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The
Handmade Beauty Connection
February
20,
2006
A Publication of The Handmade Beauty Network
ISSN 1530-9630 | Volume 7, Issue 9
To subscribe, click here
-- Sponsor --
1. HBN Member Update: Welcome New & Renewing HBN Members!
2. Lifestyle CEO Lineup: Paula Deen of Paula's Home Cooking Joins Me On Today's Show!
3. HBN Members To Gather In NYC For Magazine Photo Shoot!
4. Handmade Beauty Product Review: Alpha Skin Care Roundup
5. Handmade Beauty Trivia Question: win something wonderful!
6. Feature Article: Passion, Power and Progress
1. HBN Member Update: Welcome New & Renewing HBN Members!
 Welcome Renewing Members!
Essence of Esther |
Valerie Yates | Georgia
A family run business that hand makes
natural skin care products from scratch; soap, foaming bath oil, bath salts,
body scrubs, massage oil, lotion, body creme, butter, balms.
Merriweather's | Shari
Manfredi | New York
* Our fresh soaps are handmade and
hand cut. Our creams and other skin care products are made in small batches
and are not warehoused so we are bringing a truly fresh product to our
customers.
Adassa James Institute |
Maureen Wendy Dearborn | Nevada
* Specializing in the production of
individual handmade customized aromatherapy skincare solutions. Aji’s
definitive approach to handmade skincare recognizes that “one product”
doesn’t suit every skin type and each individual has different needs and
requirements. Our unique Aromaprofiling Skin Analysis based on age,
physiological/psychological seasons, lifestyle, skin type and geographical
location generates a botanical profile from which we select our raw
ingredients and essential oils for formulations and customization.
Wheaton Soapworks | Jane
Kern Brooks | Illinois
* An 11-year old cottage industry
that prides itself in the formulation of luxurious products for the skin.
Our soaps are made the old-fashioned way, one batch at a time, utilizing the
cold process method. We promise to continue the never-ending process of
researching new ingredients, refining quality and adding the finest products
to our line. Experience the wonders of our natural handmade products
Welcome New Members!
AromaWeb | Wendy Robbins |
Michigan
* AromaWeb is one of the world's most
recognized and respected informational aromatherapy sites. AromaWeb features
a vast repository of aromatherapy related articles, EO profiles, recipes, an
indispensable aromatherapy business directory and book descriptions.
AromaWeb offers retailers, wholesalers and educators with a vast, targeted
market to promote their products and services. Visit AromaWeb's Advertising
Information area to learn how you can take advantage of AromaWeb's
advertising opportunities. Banner design services are available.
Sisters Wishes
* Sisters Wishes is a aromatherapy
mobile boutique offering custom scented bath and body products. We also
offer an organic line which includes homemade products such as massage oil,
body balms, butters, and shower products that contain natural oils and shea
butters.
Frieda's Bath
* Handmade bath products.
Larona
Lollie | Flourish | Ghana, West Africa
* Providing our customers with quality skin care products.
Wick's
Wares | Dan Wickware | Texas
* In the last seven years we have supplied customers all over the world with
our personally tested supplies. We strive to have the highest quality
products and that is why we can offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. All of
our supplies are created in an environmentally friendly manner.
Lily
Gulch Soaps | D'Anna Catterson | Colorado
* A specialty handmade soap company which makes premium cold-processed soap
using all natural, all vegetable ingredients. Pure essential oils scent our
soaps and botanicals provide texture and natural coloring. Look for our new
line of handmade sugar, coffee and salt scrubs, bali reef and dead sea bath
salts, rhassoul clay masque and body oils. We offer natural bath accessories
and attractive gift baskets and ship using natural packing materials.
Candles
and Supplies.com | Cynthia Novack | Pennsylvania
*
Candle and soap making supplies at wholesale prices.
