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Handmade
Beauty Connection
June
10, 2002
Happy Father's Day!! (Yeah,
I know it's not until Sunday, but I celebrated most of the month for
Mother's Day in May so it's only fair that I do the same for Father's Day!!)
If you're a dad, you're a very special person so enjoy your day and make
sure someone treats you to something you especially enjoy!
To subscribe to our
newsletter, click here.
A Publication of The Handmade Beauty Network
ISSN 1530-9630 |
Vol. 3, Issue 22
This Week's Sponsor: The
Scent Shack
We have the best quality ingredients at the best prices!
*FRAGRANCE & ESSENTIAL OILS*
Illumination - an
Asian inspired blend of orange blossom and lily
-$21.95 per pound
Spring Meadow - our newest selection $22.20 per pound
Patchouli Essential
Oil - $36.00 per pound
*COLORANTS*
Ultramarines and Oxides - 8 pigments to choose from!
11 shimmering micas to choose from!
*MOLDS, BOOKS & MORE!*
Glycerin Soap Base, Milky Way Molds, Soapmaking books, cocoa and shea butters!
Discounts on orders $40 and up!
The Scent Shack | 10 West State St, Geneva, IL 60134
(630) 845-8931 | Email: info@thescentshack.com
1.
HBN Update: Welcome New & Renewing Members & Exciting Member News!!
2.
HBN Member Success Spotlight: KARE Handcrafted Soap
3.
Handmade Beauty Trivia Question: win a bar of handmade soap in the
"Cedar" scent made by HBN member Sunlit Soap!
4.
Create The Life You Love™:
Making Yourself Memorable,
Part II: Be Consistent
5.
New at MakeYourCosmetics.com: Hemp
Seed Face Polish With Green Tea & Vitamin E
6.
Handmade Beauty Product Review by Donna Maria
1. HBN Update: Welcome New
& Renewing HBN Members & HBN Members On The Move!!
~
Welcome New HBN Members!
Meadowcrest Soap Company |
Shea Rosa | Utah
* handmade soap, toiletries and candles made with soy and other natural
ingredients Rosie
Cheeks Herbal Soap | Kimberly Dravenstott | Ohio
* Srubbing Buzzles
and other bath and body luxuries handmade in small batches Lucyland
| Lucija Kordic Hadziselimovic | California
* professional graphics art services
for your handmade toiletries products ... labels, brochures, and more! Cowgirl
Enterprises | Donna Baase | Colorado
* wholesale of our popular
Cowgirl skincare line; perfect for your retail store or online storefront Rainshadow
Labs | Casey Kellar | Oregon
* fine bath, body and home
fragrance products available today, manufactured and private labeled for you Harmony SoapWorks
| Diana Thompson & John Adams | Washington
* handcrafted soaps, balms and bath products
made with quality ingredients to soothe your skin and senses BK
Pumice Products, Inc. | Debbie Jenkins | Idaho
* fabulous pumice (PuMouse™) scrubbers in a variety of colors to suit any
gift giving need; wholesale available ~ Welcome Renewing
Members!
Soaps and Scents | Lynette Vail | California
Brambleberry,
Inc. | Anne-Marie Faiola | Washington ~ HBN Members On The
Move!!
Announcing The Impending
Publication Of "Make Your Own Cosmetics!!"
I am
pleased to announce that I recently signed a contract with Champion Press
for the publication of two books tentatively titled, "Make
Your Own Cosmetics," one for adults and one for teens.
The books are planned for a late fall release, just in time for the
holidays!! Chapters in each book are slated to include: Cleansing, Toning,
Moisturizing, Mask/Scrubs and Make-Up.
HBN
members, click here
to find out how you can send in your original cosmetics recipes for possible
feature in the book!!
Learn more about our members and their exciting activities by visiting their Web sites through HBN's Online
Member Directory!
2. HBN Member Success
Spotlight: KARE Handcrafted Soap
 This
week's HBN Member Success Spotlight shines on HBN member KARE
Handcrafted Soap, whose owner, Karilee
Valeriano believes in eating and living as naturally as possible. In
addition to making soap for her family, she makes bread from scratch from
Montana grown wheat which she grinds herself in her kitchen. The family's
milk and butter come from a neighbor's cow and their eggs are laid by their
own chickens. Knowing all that about Karilee, it's no surprise that, after
she perfected a soap recipe, she was in business ...Click here
to read the whole story!
Member Success Spotlights are one of the many benefits of HBN membership. To
learn more about Karilee and all of the other HBN members
profiled in HBN's Success Spotlights, click here.
