Over a Decade of Science, Love and Resilience

For those of you who are new to our small business ecosystem, and for those who want to learn more about our journey as a brand, this is a transparent timeline of important events, pivots, and transitions. Fighting for autonomy over our own wellness journey's, and yours, has required us to adapt to challenges, and to use these regulatory hurdles and ownership changes as blueprints for future growth.

The Golden Years: 2015–2022

Color Up's birth from personal mission to become a leader in science-first, cannabinoid-infused professional care.

Date Milestone Expanded Explanation
Feb 2015
Founding Color Up Therapeutics
Before there were products, there was purpose. Kali's cancer treatment story inspired the creation of Color Up Therapeutics. 		Our mission began after co-founder Shauna’s dog, Kali, was diagnosed with cancer. Shauna and previous co-founders turned to what they knew: homegrown cannabis and plant-based formulas that extended Kali’s life by over a year. After pivoting from high-THC marijuana to high-CBD hemp, they crafted formulas that extended Kali’s life by a full year—a year of joy, comfort, and play. Born from a promise to Kali, the original formula established the core commitment to safety, plant medicine, and professional efficacy.
2016
Launching Our First Products & Education
Started in a basement lab with grassroots education initiatives. 		We launched with a modest, unlicensed basement lab focusing on science-first formulations, starting with pet products (in Kali's honor). We quickly expanded into body care for use in local massage school, Denver Integrative Massage School, where Shauna was attending school, and we officially starting our professional practitioner network. Shortly thereafter, we began crafting our professional skincare line with the wisdom and experience of educators and practitioners at The School of Botanical and Medical Aesthetics. We developed our initial product lines and solidified the B2B, professional education model that defines our brand.
2017
First Licensed Lab & Wellness Center
Opened physical location and Launched 7-step European facial protocol. 		Our growth was organic and community-led. We opened our first physical location in Denver, The Yoga Grow, sharing space with a yoga studio and plant shop owned by our friends. We built our first licensed manufacturing lab, a retail space, and with the help of the School of Botanical and Medical Aesthetics, launched a full CBD infused professional skincare line, including a signature 7-step European facial protocol.
2018
Regulatory-Driven Rebrand to Color Up
Our name was simplified from Color Up Therapeutics to Color Up. 		Due to increasing federal regulatory pressure concerning medical claims, we streamlined the identity by removing "Therapeutics" and becoming Color Up. This change was essential to position the brand for national professional adoption. We launched our retail "Life" line, expanding into new markets and added SKU's to our Pro skincare line. Our commitment to integrity earned us the prestigious Oncology Spa Solutions approval for our entire CBD infused product line.
2019
National Credibility & Location Expansion
Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa launch, Oncology Spa Solutions partnership, Aveda/Paul Mitchell placements. 		Our Denver headquarters grew into a 12,000 sq ft sanctuary with a wellness center, lab, and event space that incubated other small, women-owned businesses. We launched our online education platform, Color Up Cannabis Master Education, and educated over 3k professionals nationwide. We partnered with the prestigious Red Door Spa to provide our CBD infused products to their 26-locations, and secured placements with Harrah's and Caesars Casinos, validating our position in professional CBD wellness.
Jan 2020
The Pandemic & Our Immediate Pivot
Demonstrated resilience and flexibility by supporting our account partners, ensuring business continuity during the toughest operational period. 		We avoided long-term layoffs, shifting rapidly to drop shipping, online education, community spa parties, and consulting services to support our account partners through the shutdown. Our whole team showed up, every day with our differences aside, and we kept our businesses going. Our landlord-family offered us support, and we in turn offered that support to the women-owned businesses operating out of our wellness center.
Late 2020
Relocation & Rebuild
Lab Rebuild During Holidays & Nurture Wellcare Marketplace 		Despite the pandemic, we moved our entire wellness center and lab into a new location provided by our landlord-family, building a lab twice the size of the previous one. We also opened a second retail space at the beautiful Nurture Wellcare Marketplace where we offered products, massages, and CBD infused wellness integrations.
2021
The Financial Drag & Bankruptcy Shock
Trade show losses, 26-location spa bankruptcy, inflation pressures. 		The aftermath of 2020 proved challenging. Several major trade shows canceled without refund, and a 26-location spa partner declared bankruptcy, resulting in a significant loss. This, compounded by inflation, forced us to tap into our savings, alongside tighten our operations.
2022
Arizona Expansion
Phoenix wellness center with Archipelago Clubs extended our community model beyond Colorado 		Seeking new community and revenue streams, we opened a retail and wellness center location in Phoenix, Arizona alongside our friends and community leaders, Archipelago Clubs. With the intention of tapping into the newly legal cannabis industry and opening up more revenue streams to sustain our business, two of our co-founders temporarily relocated to establish roots.

Navigating Our New Reality (2022 - 2025)

These highlights are a testament to the grit, love, passion, and community that have carried us through regulatory shifts, banking crises, a global pandemic, four location moves, the collapse of our fundamental rights as women, a buyout, name changes, and three years of operating in survival mode, to hold the line for our ecosystem of women-owned small businesses to once again thrive in the CBD-infused Beauty and Wellness Industry women have pioneered long before we got to be here today.

