Donna Maria's Handmade Beauty Connection
May 24, 2004

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1. HBN Update: Welcome New & Renewing HBN Members!
2. Join Me For My Handmade Beauty Brunch: June 13 With Special Guest Lisa Price!!
3. Handmade Beauty Recipe Of The Week: Strawberry Face Mask
4. Beauty & The Business Trivia Question:  win a 1/2 hour Lifestyle CEO consultation with me!
5. The Lifestyle CEO: What I Know For Sure
6. Handmade Beauty Product Review: Oatmeal & Honey Complexion Scrub

Network! Network! Network! Here's HBN's weekly crop of new and renewing members. So open your email browser and say cyber "hi" to yet another like-minded business owner!

Queen Esther's Soaps & Body Creations | Diane Buono | North Carolina
* renewing member; all-natural, handcrafted, therapeutic soaps and body products

Turtle Woman Herbs | Barb Porlides | Connecticut
* renewing member; handmade skin and body care products, made in small batches for freshness and quality

Sublime Escentials, Inc. | Lauren Lamy | Connecticut
* renewing member; products made with organic herbs, essential oils, purified water, natural mineral plants and vitamins

Crescent Moon | Edith Bennett | California
* renewing member; custom blended essential oil products

Dragonfly Herbals | Ghita Heidt | Florida
* renewing member; soaps, salves bath salts body butters and other handmade body care products

The Buying Group | Rachel Ratledge | Florida
* renewing member; buying group saving you money on toiletries supplies, including packaging, base oils and pre-made bases

Sweetmama's Kitchen | Heather Henry | New York
*  homemade body butters and lotions made with the finest oils, butters and fragrances

Feathered Frog Essentials | Shirley Mrau | Canada
* cold process herbal soaps, body butters, lip balms, bath salts, bath milks, massage oils and bath bombs.

April Showers | Melissa Rivera | New York
*  handcrafted and aromatic products made with essential oils and organic botanicals

DSA Aromatherapy, LLC | Diane Olsen | Arizona
* handmade body butter, shea butter soaps, face oil, hand cream, bath salts, hair rejuvenator, lavender aroma mist, and massage oils

Earth Element Soapworks | Kellie Quarles | Maryland
*  gentle, natural herbal bath products for the entire family

pure peace | Cherie Bianco | Illinois
*  Pure Peace

The Body and Dessert Shoppe | Colleen DeLost | California
* personalized creams, lotions & bath products that smell as delicious as your favorite dessert and bakery items

HBN Members On The Move

HBN Member Kibby Mitra is pleased to announce the launch of their newly designed website at From Nature With Love! Stop by and have a look!

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.

Lisa founded HBN member Carol's Daughter with $100 in cash and the boldness to believe she could turn her cosmetics making hobby into a thriving enterprise. At my Beauty Brunch, Lisa will share 3 Secrets Of Sweet Success and inspire us with her amazing journey from bankruptcy to female entrepreneur extraordinaire!!

For Directions, Information & To Register, download our PDF registration form here. (If Adobe Acrobat is not installed on your computer, download it free here.)

Last Week's Question: The grand opening party for the Carol's Daughter retail location in New York was scheduled to begin at 10:00, but when the day finally arrived, there was a line around the block by 9:30. To win this week, state the date of the grand opening party.

Last Week's Answer:  August 21, 1999

Be the first to correctly answer this week's questions and win a 1/2 hour Lifestyle CEO consultation with me!

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!

OK, I know what you're saying. "What I Know For Sure" is a column in Oprah's magazine; what's dM doing using it? Well, let me first give credit where credit is due: thank you Oprah for distilling a short phrase that captures the essence of what we mean when we say we are certain about something.

Having said that, let me interrupt this series on "The Balance Myth" to respond to the emails and phone calls I received last week from people around the country who are discouraged about where they are in terms of their progress toward their dreams. Maybe it's the moon or something, but whatever the catalyst, last week was the time to be contacted by people who are enduring their business "wilderness experience," in large part because they feel they don't have the money to make their business a success. The purpose of this week's column is to say: "Please don't be discouraged!"

I'm not suggesting you should not feel overwhelmed and walk around acting like what you're doing is all fun and games all the time. It's not. Having limited funds is not fun anytime, anywhere -- but especially in business. If you don't have the money to buy diapers for your kids, you can usually get that from a friend, relative or even the state. But it you don't have the money to make your business successful, good luck finding anything from a handout to a high interest loan!

But you are not alone, and with a little patience and creativity and planning (yes, PLANNING!!), you do have at your disposal everything you need to move forward. The world is filled with people who started businesses with very little money and built successful ventures. I don't mean they became as wealthy as Bill Gates necessarily. I just mean they were able to build ventures that provided good lives for themselves and their families, and created legacies and job opportunities for their children and perhaps others.

