PR Pros – Yummi Karma’s Alysia Sofios

_{She’s a lady and, as Yummi Karma’s Director of Marketing, Alysia Sofios is creating a cannabis brand of, by, and for women. With the other ladies on the YK executive team, their new High Gorgeous line of infused lotions and lady potions is aimed at the adventurous female demographic. Sofios is pretty darned good at selling it.}

_{“You can probably tell that we say the word ‘overwhelmed’ a lot lately,” she told mgRetailer. “Customers are grateful our High Gorgeous products look and smell like the beauty products we’re all used to, but work like only cannabis-infused topicals can. We hear a lot of people say, ‘It’s about time,’ and we couldn’t agree more. Since we’ve gotten some national attention lately, we’ve had hundreds of people outside of California asking for our products–so we are rolling out a limited edition High Gorgeous CBD tincture, called Plain Jane. That, along with our Plain Jane lotion, is available for anyone 21 [and over] to buy at our online store.”}

_{“If this is just the beginning, we’re in for an amazing journey,” Sofios added, enthusiastically. The Plain Jane CBD line also will include bubble bath and lip balm, which are coming soon.}

_{“You’ve heard, ‘If you build it they will come?’ That’s what we did. [Yummi Karma] built a platform for women and they definitely came. Something magical happens when women support other women, and our products embody that,” she explained. “Our team has been overwhelmed by the response we’ve gotten–and continue to get–from consumers. They love our products as much as we do and, more importantly, they support our mission to change cannabis stereotypes.”}

_{Shedding stereotypes is part of a vision that goes beyond pink vape pens and “girl power” marketing. Sofios stands behind YK’s commitment to help women see cannabis–not only as a medicinal product with real benefits–but also as an emerging business opportunity where women can create equality in the workplace alongside male professionals and entrepreneurs.}

_{Meantime, since her career as a television reporter, headlines about cannabis have gone from the crime pages to the lifestyle section of media outlets. Finally at a tipping point, Sofios feels a strong responsibility to make sure YK’s mission is in their message; raising public awareness of the real benefits of medical and adult use marijuana, while elevating opportunities for women and small businesses in the industry. If changing the consumer’s mindset begins in a cannabis-infused bubble bath, so be it. Actually, a bubble bath sounds like fun, doesn’t it?}

_{“It’s so interesting to see the tide changing over the last few years. When I was a news reporter, getting assigned to a cannabis story meant covering a drug bust and showing images of machine guns and stacks of cash. Now, we’re seeing health stories about cannabis helping patients, and feature stories about cannabis-infused products like ours,” she said. “PopSugar.com published a video of our [High Gorgeous] line and it got nearly a million hits already. I just got a call from its producers asking if they could come back this month because it was so popular.”}

_{“Each time a mainstream media outlet realizes how many people are interested in cannabis, it’s a small victory for our industry,” Sofios added. “At the end of the day, the media want to tell stories that help people, and there’s no question–cannabis helps people.”}