Date Milestone Expanded Explanation
2022
Our New Reality
America experienced the largest rollback of women's rights in modern history. 		We stood strong, came together, and vowed never to let our ecosystem of fellow female entrepreneurs die. We began to really understand our responsibility as a small business operating in both the beauty and wellness industry–dominated by women, and the cannabis industry-dominated by men.
2023
The Crack In Our Foundation
In 2023, our fight turned inward. Two of our three original co-founders decided to leave and wanted to close the business. To generate the most capital before they left, a warehouse blowout sale, obligation to file a Trade Name (aka DBA) under the Color Up, LLC entity, and for us to wait until the sale was over to announce our new direction. 		We had no legal way to stop the warehouse blowout sale or name change due to the 2/3 majority clause in our 2015 partnership contract, which allowed two owners to overrule the third (Shauna). They rejected every structured buyout term we –further inhibiting our success by prohibiting explanation of what was happening to our customers until the final day, making it impossible to communicate properly, pushing fear-driven purchases up–and demanding the full value of the deal in cash on the day the sale ended. That sale severed partner trust by undercutting retail pricing, wiped out all ingredients, packaging, labels, and brand assets, leaving no stock to relaunch. We re-emerged as VXN Wellness. The name was a tribute to the fierce women who stayed to fight for our company, and the ecosystem we built—the VXNs (a nod to the resilient female fox). The name change led to an instant collapse of domain authority, website content, media assets, data, and our google presence since 2016. Operating as VXN was a lesson in how unforgiving the digital world is–our customers couldn’t find us and we vanished from searches almost overnight.
2024
We Paused to Realign
The instability you witnessed was the direct result of a 2023 buyout ultimatum that stripped us of asset, inventory, and trusting partnerships. Add that to years of absorbing rising costs, battling platform restrictions (Square/PayPal disruptions), and facing an unbalanced regulatory system, and our pricing no longer covered costs. 		The VXN rebrand was confusing for everyone. We struggled to gain traction under a name that didn't represent who we were. We were rebuilding our inventory order-by-order and day-by-day. We took an intentional strategic pause to reorganize operations, reaffirm our core values, and focus on long-term ethical sustainability, rather than compromising quality or ethics by continuing forward without a definitive path forward.
Mid 2024
We Lost Key Team Members
We consolidated operations and refined our focus, transitioning from a space-heavy community model to a lab-first, manufacturing model. 		The cumulative strain from the buyout, visibility collapse, and the strategic pause led to the attrition of more team members, including customer support and design. We began the process of closing our large, 6,500 sq ft wellness center, rebranding our focus on our independent, licensed Hemp lab. We shifted to VXN LAB during this transition–to honor our focus on the lab, and because we lost the ability to update our VXN Wellness labels without our designers expertise.
Late 2024
Launching VXN LUX on Amazon
After years of seeking channel diversification outside the Cannabis industry, we started a new business and launched a non-CBD line on Amazon called VXN LUX. 		Seeking non-CBD revenue diversification, we successfully launched a non-CBD line, VXN LUX, on Amazon (following an earlier 2023 deactivation due to the association with our Color Up brand). However, our female formulator departed before the launch, removing the product’s core champion, and we voluntarily pulled the line to focus back on our professional CBD skincare line. This experience, though successful when measured in dollars, taught us a crucial lesson: our love is not in mass markets – it’s in our people–the connections, friends, and relationships we've built through the years.
Early 2025
Full Shift to Family
In early 2025, Amber and Marrana officially joined Shauna as co-owners, solidifying the fierce, women-led future of our company. We rebranded briefly as House of VXN, an umbrella to honor the family we had become. 		Over the last 2.5 years as we've held the line, trying hard to land our name change in a volatile regulatory environment, it has been our families—mothers, sister, aunts, fathers, uncles, and husbands that have lifted us up and kept us going–offering their time, labor, and unwavering belief in our mission. Each of our mother's now own a small percentage to honor the extent they each went to support us through the last few year. We represent a multi-generational, women-led collective. Now, we all work for Color Up in one way or another, and our motto of Made With Love has never rung so true.
Mid 2025
Partnering with Faire
We were invited to Faire's inaugural CBD wholesale cohort as one of the first CBD companies on their platform. 		We began stabilizing revenue by leveraging our manufacturing strengths and utilizing a platform aligned with the compliance needs of small, women-owned wellness brands. Then came June 2025—the breakthrough we discovered TWO years after changing our name. When we shifted assets back to Color Up in an attempt to gain access to our long-standing Google Business Profile that was suspended, customers we hadn't seen since 2023 came flooding back. You'd been waiting for us to resurface. And you shined a light on the truth – when our name and branding were stripped away from us, so too was our foundation, our identity, and our people!
Late 2025
Home is Where the Heart Is
Restoring our original identity is crucial to reclaiming over a decade of brand equity, professional trust, and critical search engine (SEO) authority that was lost during the transition. 		As we walked the thin line over the last 2.5 years of knowing when to call it quits, and knowing when to fight harder for what we believe in – this message from our customers was clear: the heart of our brand has always been in the trust we built as Color Up. As of November 2025 we are strategically pivoting all of our Color Up CBD products back to the Color Up name and branding. On January 1, 2026 we will officially be launching all products with Color Up branding—a reclamation of a decade of equity, integrity, and community we've all built together.

Our Community Impact

We are the same licensed entity (Same EIN, Same Hemp Licensing, Same Trusted Formulations) that has operated continuously since February 12, 2015 (CO State ID 20151102898). We are providing this timeline to clearly demonstrate that the licensed entity you trust, has operated continuously under the ownership of our team, and original founder since 2015.

10+
Years in Business
3,000+
Certified Color Up Cannabis Masters
25,000+
Customers Engaged Since 2015