May 27, 2002
Happy Memorial Day!! Drive & Bar-B-Que Safely!!
The newsletter will not be published on June 3. We will resume publication on June 10.
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A Publication of The Handmade Beauty Network
ISSN 1530-9630 |
Vol. 3, Issue 21
---> This Week's Sponsor: Your Business!! <---
If you're looking for a cost effective and economical way
to reach handmade beauty product enthusiasts all around the world, look no further!!
Your business could be advertised here!
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 HBN Members
2.
Handmade Beauty Trivia Question: win a tube of my super fabulous Vitamin E Enriched Shea Butter Lip Balm!!
3.
Create The Life You Love™: Making Yourself Memorable, Part I
4.
New At MakeYourCosmetics.com:
Anoint
Me! Solid Perfume
5.
Handmade Beauty
Product Review:
by Donna Maria
1. HBN Update: Welcome New
& Renewing HBN Members!!
~ Welcome New HBN Members!
'O'Shea
Butter Products
| Omoye Cooper | New York
* shea butter products made with refined shea butter and fruit, vegetable,
essential and fragrance oils
Katie's
Creations | Katie Young | Colorado
*
lightly scented handmade soap made with natural oils, herbs, flower petals,
etc., for a sensual bathing escape
Beata
Face & Body Spa | Beata Smigiel | Canada
* full service spa using products made with precious certified 100% pure
Bulgarian Rose Oil
Milky
Way Molds, Inc. | Catherine Failor | Oregon
* The finest selection of craft molds in the galaxy with a variety of
different shapes to choose from
Fragrant Blossom Soaps | Lillian Newman
| Indiana
* cold process soaps made from the finest ingredients, some grown in our own
herb garden
Learn more about our members and their exciting activities by visiting their Web sites through HBN's Online
Member Directory!!
2. Handmade Beauty Trivia Question: Last
week's winner was Sandra Preston of Boulder Creek, California. Sandra
won a bottle of my Lavender Lemon Facial Toner!!
Last
Week's Question: Plant me in your garden and I'll grow all over the
place. Pick me, wash me, dry me and soak me in oil to make a soothing
treatment for your dry skin. I am one of the primary ingredients in Donna
Maria's Emerald Oil. I grow so easily that if you trample all over me around
your garden and yard, I'll spring up everywhere. For this reason, I have
been called "The White Man's Footprints". What am I?
Last Week's Answer: Plantain (Plantago major)
This Week's Question: I am a collection of 38 time-tested healing items. The healers in my collection can help you deal with everything from fears and anxieties to unwarranted guilt and lack of confidence.
To win this week, be the first to submit the name of the collection of healers and also, the name of the person who is credited with inventing them, and win a tube of my super fabulous Vitamin E Enriched Shea Butter Lip Balm!!
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.
3.
Create The Life You Love™: Making
Yourself Memorable, Part I: Be An Expert
This week, I start a 10-part series on Making Yourself Memorable. If you want to learn 10 sure-fire tips to solidify your brand and increase sales, you won't want to miss this series! The text of the series is taken from remarks I delivered in May 2002 at the Southern California Handcrafted Toiletries Conference hosted by HBN member Charlon Bobo of Utopian Garden. We had a fabulous time so make sure you check it out next year!!
The
topic of being memorable in the minds of your customers and the consuming
public is a vital one. After all, you can
have a fabulous product, a beautiful retail store and an outstanding Web site.
But what does it all mean if people don’t remember them (or if they have an
unfavorable memory of them)? Absolutely nothing,
that’s what! So, in addition to having a wonderful product, store,
Web site, etc., it’s crucial to take the steps necessary to make sure that
people actually remember you.
Statistics show generally that
people remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they
see and 70% of what they see and hear. This means that, unless you’re in a position to
either spend millions of dollars on television advertising, or you can be
physically seen and heard in about
a million places at once, you have a
challenge don’t you? And the key to maximizing the
chances that people will remember your message – and thus your product –
over all of the other messages they receive every day, is to create and utilize a
memorable image.
There are different types
of images. There is obviously the product image that is
important. But for small businesses, particularly ones in discrete
niche markets such as handmade toiletries, it’s just as important
(sometimes more important) to make sure that YOU have an image. After all, in
small business, it’s you as much as it is the product that is being sold.
