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 HBN
Announces the 2005 Handmade Beauty Business of the Year!
Winner
honored along with two honorable mentions
Congratulations to Essential Wholesale, the 2005 Handmade Beauty Business
of the Year, and to the Honorable Mentions, Moonshine Soap and Rainbow
Meadow! Ten entries were submitted to our panel of judges for HBN's first
annual endeavor to recognize exceptional members and their outstanding
contributions to the handmade beauty industry. The entries reflected a wide
range of experiences and covered a representative selection of businesses
from the most active and innovative companies in HBN. "I was delighted
to see that the judges had such a wide variety of remarkable member
businesses to evaluate," said Donna Maria Coles Johnson, HBN's founder
and president. The nominees made sure that the judges had their work cut out
for them! Each nominee has consistently supported HBN in phenomenal ways
over the years. I
am thrilled for each of them. They represent
not only the best our industry has to offer today, but also the great things
the future will undoubtedly bring." The 2005 Handmade Beauty Business
of the Year, Essential
Wholesale, is a 4-year old company with Private Label and Custom
Formulation divisions, along with hundreds of raw ingredients and naturally
derived cosmetic bases. Many HBN members have grown their businesses by
manufacturing products by hand on their own, while supplementing their
lines using bases made by Essential Wholesale. Upon learning that his
company was selected as Handmade Beauty Business of the Year, co-owner
Dennis Fioravanti said, "This is pretty awesome and I'm so excited to
have our efforts honored in this way. We
are blessed in our business, and we do our best to give back to the
industry in any way we can. We enjoy helping people starting out in the
handmade beauty arena and we are just happy to be a part of their growth as
we encourage them to dream about the possibilities."
Essential Wholesale has been a member of HBN since September 2000.
Honorable Mention Moonshine
Soap, owned by longtime HBN member Ellie Trinowski, is a top-notch
business with a polished presentation of handmade soaps made with shea
butter, therapeutic essential oils and other high quality ingredients. Said
Ellie upon learning of her selection as Honorable Mention, "It was such
an honor to be selected as a nominee, but to be honored with an actual
Honorable Mention is just incredible!" Ellie sees Moonshine Soap as a
journey enabling her to inspire others to take care of themselves
emotionally and physically. Says Ellie, "it is my hope that with small
deliberate steps we can all encourage and take care of each other one
beautiful day at a time." Moonshine Soap has been a member of HBN since
July 2001.
Melody Upham, owner of Honorable Mention Rainbow
Meadow, is excited to be chosen by the judges for her efforts to provide
quality essential oils and other botanical products to entrepreneurs and
hobbyists of all kinds. "Our essential oils are therapeutic quality, used
not only by handmade beauty products manufacturers of course, but also by
medical and spa practitioners the world over. When we started our company 10
years ago, essential oil prices were astronomical. I like to think that one
of our contributions has been to make their so much more readily available
that even the newest start up company can afford to compete in the handmade
beauty industry. I'm just delighted to be selected!" Rainbow Meadow,
one of HBN's first members, has
been a member of HBN since June 2000.
The judges evaluated nominees on a wide range of factors, most notably
their consistent demonstration of devotion to the industry, along with their
innovation, creativity, integrity, entrepreneurial spirit and vision. This
year's judges were Julie Murray, President of Her New York, a public
relations and event design firm, Katherine Compton, Editor in Chief of the
Herb Companion Magazine and Lisa Bardsley, Executive Director of the
Handmade Beauty Expo (launching later this year). "While we had great
fun making a decision, it was not easy," said Compton. "The
selection process really was quite a challenge because of the quality of the
businesses we considered. I was very impressed by the products themselves,
plus the websites and the collateral materials provided. I also was pleased
to see that the businesses emphasized their ethical principles in
relationship to the environment and their commitment to fair trade
standards, whenever possible. Not only did I get to try out some wonderful
beauty products, I felt assured that the Earth and her people were
being treated beautifully in the process." Bardsley, a former handmade
beauty products manufacturer herself, commented that "it
an extremely hard choice because all of the companies we evaluated were
really very unique and exceptional." To help the winners
publicize and highlight their achievements, HBN will provide them with
custom designed Handmade Beauty Business of the Year banners for display on
their websites and incorporation into their printed marketing materials.
They will also receive plaques suitable for display in an office or
manufacturing environment. Founded in January 2000 by wife, mother,
attorney, author and Lifestyle CEO Donna Maria Coles Johnson, the Handmade
Beauty Network is the
only trade organization providing a holistic suite of meaningful, tangible
benefits to handmade beauty businesses, including those manufacturing soaps,
cosmetics, fragrances, candles and aromatherapy products. With over 400
members worldwide, HBN's missions include harnessing the shared energy and
vitality of HBN members to address issues of consumer education, regulation,
marketing and public relations, freeing HBN members to concentrate on
achieving their business goals. For further information about HBN, contact
its president, Donna Maria.
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