BET.com’s THE GLAM GAP is a weekly video series spotlighting Black female entrepreneurs and influencers in the beauty, fashion and lifestyle space.

Beatrice Dixon was looking forward to Black History Month. Her feminine care line, The Honey Pot, was being carried in Target stores around the country and the marketing team had asked her to shoot a commercial with her family for their “Founders We Believe In” series. 

“At first, they didn't necessarily call it a commercial,” Dixon told BET.com when she visited our offices Tuesday (March 9). “Maybe like three days before it started there began to be a lot of questions, and Target told me that I should have my mom and brother come.  

The February spot, showcasing Dixon’s line of feminine washes, menstrual products, and maternity care was designed to celebrate Dixon’s vision for her fledgling brand as well as inspire the next generation of Black female entrepreneurs.

“The reason why it’s so important for Honey Pot to do well is so the next Black girl that comes up with a great idea, she can have a better opportunity,” Dixon said in the commercial triggering an onslaught from the racist critics. 

“It is unfortunate that she wants the next Black girl to do better,” a hateful comment about feminine care line The Honey Pot read on TrustPilot following Target’s Black History month advertisement that featured Dixon in a Target store.

“This is racist and exactly why I will not buy this product.” 

Despite the vicious comments that followed the commercial, Dixon told BET she wasn’t phased. “I can't be married to emotions that deal with how people feel and with people's opinion of something that I do. That's not in my control.” 

It’s that type of tunnel vision and ability to block out the haters that may explain why the Atlanta-based brand has seen such success. Since its launch in 2012, that followed Dixon’s year long battle with bacterial vaginosis, Honey Pot has grown to occupy shelves in CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, and of course, Target.

The national advertisement has gone on to be one of Target’s most talked-about, garnering both negative and positive reactions from longtime fans of the brand, new shoppers, and trolls who flooded the TrustPilot website with hateful comments accusing Honey Pot of being racist. 

However, the negative attention proved to be a good thing -- business doubled on the day the news hit. With sales skyrocketing, placing the brand’s current yearly sales surpassing that of end-of-year in 2019. 

“So many people who were our fans, and even those that hadn’t even used the product, went to bat for us,” Dixon says. “So we didn't have to do much conflict management. There was a turnaround within hours that took us from 2.5 stars to like 4.9 stars. It has been a beautiful experience.”

And while a quick restocking of products is on Dixon and The Honey Pot team’s mind — for anyone wondering, the website will restock on March 16 after selling out of many of their items online and completely selling out in stores — her biggest concern remains to stand by the young girls she advocated for in the Target campaign. 

“The reason why it’s so important for The Honey Pot to do well is so the next Black girl that comes up with a great idea, she can have a better opportunity,” Dixon affirms. 

And with hopes of eventual acquisition by another company within the next decade, The Honey Pot is on track to do exactly that. 

“For the next Black woman in the consumer space with a business, they'll be able to look at The Honey Pot and say, ‘The Honey Pot sold for $250 million,’” Dixon says. “I want them to think, ‘I'm building a business that looks like The Honey Pot. So if I'm building a business that looks like that, I can look at what their roadmap was and I can follow that or I can do something a little different.’ But regardless, they’ll know that if they can get to X, Y, Z sales, and  X, Y, Z stores, then they can be sold for the same amount of money, if not more.”

Follow Beatrice Dixon on Instagram @IAmBeaDixon and visit TheHoneyPot.co to shop her complete product line.