Lavender Valley | Dayle Harris
| Oregon
* At Lavender Valley, all our products contain our own farm distilled lavender oil. All products are naturally handcrafted at the Lavender Valley Farm in beautiful Hood River Valley. We strive to manufacture all body and home care products at the highest standards with quality natural base ingredients.
HBN Members In The News!
Ellie Trinowski of
Moonshine Soaps is featured on the front page of the Lifestyle section of
yesterday's edition of Gainesville Times in Georgia! Click here
to read the article! Make it happen Ellie!
Rosanne Tartaro and her
very talented website designer Kim Baron of Fallen
Muse WebWorks have just launched SunRose's newly designed website!
Looks great! Shake it up girls! I can't wait to meet Rosanne at the photo
shoot next week. (If you're wondering what photo shoot, click here.)
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.
2. Lifestyle CEO Lineup: Paula Deen of Paula's Home Cooking Joins Me On Today's Show!
 \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.
Hey y'all! Yes, your dreams can come true -- and then some -- and today's
guest is here to prove it! Living with agoraphobia and a crumbling marriage,
Paula Deen had no money and two hungry boys to feed. So what did she do? She
developed a business plan -- she made sandwiches and her sons sold them.
What a plan! Today, she and her boys are living their dreams. The incomparable
Paula Deen, restaurateur, cookbook author, mother, newlywed, television show
host and magazine publisher, joins me today and I am just tickled pink. Can
you tell?
Join Paula and me LIVE at 1:00pm EST at Global
Talk Radio.com. Just click on "Listen Live" at the home page
to join us! We will take caller questions and comments toll
free at 800-773-0355, and callers will be entered to win autographed copies
of one of Paula's most popular cookbooks! To request a show
reminder before the show airs on Mondays, email
me with LCEO SHOW REMINDER in the subject line.
Upcoming Lifestyle CEO Internet Radio Show Guests:
February 27, 2006: "Bizy Mom" Liz Folger,
author of The Stay-At-Home Mom's Guide to Making Money From Home will
join me to discuss strategies to choose and grow the right home-based
business opportunity for
you.
March 6, 2006: Employment attorney Chris Farella,
Esq. joins me to discuss what you need to know about interviewing
and hiring employees and contractors to help your business grow. This is a
great opportunity to "quiz" an employment attorney about your
needs!
March 20, 2006: Mom and entrepreneur Lisa Druxman,
tells us how she took a neighborhood fitness class and expanded it to the
nationwide "Stroller Strides" brand of fitness classes for new
moms.
April 3, 2006: Noted attorney Andrew J. Sherman, Esq.
of the worldwide law firm of Dickstein, Shapiro, Morin & Olinski will
join me to answer your questions about licensing and/or franchising your
business. What's the difference between the two and how can you use them to
expand your brand!!?
3. HBN Members To Gather In NYC For Magazine
Photo Shoot!
 Wondering
how the 1Q issue of the Handmade Beauty Business Magazine is coming along?
Splendidly, that's how! Several articles are in the cue for the
printer and this week, I am meeting some HBN members in Harlem, New York, for
our very first photo shoot for a story -- "How To Start Your Own Retail
Store." We'll be meeting at the retail store location of HBN member
Carol's Daughter! Other articles slated for this issue include a feature on a member who is using
her soapmaking experience to help disadvantaged women in her hometown,
advice on how to sort through the home-based manufacturer products
liability issues that are driving so many people nuts, a new column from an
attorney on how to hire employees and contractors to help your business grow
and the unveiling of the 2006 Handmade Beauty Business of the
Year!!
Please support our magazine sponsors!
Subscribe here. To learn how you
can associate your brand with the first and only full color print magazine
representing our growing industry, click
here to request our Media Kit!
4. Handmade Beauty Trivia Question:
last week's winner was Ellen Chappelle of Mill Creek, Washington. Ellen won
some Soothing Shaving Oil, courtesy of HBN member Von
Natur!!
