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Donna Maria's Handmade Beauty Connection Newsletter
July 1, 2002
For all you die hard Americans who love bar-b-que and fireworks, have a fun and safe holiday!!
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---> This Week's Sponsor: Your Business!!

If you're looking for a fun, economical way to promote your business to handmade beauty product enthusiasts all around the world, look no further!!

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The Handmade Beauty Connection reaches over 3,000 loyal subscribers each week. Our subscribers are lovers of handmade toiletries and a large percentage of them make their own products using the educational information, raw materials and supplies provided by companies like yours!!

For details on how your can get your message heard by loyal HBC readers, click here.

1. HBN Update: Welcome New & Renewing Members!!
2. Handmade Beauty Trivia Question: win a bottle of Spearmint Leaf Foot & Leg Lotion!
3. Create The Life You Love: Making Yourself Memorable, Part V: Be A Leader
4. New At MakeYourCosmetics.com: Banana Rose Facial Mask For Dry Skin
5. Handmade Beauty Product Review by Donna Maria

~ Welcome New & Renewing HBN Members!

Olde Thyme Bath Company | Lisa Wyss Bardsley | Oregon
* bath salts, body scrubs, body buttersl - all scented with essential oils and packaged with vintage themes

Naturalliance Associates | Madeline La Mont | Arizona
* your source for natural soaps and personal care products; supplier of jojoba oil and packaging

Camden-Grey Essential Oils | Vivian & Hector Garcia | Florida
* renewing member; essential oils, base oil, butters and everything to make your own toiletries products

Chandler's Soaps | Marie C. Gale | Oregon
* renewing member; handmade soaps and body care products made at Oregon's Chandler Ranch

Moon and Stars Enchanted Soaps | Alison H. Edie | Georgia
* renewing member; handmade soaps celebrating the beauty and history of the Savannah area

The Eclectic Collectic | Elaine Thomson | Texas
* Black currant cuticle cream; other personal care products made with certified organics and essential oils

Organic Soaps and Balms | Elaine Thomson | Virginia
* handmade soaps and balms made with organic olive oil as their base ingredient

Placebo X LLC | Claudia Mayer | New York
* aromatic oil: a proprietary blend of essential oils in a sweet almond oil base

Nisa, Inc. | Naomi Novotny | Washington
* The Ultimate Manicure, a soothing spa treatment for your hands; also suppliers of Dead Sea salts

~ HBN Members On The Move!!

Learn more about our members and their exciting activities by visiting their Web sites through HBN's Online Member Directory!

Last Week's Question: Though I have pretty much no nutritional value to speak of, I am often used in skincare for my ability to revive and refresh. My fresh juice is a wonderful beauty treatment all its own and is commonly used in facial toners and spritzers and to soothe tired, puffy skin. My scent is very light and difficult to duplicate, and most attempts result in poor imitations. When it comes tome, there's nothing like the real thing! 

Last Week's Answer: cucumber

This Week's Question: Currently, these raw materials are being studied for their ability to, among other things, help prevent cancer. They are present in significant amounts in many fruits, including raspberries, blueberries and other deeply colored fruits. They belong to a family of compounds known in the food and flavoring industries as "flavonoids" and are thought to help give skin a rosy glow. What are they?

Be the first to submit the correct common and botanical name of the plant described and win a bottle of Spearmint Leaf Foot & Leg Lotion, complements of Sungarden Botanicals! 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.

For the past few weeks, I've been sharing a series of articles on making yourself memorable. The first 4 installments were:

1. Be An Expert here.
2. Be Consistent here.
3.  Be Internet Savvy here.
4. Be Extraordinary here.

This week, we take a look at how being an effective leader can help make you and your brand memorable. I have spoken with many hundreds of small business owners (and persons with dreams of becoming small business owners), and far too frequently, one of the things I notice most is that they don't see themselves as leaders. Many people think you have to be famous or politically inclined to be thought of as a leader. But nothing could be further from the truth! Parents lead their families. Teachers lead students. Mentors lead their protégés. And small business owners lead their businesses. If you don't see yourself as a leader, here are some tips to help you change your mindset!

1. Be In The Crowd, But Not Of The Crowd. Whatever industry you are in, do your best to be in it, but not of it. That is, be a participant in the industry, but don't take on its personality. Don't let the mediocrity present in most industries prevent you from becoming more than just another industry participant. Instead, step to the forefront and do something new and unexpected. Lead your business from producing products that people can find on every corner and on every search engine on the 'Net, to products found in only a few places ... chief among them, your storefront! In this way, those who work with you will become more valuable assets. You will also be providing inspiration and encouragement for others while developing a group of peers who respect and admire your efforts. Raising the bar for the entire industry makes everyone have more fun and enhances competition in a way that provides consumers with better products from which to choose. People don't remember people or products that are in the crowd. They remember people and products that stand out from the crowd.  So, be memorable: stand out from the crowd!

