From men’s grooming products to motivational stickers and tasty Texas barbecue, these alumni-owned businesses offer great options for shoppers on Small Business Saturday.

Bare Knuckle Beard Supply
Cody Mains BS’11, MS’14 created Bare Knuckle Beard Supply, on online shop featuring men’s beard and skincare products, after he started mixing his own beard oil during the pandemic. What started as an experiment resulted in his first official blend, Cedar Forest, and ventured into beard butters and body soaps.

On bkbeards.com, you can find grooming accessories, oil and soap geared toward men with sensitive skin, mustache wax and limited-edition soaps for the special someone in your life. You can even build your own bundle of products to suit the specific needs of the person you’re shopping for.

Code Blue Jewelry
Ngan Nguyen BS’17, MS’20 established Code Blue Jewelry as a way to provide ethically sourced and stylish medical IDs to people with chronic illnesses. Whether it’s a bracelet, necklace, stethoscope charm or ring, each piece of jewelry is handcrafted and personalized with patients’ input. Shoppers can add their birthstones and medical symbols to medical IDs and choose pieces in silver, gold and rose gold with custom engraving in black or silver.

In additional to medical IDs, the company also offers beautiful, dainty accessories. Code Blue Jewelry also partnered with Malaria Consortium to provide 14 diagnostic tests to vulnerable children in Africa with each purchase.

Crack Brisket
Based in Allen, Texas, Crack Brisket provides catering services for business or personal needs across the Metroplex. Owned by pitmaster Macario Magalindan BA’05, Crack Brisket has a menu with an impressive lineup of meats, from spareribs to pork belly burnt ends and beef brisket. Diners can also opt for the smoked peach cobbler or Texas Twinkies (jalapenos stuffed with barbecued meat).

Orders from Crack Brisket can be made up to two months in advance and come with bread, pickles and barbecue sauce.

Hudhud Creations
After seeing a lack of representation in the products offered to her as a child, Huda Moopen BA’21 created her own Etsy shop using the design and marketing skills she developed as a student in the School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication at UT Dallas.

Hudhud Creations features fun, affordable stickers, pins and art prints geared toward young Muslims. Shoppers can find uplifting messages in Moopen’s designs, from a sticker that reads “Strong Muslimah” to a Quranic quote sticker that says, “With every hardship comes ease.”

If you’re a UT Dallas graduate with your own small business, you can submit your information here for a chance to be featured on our social media channels, Alumni Link and our alumni-owned business directory.