Thank You!!

As I close out my 3rd full year as Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of The Handmade Beauty Connection, I am humbled and honored to be invited into your email box every week. Regular newsletter departments will return in January 2003, but in the meantime, I hope you will allow me to say Thank You.

The first issue of this newsletter was published on January 16, 2000. At that time, the name of the publication was The Handmade Toiletries Weekly Newsletter and there were just a few hundred subscribers. Nearly three years, a name change and thousands of subscribers later, dM's Handmade Beauty Connection reaches almost 4,000 subscribers around the world every week with handmade beauty product reviews, Create The Life You Love™ tips for small business owners and news and information on what's happening in and around The Handmade Beauty Network.

As we approach the end of another year, I say Thank You to everyone who makes it possible for me to publish this newsletter every week.

Readers and HBN Members

Thank you readers! You tell me in emails, cards and letters time and again that HBC provides a fun, unique and valuable service that adds joy to your life. Thank you HBN members! Your creative spirit and love of all things handmade transcends cyberspace to touch and inspire me every day. You are making a difference ... people tell me so all the time.

Please visit HBN's Online Member Directory to learn more about HBN members and the unique handmade beauty products they make and sell. And also, visit Mango Butter and check out the information-packed Power Profiles of HBN's Supplier Members!

Contributors & Chief Technology Officer

Thank you those who have contributed their products as prizes for The Handmade Beauty Trivia Contest and to those whose editorial contributions and story ideas have helped me meet the challenge of providing unique content that is unavailable anywhere else in the world - online or off. Thanks especially to Kim Baron of Fallen Muse WebWorks who serves as HBN's Chief Technology Officer and has fixed more broken links and pictures than I care to remember. Without her, this publication simply would not exist.

Sponsors

I also wish to thank the sponsors who have helped to cover some of the costs associated with publishing HBC every week. While the publication incurs no printing or mailing costs, there are significant costs associated with its creation, archiving and maintenance. Without our sponsors, consistent and continuous publication each week for the past 3 years would have been impossible. With their help, I have been able to deliver this newsletter chock full of free quality information that is not available in print or online anywhere else in the world at any price.

Please take a moment to visit HBC's sponsors and tell them that you heard about them right here. It's their support that makes it all possible!

The Scent Shack brought HBC to you many times in 2002. They are an inspiring testimony to what a family can accomplish when they put their minds (and noses!) to it.

Essential Wholesale provides invaluable support and encouragement and has no shortage of essential oils, wonderful cosmetics bases and new ideas to share with you. 

SunRose Aromatics has exquisite aromatic oils at fabulous prices and in small quantities that anyone can afford. Check out the Perfumer's Emporium!

Celestial Body Aromatherapy pours wisdom and spirit into the distillation of organic plants grown on their Missouri farm - America's heartland.

Green Valley Aromatherapy is our neighbor to the north with many happy customers (and noses!) south of the border.

BioChemica has great products with a  Web site that reads like an information manual on exotic oils and butters.

The Buying Group makes it easy to buy small quantities of supplies at reasonable prices.

Bramble Berry
The Soap Fairy
Utopian Garden
Aromaleigh
Essential Restoratives
Elysian Dream
Fairies Kiss
Swiss Herbal Beauty
Monave Mineral Cosmetics