EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. — When Lisa-Jae Eggert talks about tariffs, she doesn’t reach for abstractions. She reaches for a plastic spray top.

Eggert is the founder of 3 Moms Organics, a small company on Long Island that makes a plant-based tick and insect repellent. The formula is produced in the United States, the bottles are purchased from U.S. suppliers, and the company’s story — a mother who “almost died from tick-borne diseases,” as she puts it, and then created a product she could trust for her children — is as local as it gets.

But the spray top, Eggert says, isn’t made domestically in the size and specification her product requires. Her distributor sources it from China. “If I’m paying double for the top, I can’t sell the bottle for $8.99 anymore,” she said. “I have to sell it for $9.99. I’ll try to absorb as much as I can, but it falls to the consumer.”

Tariffs are designed as an instrument of national policy. For microbusinesses like 3 Moms Organics — firms with one to a handful of employees and thin cash cushions — they are a surcharge on every shipment.

“We make everything in the United States. We procure everything in the United States,” Eggert said. “But the costs of one of my natural oils went up 150 percent. My spray tops nearly doubled. Prices don’t go back down. Outside of gas, when have you seen that?”

She paused. “Tariffs are taxes. We pay the tariffs — not other countries.”

Forecasting in a World of Whiplash

Eggert’s company produces in annual cycles. Autumn, counterintuitively, is peak planning season: orders are placed and components purchased for the coming year. “It’s been hellacious to plan through what’s going on because everything keeps changing,” she said. Distributors, wary of their own exposure, press her to lock in prices on short notice. “They’ll say, ‘I need an answer in two days so I can hold this price,’” she said. “That makes it really hard.”

She has asked suppliers to break out the tariff share of cost increases on invoices. Sometimes the answers are incomplete. One of her key ingredients is a geranium oil marketed as “Egyptian” — a botanical descriptor, not necessarily a statement of origin, she said. “I’ve asked my distributor where it’s coming from and I’m not really getting a clear answer,” she said. “I just know the product went up 150 percent due mostly to tariffs.”

Some inputs, she added, simply aren’t grown or made here. “We don’t have the climate to grow shea, for example,” she said. “There are things you cannot get in the United States — at least not yet. Build the foundation first before cutting off access; otherwise small businesses suffer while larger companies with cash survive.”

The uncertainty has real-world consequences. Despite steady demand — “we grew about 40 percent this year,” she said — hiring is on hold. “I need an employee to help prepare for next season. I put money aside to do that. But prices are so uncertain I can’t hire. I won’t know my margins until the product is made.”

Wholesale expansion is also frozen. “I’m anticipating we won’t get into new stores this year,” she said. “Small retailers are watching every penny.”

The Microbusiness Distinction

In Washington, DC, “small business” can encompass companies with up to 500 employees and tens of millions in revenue. Eggert argues that lens obscures the realities of firms like hers.

“Ninety-nine percent of what we call small businesses are really micro businesses,” she said. “We don’t have cash flow. We can’t front tariffs, buy in bigger bulk or absorb doubled component prices without passing costs on. I’m disheartened anyone in government would think a micro business could absorb that.”

Eggert has traveled to Washington, DC with the National Retail Federation to share her experience with policymakers. She describes a mood that has darkened among her small business peers. “For every one business tariffs may help, there are thousands they hurt,” she said. “I’m watching friends erode and crumble. Some took second jobs to keep the business alive; some lost homes or closed. The mental health among microbusiness owners worries me.”

Her message is studiously nonpartisan. “For me, this isn’t political,” she said. “It’s about what’s right for our customers, communities and country.”

Price Gaps and Everyday Choices

Natural repellents, made with skin-friendly botanicals, already compete against cheaper, chemical-based brands. Tariffs widen that gap.

“We make something safe and effective for kids, adults and pets,” Eggert said. “But if a family is struggling, are they buying the $3 bottle full of chemicals or the $16 natural one? Tariffs push us further out of reach.”

“You can’t look at tariffs without looking at the health of the entire business,” she said. “Tariffs are a huge problem — and the uncertainty they create makes all prices go up because everyone’s covering themselves.”

Speaking Up, Even If Change Is Slow

Eggert wants more microbusiness owners to tell their stories, even if they doubt anyone is listening. “If policymakers don’t understand how this affects small businesses, that’s a problem,” she said. “Be brave in your convictions. It may not change today, but it may change tomorrow.”

Her own convictions are anchored in personal history. “I started this because I didn’t want anyone as sick as I was,” she said. “When sales expand, it means we’re helping more people stay safe. That’s what matters.”

The company sells on its website and on Amazon, and she says a national retail partnership is in the works. But she returns, inevitably, to planning — to the prosaic work of ordering bottle tops and oils and labels in a world where the ground shifts beneath a business that can’t afford missteps.

“Small businesses made it through Covid,” she said. “Help us make it through this.”

She picked up the spray top again, weighing it in her hand — a small, ordinary piece of plastic that has become a metronome for the broader economy. “Once a $10 input becomes $15, it stays $15,” she said. “That’s the part people need to see. Not the headlines — the invoice.”