The high cost of doing business in Bermuda has forced one veteran entrepreneur to close.

“I got into this business at the right time,” said Trish Croke, of natural hair product business Island Potions. “Now I know I am getting out of it at the right time, because of market conditions.”

Ms Croke ran the business selling home-made beard oils, rinses and creams for seven years.

In the years she has been in operation, the percentage taken by local pharmacies has risen by several percentage points with some now taking as much as half, before product even hits the shelves.

“It is very hard for mom-and-pop entrepreneurs to make it, in general,” she said.

Tamara Richardson, chief executive of People’s Pharmacy, which has never sold Island Potions productions, said they typically charged local vendors 35 per cent.

“It depends on the products,” Ms Richardson said. “We obviously have to make our money, but 50 per cent would seem high.”

Ms Croke has now moved overseas and is working as a forex day trader.

Some of Island Potions’ most popular items were horsetail tea rinse and beard oil. The beard oil will continue to be sold through Tropical Cuts at 4 Addendum Lane, Pembroke, and another vendor will be making the rinse.

“To buy the horsetail tea rinse, people can just WhatsApp me, and I will direct them in how to contact the new vendor,“ Ms Croke said.

Customers were surprised and saddened to hear that she was closing.

“In life, you have to go through changes, and you have to continue to move forward,” Ms Croke said. “Market conditions, my spiritual self and my intuition are telling me this time for me is now over.”

She hoped to have her business fully wound up by the end of this year.

“I will be selling the ingredients to each product [WhatsApp 305-1555]to serious entrepreneurs, only,” she said. “They can rebrand the product, patent it, or do whatever.”

Ms Croke thanked all those who supported her over the years.

She started making her own hair tonics in 2015 when she cut her hair short.

“I wanted to grow my hair naturally,” she said.

However, she struggled to find products that worked well with natural hair.

Further, she sought to ditch the chemicals found in conventional hair products. She was unable to pronounce half of the ingredients in the lines she found on the shelf. That was what drove her to create her own.

When people started admiring her hair, she offered them samples of the “potions” she cooked up at home. Demand grew and, in 2016, she launched Island Potions.