway February 10 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. selling scrunchies and spreading word about their brand’s message.

Products can be found at Leslie’s and Moksha Yoga on Richmond Street and Purdy Natural on Dundas Street.

For more information, visit ezzylynn.com.