Georgia-raised businesswoman trades Hollywood for corporate America

AMERICUS — Tara Harris’ story, ironically, as it turns out, reads like the script of a Hollywood blockbuster.

Country girl leaves Georgia immediately after graduating college with a degree in mass communication and a minor in theater, searching for fame, fortune and a career in fickle, chew-’em-up-and-spit-’em-out Hollywood.

Then, with Hollywood in the rearview and on the verge of settling into a profession at which she’d excelled, climbing each precarious rung of the human resources ladder until she could see the top just a rung or two higher, inspiration. A new product that everyone says will become the next big thing popped into Harris’ head. Just like that.

And so, now she sits, on the brink of releasing to the world her brainchild, FemeFlex Pantiless Liners, a feminine hygiene product that experts say could be a break-out hit. Working on her own — “This was all me; no one helped me” — Harris has talked her product into a couple of Walmart stores and, amazingly, into the gift swag bags of Emmy nominees.

“This is one of those hometown girl comes back home to make a difference stories,” Harris said as she talked about the FemeFlex coming-out, as it were, countdown. “In Hollywood, I got a job through a temp agency in the human resources industry. I turned that into a full-time job with a private agency and steadily worked my way up to senior director of HR. I was in line for the next step, vice president.”

But a 2020 medical procedure during COVID forced Harris to make a wardrobe change, and that — serendipitously — sparked what she hopes will be a life-altering product.

“Women don’t like panty lines, and I kind of asked myself why there was no product that allowed their MVLP — ‘most valuable lady part’ — to remain fresh and hygienic without the telltale lines,” Harris said. “I mean, they had pasties for women who wanted to wear backless dresses; why not the same thing for women’s MVLP?

“So I went to Target, got myself a glue gun, some Band-Aids and some silicone and went to work. After a few tries, I hit on an idea and put it all together. There was my invention.”

But some 2 1/2 decades before becoming a player in the multibillion-dollar feminine hygiene industry, Harris chased a dream she’d fostered growing up in Ellaville, a dream of becoming a Hollywood star.

After graduating Morris Brown College, her Mass Com degree in hand, Harris took the nest egg she’d saved working two jobs for a solid year and headed West.

“I was 22, fresh out of college, and I left with no timeframe in mind,” she said. “I just knew that, even as a really young girl, I’d always said, ‘One day, when I get bigger, I’m getting out of here.’”

And while Harris did not make it as the next great movie star, she enjoyed the glitz and glamour of living the LaLa Land lifestyle. She got roles in commercials, bit parts in productions like “Clueless” (the TV show) and “Friday After Next.” But she eventually decided the lifestyle was not all it was cracked up to be.

“Oh, there were some great moments,” she said. “I met some great people and some celebrities who will always be my friends. And even though I never got a huge role, I was able to make a living as an actress without having to wait tables or bartend.

“I really just got tired of starving myself, of being judged on my looks, my body. I was just tired of being judged; To make it in Hollywood, you have to have really thick skin.”

After almost settling into the HR industry as a lifer, Harris experienced the epiphany that became FemeFlex. So she became a one-woman industry: creator, designer, saleswoman, CEO … all in one bundle of can’t-lose energy.

“The patenting process was so nerve-racking,” she said. “I started the process in 2020 and only recently got the go-ahead to release FemeFlex under ‘patent pending’ status. As I got deeper into the idea, I decided the best place to make this happen was at home, so I came back. I thought, ‘How cool would it be to release my product in my hometown, in the place where I used to shop growing up?’”

That hometown shopping mecca? The Americus Walmart.

“I went to the local Walmart, and the marketing manager from the Warner Robins Walmart happened to be visiting the Americus store,” Harris said. “I just went up to him and asked how I could get my product in the store. Amazingly, he liked the idea, and I was granted permission to debut FemeFlex Pantiless Liners in the Americus and Warner Robins Walmarts.”

One of Harris’ Hollywood connections also came through for her in a big way.

“A friend of mine from LA was friends with the person in charge of putting together the gift bags for the Emmy nominees,” she said. “She told her friend about FemeFlex and, amazingly, she’s putting them in the nominees’ gift bags. Just think, the women wearing those beautiful gowns on the red carpet will be using my product.”

Harris has shown in her life that she has the persistence and perseverance to follow through with her dreams. And, even as she stands ready to launch a product that could change her life, she’s not through dreaming.

“What I’d like to do is move the manufacturing plant to Georgia, give people here an opportunity to work for a company that will take care of them, reward them for their work,” she said. “And if some big company comes along and decides to make me an offer I can’t refuse for FemeFlex, I could live with maintaining a 10% share of the company, sitting on a yacht somewhere, eating fruit trays and fish tacos.”

Hey, a girl’s gotta dream.

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