Last Week's Question: What date has been set for this year's National
Sense of Smell Day?Last Week's Answer: April
29, 2006
This Week's Question: Today's guest on the Lifestyle CEO Show
has two sons. State their first names and the name of their new travel show,
which is slated to begin airing soon on the Food Network.
Be the first to answer correctly and win something delicious!
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!
5. Handmade Beauty Product Review:
Alpha Skin Care Roundup
 I
met Alpha Skin Care's owner, Eugenia Bushmich, at the Lifestyle CEO
Conference last month, but I've known her for the years she has been a
member of the Handmade Beauty Network. Eugenia manages to make some
wonderful products while still holding down a full-time job. Lucky me, I got
to try several over the past few weeks.
Antibacterial Aromatherapy Foot Spray
4 oz. | $10.00
At the Alpha Skin Care website, this product is listed in the men's
section. I started to offer it to my husband, but decided to spritz and whiff
myself first. On second thought, I kept it for myself. He's wouldn't slow down
long enough to use it anyway. Of course, I don't need a foot spray mind you,
but this one made with lavender, tea tree, cypress and sage essential oils is
just the ticket to make sure of that. It's tingly going on the feet and it
smells wonderful -- not strong and pungent like so many foot sprays that I
find way too heavy on the tea tree oil. This is a strongly made product, but
the balance of essential oils is effective without being overpowering. A
complementary foot powder with lemon essential oil is also available.
Herbal White Clay Masque/Scrub
4 oz. | $12.00
I mixed this combination of kaolin clay and ground herbs and oats with water,
and it made a wonderful scrub for my skin. It's a good masque too. I like to
mix it with water and then wash my face with whatever HBN member handmade soap
is in my bathroom at the time! It cleans and exfoliates my skin gently and
leaves it soft and refreshed. If I'm in the mood for a masque afterward, I mix
it with more water or rose hydrosol if I have any and apply it. I let it sit
for a while and rinse it off. If it's handy, a dash of essential oil (lavender
or rose are my favorites!) tops it off beautifully.
Anti-Wrinkle Shea Butter Eye Cream
1 oz. | $26.00
Ahhh, shea butter. But this is no ordinary nut oil. Eugenia combines it
with some delicious essential oils and base oils to make one of the best
facial creams I've tried in a while. Some of the best essential oils for dry
skin found their way into this light cream that is perfect for my dry winter
skin. I don't use it near my eyes because of the essential oils, but
everywhere else, I'm slathering it. Pure rose essential oil, carrot seed
essential oil, chamomile essential oil and others, combine with rose hydrosol,
coconut oil, shea butter and evening primrose oil (and more!) to make this
fluffy emulsion that my face just laps up with abandon.
If you're looking for products made with pure 100% essential oils and mixed
to delightful proportions for wonderful aromatherapy and skincare benefits,
this is a really nice line to try. There are no fragrance oils in anything and
I find that I can breathe everything in deeply without getting a headache,
plus I feel relaxed and revived after smelling and using the products. You can
get all of them and more (including some mineral makeup too!) at Alpha
Skin Care.
-- Sponsor --
6. Feature Article: Passion, Power and Progress
by dM
 What
The Heck Are You Up To Anyway??!
I remember
meeting Anne-Marie Faiola
of Bramble Berry, Inc. by phone in 2001.
She called me one day, introduced herself and said, "I just heard
about this Handmade Toiletries Network. What is it and what are you trying
to do with it?" (Back then, HBN was the Handmade
"Toiletries" Network.) After straightening up my back and
putting on my best voice, I described HBN, which at that time was barely
over a year old. A-M (as I now refer to her in our numerous email
exchanges) and I became fast friendly colleagues and after an hour long
conversation, we hung up the phone. Shortly thereafter, I processed her
membership application. For me, it was a fun beginning to an inspiring and
long lasting
relationship.
