Donna Maria's Handmade Beauty Connection
April 19, 2004

 -->This Week's Sponsor <--

LUSH the purveyors of fresh handmade cosmetics are giving you the chance to WIN a Ten Out of Ten gift set, just in time for Mother’s Day! This gift is a collection of our ten most loved products as chosen by the experts, our customers. For your chance to WIN all you have to do is subscribe to our online newsletter Lush Life; a guide to new products, free beauty tips and special discounts & promotions – Click Here to Subscribe.

1. HBN Update: Welcome New & Renewing HBN Members!
2. Branding: It's Not Just For Cows!
3. Handmade Beauty Recipe Of The Week: Mediterranean Skin Cream
4. Beauty & The Business Trivia Question:  win some essential oil
5. The Lifestyle CEO: How To Interpret Your Dreams

Scentual Therapy | Michelle Brown | Michigan
* renewing member; handcrafted olive oil based soaps, shea butter intensive creams and lotions

Natural Selection Bath and Body, Inc. | Jean Vavra | California
* renewing member; handmade soap, lotions, lip balm, bath salts and salt scrub made with silk fibers

Annalissa Skin Care | Denise Jacob | Georgia

Gateway Food Products Co. | Teresa Raines | Illinois
* vegetable oils (coconut, canola, sunflower, olive), shortening, lard and shortening flakes for candle wax; no minimum orders

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, now with 4 ways to search: (1) by state/country; (2) by member business name; (3) by keyword search; or (4) using our new alphabetical listings.

Mediterranean Skin Cream is rich take on the centuries old tradition of using olives to smooth and soften the skin. Enjoy it in the winter if your skin is normal to dry, and all year long is your skin is dry. It's great for smoothing rough patches on elbows, knees and heels for any skin type! This recipe was formulated with olive butter supplied by HBN member Essential Wholesale!

New Features At MakeYourCosmetics.com! Register to enjoy printable recipes, site user recipe ratings and your own personal recipe book! HBN members are automatically registered using their usernames and passwords! To register, just click here!! 

Last Week's Question:  I am dark and thick. I am used in perfumery to obtain a green and earthy middle/base note. I am just a bit sweet, a fresh and slightly cucumber-like aromatic indication of the delicate white to pastel colored blooms found on the plant from which I come. I am extracted using solvents since it is not possible to obtain much of me through the distillation process. My scent is fleeting yet unmistakable. While not cheap, I am worth every penny and only a small amount of me is needed to make a difference in your favorite perfume. What am I?

Be the first to correctly answer this week's question and win one of the Personalized Baby Shower Favors reviewed in last week's issue, plus some essential oil!

Please read the contest rules here before submitting your entry. Put "TRIVIA CONTEST ANSWER" in the subject line or your answer will not be considered.

While time does not permit me to respond personally to all entrants, the winner's name will be announced in the next newsletter!

\Life.Style CEO\n.  A person who owns and manages a business, not solely for financial gain, but also to enjoy the personal rewards of entrepreneurship, independence, flexibility and fun.

The dictionary defines a daydream as dreamlike musing or fantasy while awake, especially of the fulfillment of wishes or hopes. Anyone who has ever had the slightest thought about making the most of our lives has experienced their fair share of daydreams. Daydreams, and dreams in general, can be powerful catalysts for positive change in life. Like visualization, dreaming can help us picture ourselves in a desirable situation, thus providing the impetus we need to take positive steps toward our vision of the future.

But dreams can also be meaningless, as is the case when they are encountered time and time again by a someone who simply can't seem to stop dreaming. How many of us have friends and relatives who are constantly dreaming of the book they'll write one day, the scuba lessons they'll take, or the trip around the world that they will enjoy someday, yet when you look behind the chatter to see what they are doing to reach those dreams, there's nothing there. They are simply talking about their dreams. They are not about the business of making them reality.

In business, we can interpret our dreams against the yardstick of our accomplishments. If you have a dream about opening your own business, or if you already have a business and are dreaming of taking the "next steps," how about opening your eyes and taking the next step? Have a look at those dreams in light of what you can do to make them real!! If you are dreaming of starting a new business, how about writing down your dream and then a short plan of action for making it come true? If you already have a business, and just want to move things along, why not spend some time in reflective daydream, and then write down what you visualize? In other words, as Steven Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, would say, "Begin with the end in mind," and work backward from there.

So go ahead! Dream! Visualize where you want to be and then visualize yourself taking yourself there. And if you're serious about improving your life by maximizing your business potential, don't stop there. Take the next step into action! Interpret your dreams by writing them down, and then being about the business of setting goals to make them come true.

Dreams apart from goals to make them reality are no more than schemes to lull you into complacency. Fight the temptation to let the afternoon slip into the day, the day into the week, the week into the month -- and so forth -- without having taken any tangible steps toward making your dreams of business ownership reality. View it, then do it!! Take positive steps toward your goals, set deadlines and watch your daydreams materialize before your eyes! All 400 members of HBN have done it -- and so can you!!