2. Learn To Take Risks. "There is nothing to fear but fear itself." Of course, then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt first uttered those words decades ago in the context of war, but they are relevant for our discussion here as well. Though we'd like to think of it as mostly fun, depending on the circumstances, business sometimes is war. But even when competing in an industry does not rise to that level, it certainly requires a hefty dose of guts to step forward and offer your product to the world. Don't be afraid to take a calculated risk ... not a stupid, out-in-left-field risk, but a calculated risk. Overcome your personal fear factor! Move out of your comfort zone and lead the pack! Stop making excuses and thinking up reasons why your ideas won't fly. Business leaders conquer their fears. Their stories are inspirational, and people remember them AND the products that come with them.

3. Encourage People To Adopt Your Vision. I can't think of a leader who did this better than Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. When he emerged as a leading visionary in the 50s and 60s, his ideas were anomalous to everything that traditional American society held dear at the time. Yet employing firm yet gentle leadership techniques, he caused millions of people to adopt his vision. What would the world be like today if he had given in to his fears ... fear of failure, fear of death? He was in the world but he was not of the world, and he refused to adopt the mediocre, predictable style of others who shared his ideas, but were not willing to lead the masses. He took risks. He conquered all of his fears and changed the world as a result. Of course, most small business owners neither expect nor want to alter the course of history, but each one has his or her own goals, one of which is always to enjoy a loyal customer following. Establish your vision, then lead your target market toward your vision. Once you have accomplished that goal, your product will be easy to sell. And if it's a good product, people will remember it and return for more. The result will be an ever expanding group of loyal customers who will purchase your product even if a comparable one is on sale for less.

Next Week: Be Calm Under Pressure

Banana Rose Facial Mask For Dry Skin was whipped up last week when my mom said she wanted something fresh and soothing to help her skin which, despite record heat and humidity in the DC area, was feeling kind of dry. I looked around my kitchen and saw a ripe banana which I knew I wouldn't be in the mood for that day, so I used it to make this for my mom. She loved it and so will you!!

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.

5. Handmade Beauty Product Review: Fresh Cucumber Hand & Body Lotion by Sungarden Botanicals

Well, it's finally summertime and what, you ask, is more like summer than a fresh, colorful garden salad teeming with crisp vegetables? The answer is: Fresh Cucumber Hand & Body Lotion!! Why? Because it's made with cucumber distillate and that is one of many things that makes it oh so special!!

This is a light lotion so if you are the type who hates heavy or greasy potions during the summertime, this product is formulated with you in mind. I personally tend to typically choose lotions that contain a higher quantity of oil, making them a little on the rich side, but this light lotion is perfect for a humid afternoon when too much richness can seem unbearably heavy. In addition to the distillate (which I'll get to in a minute), it's made with rose water, aloe, coconut oil and jojoba. The texture is light but not watery and it massages into my skin quickly and thoroughly without leaving an unpleasant after-feel. The essential oils are added in very small quantities: rosemary and tea tree ... I can tell there's only a little of both because they are hardly present at all in the aroma.

What I can smell a lot of is the wonderful, fresh, crisp and true aroma of cucumber! HA! Just a week ago, I was thinking about cucumbers and included them as the answer to the trivia question. Among other things, I mentioned that the aroma of cucumbers was hard to duplicate! How true!! I guess that's why Sungarden Botanicals uses the real thing ... cucumber distillate made from none other than the freshly crushed cukes!!

The labeling and packaging for Fresh Cucumber Hand & Body Lotion is simple yet top notch. An emerald green plastic bottle with a black flip top dispenser holds the product, and the label sports an informative list of ingredients and a pretty picture of a few fresh cucumber slices. (I almost feel like I could pick them up and put them over my eyes!!) The photo dares you to smell the product to see if it really smells like real cucumbers ... and it does!!

Fresh Cucumber Hand & Body Lotion is also available in Essential Lavender, Goat's Milk and Spearmint Leaf Foot & Leg Lotion (this week's trivia prize!!) and the prices are right at no more than $4.25 for 4 ounces! To order your own, call Kim at Sungarden Botanicals at (717) 293-0783 or email her at khirata@peoplepc.com. You won't regret it!!