A-M
describes herself as a
"craftsy girl" who before trying her hand
at soapmaking, was adept at rubber stamping, knitting, decoupage,
papermaking and painting. She wasn't looking to add a new hobby when
soapmaking happened along in the form of the purchase of $30 in handmade
soap made by someone else. "Hey!" A-M recalls saying. "I
could do this myself
AND save money!"
Little did she know that the accidental
introduction to a new craft would help make her a wealthy woman.
To Market To Market
According to A-M, if there's one thing that's
more important than anything else in business, it's marketing. "We've
all seen
terribly formulated
products
out there, selling for a fortune," she says. "They do it by
marketing the
heck out of their products through advertising, product design and
confidence.
You've got to have a hook to get people to try your products,"
she explains. "Then you have to have the
products to make those customers come back for more."
Marketing is also important, even if you
think you don't have enough money to do it. According to A-M, who launched
Bramble Berry in 1997, lack of money is always a problem for a start up
business. "Any
small business has no money and ours was no exception,"
she says. Like many start ups, A-M could not find an investor so she put all
of the company's bills on credit cards for the first few months until the
money started slowly coming in. Today, it's no longer as big an issue, and
what makes it best of all is that A-M loves what she does.
The Power is the Passion
 You
can see from the photo here that that A-M loves what she does -- just look at
that smile displayed during the September 2005 taping of the DIY Network show
where she demonstrated how to make some handmade beauty treats. "I
love what I do so it makes it easy to come to work every day,"
says A-M. "Most
of the
time, it doesn't even feel like work," she beams. A-M says that
if you are absolutely passionate about what you do, you'll have the
commitment it takes to see your start up business through to success.
"I get to try all the latest ingredients, and that is the kind
of fun for me that never ends," says A-M. It's
this kind of fulfillment that allows A-M to work up to 90 hours a week at
times. "Bramble
Berry is an incredibly rewarding job with intense challenges and
highs and lows. I wouldn't
trade it for anything and love my job and what I do
even more than ever. It's amazing to me that I still find such fulfillment
after nine years in the same job!" says A-M.
Passion Makes Progress
 If you are a handmade beauty buff these days,
you'd have to be living in the dark ages not to know about Bramble
Berry. From humble beginnings, it has progressively grown into one of the most profitable and
reliable suppliers of handmade beauty ingredients and manufacturing supplies in
the nation. A-M runs the whole shebang from a warehouse in Bellingham,
Washington. The business is about 85% wholesale, but these days, she's spending
a lot of time at her retail store, Otion, where she's pictured at left helping
some customers make some goodies.
A-M has continued to renew Bramble Berry's
membership in HBN ever since that day in 2001 when she called to ask me what
on earth I was up to. I'm so glad she did because working with people like A-M who put their heart and soul into their
business is what HBN is all about.
If you're in need of some inspiration, a little fun hobby project or want
to get some supplies to start your own business, do yourself a favor and head on
over to Bramble Berry's website.
It's fun, educational and contagious!
Best & Success!!
Donna Maria
Editor, The Handmade Beauty Connection
The Handmade Beauty Network | www.handmadebeauty.com
Copyright (c) 2000 - 2006 by
The Handmade Beauty Network (HBN) and Donna Maria. All Rights Reserved.
Unauthorized distribution or reproduction is prohibited. HBN does not
necessarily endorse any product, event or ideology featured in The Handmade
Beauty Connection (HBC) or on HBN's website. All information is provided on
an "as is" basis and no express or implied warranties are given.
Any use of the information contained in the HBC or on HBN's web site,
including recipes, is solely at your own risk. HBN and Donna Maria disclaim
any liability in connection with the use of all recipes, products reviewed
and other information. Except for sponsorships, HBC refuses compensation
from companies to feature or mention their names or products. Opinions
expressed in any Product Review are personally those of the reviewer and do
not represent the views of HBN, Donna Maria (unless she is the reviewer) or
any other person or company.
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