3. Handmade Beauty Trivia
Question: Last
week's winner was HBN member Michelle Rotherham of La Crescenta,
California. Michelle won a tube of my Vitamin E Enriched Shea Butter Lip
Balm!
 Last
Week's Question: I am a collection of 38 time-tested healing items. The
healers in my collection can help you deal with everything from fears and
anxieties to unwarranted guilt and lack of confidence.
Last Week's Answer: Bach Flower
Remedies
This Week's Question: I do not
produce an essential oil, but I am a real plant that a popular fragrance oil
is named for. I am hardy and sweet smelling and I grow in abundance in full
sun in humid areas. My leaves, which curl up when dried, are braided into
beautiful coiled baskets which are made by hand using me, pine needles and
pieces of Palmetto leaves, and sold mainly in the low
country of Charleston, South Carolina, and the surrounding islands including
St. Johns, Fripp, Kiawah and Pawley's.
Be the first to submit the correct common and botanical name of the plant
described and win a bar of handmade soap in the "Cedar" (a perfect
Father's Day gift for a special man in your life!!) scent made
by HBN member Sunlit Soap! Please read the contest rules here
before submitting your entry.
While time does not permit me to respond personally to all entrants, the
winner will be notified by email and their name posted at HBN's home page.
4.
Create The Life You Love™: Making Yourself
Memorable Part II: Be Consistent
In the last issue, I started a 10-part series entitled "Making
Yourself Memorable." Part I focuses on the importance of being
an expert. If you missed that article, you can read it here.
This week, we address the importance of consistency to the
growth and prosperity of your business.
Making Yourself Memorable, Part I I:
Be Consistent
Consistency and predictability are among the most significant and
valuable positive things you can add to your business to solidify a
memorable brand. People have to know what to expect from you. Otherwise,
they become confused and your brand does not achieve and maintain a clear
identity with your target audience. Consistency is critical - no matter what you are selling!
You want people to be able to recall what you sell day after day, month
after month and year after year, and be able to rely on your ability to
fulfill their desire for your goods. They need to know that they can return
to your place of buisness to find the products they love.
In short, give the people what they want when they want it and you will
be successful!
If you have store hours, be there during store hours. If you can't be
there personally, at least be open even if it means you have to hire
part-time help or have a relative or close friend available to pitch in in
an emergency. If you carry a certain number of soaps in a certain number of
scents, do your level best to have them in stock. How disappointing it is
when we go to a store to buy something we love only to find that they are
flat out of stock. If Murphy's Law prevails and you have no choice but to be
out of stock, always offer your customer an attractive alternative or a
"rain check" for the product they want.
As an example of the benefits of consistency to a small enterprise, let's
look at HBN member Mama
Coco's. This example is most relevant as a good example of how a very
small business can operate in a consistent fashion and attain a predictable
brand image. Mama Coco's is a Hawaii-based business owned by Lymari Hughes,
a wife and mother of two toddlers. After first making and selling everything
from soap to lotions, Lymari stepped back and realized that she wasn't
making any money. Her reality check convinced her that a problem was that
there was no consistency in her business plan and that she had spread
herself too thin. Customers liked her products but she did not have a real
consistent brand image and, as a small manufacturer, she could not keep up
with making and selling several different products and make a reasonable
profit.
Lymari decided to focus on lip balms, and to create the best ones
possible. She developed a fabulous recipe and today, she offers 4 flavors of
lip balm which are sold in fine specialty shops from Honolulu to Beverly
Hills to New York City and around the world. (See my review of Lymari's lip
balm in today's product review.) Mama Coco's lip balm is made with freshly
pressed organic virgin coconut oil, cocoa butter and honey. Sometimes, Lymari
presses the coconut oil from the meat herself by roasting it so the water
evaporates. She then presses out the fresh oil from the meat. Lymari says
that this fresh pressed organic oil can be rubbed directly into the skin to
obtain fabulous results. (And I agree because she sent me some and it's
fantastic!!) She also tells me that the fresh pressed oil is more fragrant and skin-loving
than the virgin coconut oil which is processed in bulk because bulk
processing destroys some of the nutrients and compromises the fresh coconut
aroma. (My nose seconds that opinion!!)
When I get lip balm from Mama Coco's, I can count on choosing from the
same 4 fragrances packaged in the same silver slide top tins. I can also
count on the same label featuring the beautiful Island lady smiling at me with
those lovely "Mama Coco" lips. I can also count
on each tin being carefully and neatly wrapped in the same color of tan
tissue paper, complete with hospital corners. Mama Coco's is a perfect
example of how a small business with one person at the helm as "chief
cook and bottle washer" can have a successful business with a
consistent and memorable brand image ... and still have time to enjoy
raising a family. Mama
Coco's consistency makes it easy for people to
remember her and it also makes it easy for satisfied customers like me to tell
other people about the product. One thing in 4 flavors ... how simple,
consistent and
memorable is that?