On the other hand, the world is also filled with people who started with a lot of money and blew it because they did not make wise choices, because they gave up or God forbid, because they just got "unlucky." Whatever the case, none of us knows the extent to which we can maximize our potential unless we first decide to try. And in trying, please don't forget to plan. That is, gather as many of the relevant facts as you can about your business and what you project it to be before plunging headfirst into a fiercely competitive no man's land.

While a well thought out and detailed business plan is nice, let's face the fact that many business owners don't have the forethought to create one. Or, what most frequently happens, they have actually found themselves in business before they see the wisdom of having a plan, and by then, they don't have the time to create one because they are so busy running the business. If you find yourself in this situation, here's a mini-business plan project for you.

dM's 30-Minute Business Plan

1. Make a list of priorities for your business.
2. Then make a list of everything you know you need to do in the foreseeable future to meet those goals.  
3. Then put an approximate dollar amount beside each entry. (Some won't have dollar amounts -- they'll just be things to do.)  
4. Then prioritize your list of priorities according to the most important to the least important.
5. Then look at your funds. Include cash on hand, things you can liquidate like an old car, 401(K), some savings, stocks, bonds, credit card advances, etc.
6. Then decide whether you want to liquidate some or all of those things.
7. Then look at how much money you would have left after liquidation. Include how much money comes in each week that you can pour back into the business.
8. Earmark that money for the top priorities until you run out of money on paper.

You now have an "at-a-glance" view of what your priorities are and how much money you have to accomplish them. Know that t his quick exercise will never replace a well thought out business plan. On the other hand, it's better than nothing, and with it, you can plan your business as wisely as possible, considering the time constraints, implementing specific steps to reach your goals. Understand and accept all times that you can't plan everything. Bad times WILL come, but you WILL get through them -- and always remember that you are building for the future.

Consider the real life example of Lisa Price of Carol's Daughter. Lisa made a success of her business without a full blown plan, but her wilderness experience was anything but pleasant!

If you are experiencing a wilderness experience in your business, what better time than the present to take advantage of the inspiration and encouragement you will receive from Lisa herself at my Handmade Beauty Brunch as she shares her 3 Secrets Of Sweet Success. She'll share first hand how she got through staying up all night with nursing infants while she still had orders to fill. She'll tell us how she had to call customers and tell them their orders wouldn't be ready on time because a child was ill. She'll elaborate on being flat broke, with no place to sell her products but her living room coffee table, and how she still turned down investors because she wanted to create and own a legacy for her children. She'll share how she figured out she needed find the resources to trademark her company name so it would be hers and hers alone. She'll recall her darkest fears that she was ruining her children's chances for a good life by buying the ingredients to make Jamaican Punch Honey Butter instead of putting the money into their college fund.

You'll be surrounded by people like Lisa who, using sheer determination and will, and money as it came in, to make it work. I might even throw in my two cents -- like the time when after the birth of our first child, my husband and I had about $25.00 in the bank, and I was crying my eyes out while my daughter was at my breast; and how he yelled at me in anger and frustration that I should "go back to work, should never have quit my job -- look at where we were now.!!" He was working like a dog and we had nothing to show for it but a pile of bills that we couldn't even look at because it was too depressing and we couldn't pay them anyway so what was the point?

These are the stories of life and business ownership. It's not a cake walk. But, as Oprah would say, One Thing I Know For Sure is this:

I would repeat every argument my husband and I had, and I would cry every tear I cried a thousand times over for the privilege of making a living doing something I love, that also benefits other people and that I know reflects the essence of who God created me to be. It simply doesn't get any better than this.

If you have sensitive or dry skin, yet you like the feel of a gentle exfoliant, this may be the product for you. Made with apricot kernel meal, jojoba spheres and flax seed meal which are suspended in a smooth foaming base, Oatmeal & Honey Complexion Scrub also sports a nice citrus aroma. The texture is like a light facial cream. Because I like a lot of lather in my cleansing products, I often mix this with lather from my favorite handmade soap and use it. First, I get a good lather on my hands and wash my face. Then I put some Oatmeal & Honey Complexion Scrub in my palms and massage it over my face. Before rinsing, I quickly massage what's still on my palms over my hands and elbows. (I'd rub longer but the toddlers await!!) It feels really good. "Scratchy" is the wrong word, but it feels invigorating! I think that anyone who likes the feel of texture on their face would enjoy this product -- even those with dry or sensitive skin.

You can get your own Oatmeal & Honey Complexion Scrub from HBN member Splendid Blends Natural Skincare. They have a really user friendly website with great product photos, and they make it easy for you to shop, view ingredients and ask questions about products.