Next Week: Be Internet
Savvy
5. New
At MakeYourCosmetics.com: Hemp
Seed Face Polish With Green Tea & Vitamin E
In celebration of Father's Day, this
week's recipe is a really nice recipe for a facial grain product designed
for men. Check out Hemp Seed Face Polish With Green Tea & Vitamin E
submitted by HBC reader Angie Tripp. The essential oils lend a fresh, woodsy
fragrance, suitable for oily or combination skin. Again, Happy Father's Day
to all you wonderful daddies out there! When you visit
MakeYourCosmetics.com,
it's easy to buy the ingredients you need to make your goodies by clicking
on our Partner links:
Essential
Wholesale: natural unscented cosmetic bases, pure
essential oils, absolutes, carrier oils such as avocado, virgin coconut,
sweet almond, jojoba, shea butter and specialty packaging supplies!
Bramble
Berry, Inc.: over 80 different, fully
tested fragrance oils (including the exclusive "Relaxing" and
"Energy" blends), over 250 soap molds, essential oils and
unscented bases.
SunRose
Aromatics: pure essential oils (many organic), carrier oils and
other aromatherapy products, each carefully selected for quality. Check out
their Perfumer's Emporium.
The
Scent Shack: fragrance oils and soap supplies. Fragrance oils are
tested in cold process, melt & pour soap, and candles, and test results
are listed at their Web site. Scents tested by soapers for soapers!
Lynden
House International , Canadian supplier of soap and candlemaking
supplies such as fixed oils, perfumes, essential oils, molds, powdered
milks, colors, pre-made bases, candle wax, wicks, embeds and more!
6.
Handmade Beauty Product Review: Mama Coco's Coconut Cream Lip Balm
Mama Coco's Coconut Cream Lip Balm
1/4 ounce tin | $4.50OK,
there's lip balm and then there's Lip Balm! Mama Coco's makes Lip
Balm! and you just ought to try it!! I chose the
Coconut Cream
flavor as my favorite. I gotta say that this
stuff is the smoo-cream! (That's my new, as of just now, term for "the
smoothest and the creamiest!") It's not like most lip balms ... that' s
not to say that most lip balms aren't nice ... they are. But I've never used
one made with virgin coconut oil like what Mama Coco's uses in this
stuff! It smells just like the coconut meat I ate when I cracked a fresh
coconut several years ago in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. So after I put it on my
lips and it was the smoo-cream, I just had to lick my lips and taste it.
Ahhh! Delicious! Does anyone like cream soda? Well, it tastes sort of like
that, only more delicate. In fact, I wish Mama Coco could make some cream
soda in this Coconut Cream
flavor.
Mama Coco's makes no secret of the other
fresh ingredients (many of them certified organic) she chose for her lip
balms: cocoa butter, beeswax, honey and several herbs including two of my
favorites, calendula and sea buckthorn. These goodies all combine to make a
smooth lip experience. You will want to put this on your lips before you go
to bed at night. You'll also want to have some handy in case someone special
with a sweet tooth wants to give you a kiss!
In addition to Coconut Cream,
Mama Coco's lip balm in available in Hawaiian Vanilla, Ka'u Orange Cream and
Tradewind Mint. And at only $4.50 a pop, you can splurge on all 4 and make 3
other people's lips as happy as yours! These great balms can be found at Mama
Coco's, where you'll find an organized, easy to use Web site and
shopping cart.
Visit The Handmade Beauty Connection Archives.
Visit our suite of Web sites serving the handmade toiletries industry:
HandmadeBeauty.com: the
leading industry trade organization
MangoButter.com:
400+ suppliers of raw materials and packaging, updated weekly!
MakeYourCosmetics.com:
ingredient encyclopedia & original cosmetics recipes
DonnaMaria.com:
sound advice for your small business, Create The Life You Love™
Handmade Skin
Care.com: secure online shopping!
Have your ad seen by over 3,000 subscribers! ! Click here
to see why Essential Wholesale says that the returns from their newsletter
ad "just keep on coming," and why The
Scent Shack says, "Our sponsorship of The Handmade Beauty Connection
went over very well, we had a huge number of hits on the day
the newsletter was published, plus we got quite a few new customers."
Donna Maria, Editor-In-Chief, DonnaMaria@HandmadeBeauty.com
The Handmade Beauty Connection
The Handmade Beauty Network | www.HandmadeBeauty.com
© Copyright 2002 Donna
Maria and affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Click here
for important legal information.
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