So if you have spent all of your time creating an image for your product and no
time creating one for yourself, now is the time to start!
In my many years dealing with
businesses, both large and small, I have noticed 10 things that are done on a
consistent basis that make small companies successful. All are important in and
of themselves so if you choose to do only one of them, you are going to enjoy benefits for your business. But if you can find a way to incorporate
all of them into your daily life, you will see marked improvement in
your business and in your personal life as well.
Making
Yourself Memorable, Part I: Be An Expert
Expert: a person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject based on experience or training.
Being an expert is all about taking the time to master you and your product so you can display a reliable and confident attitude about both. For example, if you make and sell soap, you should be an expert on soap and soapmaking ... if you're not an expert, you should hire someone who is so you can learn what you need to know to sell the product to the public. If a new potential customer or magazine editor comes into your store or across your Web site and asks, "Oh, you make the soap yourself ... are you an expert on the subject?" you should be able to confidently answer that you are, without having to hesitate and think about it. As a consumer, I want to buy my handmade soap from an expert! As a magazine editor, I want to interview experts, not amateurs, for my article on soapmaking!
In my travels, I regularly encounter handmade toiletries makers who appear sort of shy and timid about declaring that they are experts. They kind of hem and haw about it, and tell me that it sounds sort of arrogant and conceited to declare that they are experts on the topic of handmade toiletries, even though they make and sell them to the public for a living! I always have one thing to say to them ... "Get Over It!!" If you make good soap with the right proportion of all ingredients to create a fantastic bar of soap, and you know how to properly measure it, stir it, fragrance it, color it, saponify it, mold it, unmold it, stack it, cut it, cure it, package it and sell it, you should be an expert soapmaker!! And if you are one, don't be afraid of saying so!
Looking at the definition of "expert" above (from dictionary.com), it's clear that being an expert is NOT about pretending to be an expert if you're not. If you're not an expert (yet), and you try to represent yourself as one, your lack of candor will shine loudly and clearly to anyone listening and observing your mannerisms. An expert can look a customer in the eye and, with a straight face, say he is an expert and not hesitate. If you're not an expert, and a confident one at that, don't try to fake it ... customers will know and you'll lose them and your reputation in the process.
So, if you have your own business, whether it's as a soapmaker, a writer, a landscaper or whatever, take the time to become an expert on the subject, and make sure you can declare your expertise as a part of your sales process. People will appreciate and remember that they are buying from an expert, and their confidence in you will translate into increased sales ... from them and also from all the people they will tell about you!
Next Week: Be Consistent
4. New At MakeYourCosmetics.com: Vitamin E Enriched Shea Butter Lip Balm
Vitamin E Enriched Shea Butter Lip Balm is one of the newest treats at the site! It's made with some of the creamiest shea butter I've ever used from SunRose Aromatics. It's enriched with Vitamin E and it really easy to make. Oh so creamy and spreadable ... you'll love it!!
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.
SunRose Aromatics: pure essential oils (many organic), carrier oils and other aromatherapy products, each carefully selected for quality. Check out their Perfumer's Emporium.
The Scent Shack: fragrance oils and soap supplies. Fragrance oils are tested in cold process, melt & pour soap, and candles, and test results are listed at their Web site. Scents tested by soapers for soapers!
Lynden House International , Canadian supplier of soap and candlemaking supplies such as fixed oils, perfumes, essential oils, molds, powdered milks, colors, pre-made bases, candle wax, wicks, embeds and more!
5. Handmade Beauty Product Review: Anoint Me! Solid Perfume by ThymeWise SpiritWorks
Anoint Me! Solid Perfume
.2 oz. large soapstone jar | $8.00 (also available in glass jar, small soapstone jar and silver tin)
Made by HBN member Kim Baron of ThymeWise SpiritWorks, Anoint Me! Solid Perfume is one of the few perfumes I've enjoyed over the past year or so. I don't usually wear perfume, but when I know one is made with pure essential oils, it's a good bet that I'll at least give it a sniff, and if I get that far and like it, it's not long before I'm wearing it!
I tried the Patchouli scent because I'm usually not much of a patchouli fan and I wanted to give something new a try. I'm still not a huge patchouli fan and I never will be, but I was not disappointed with this rich, earthy scent! I have enjoyed dabbing it all over my pulse points (behind my ears and on my wrists mostly) and been pleasantly surprised when a whiff of patchouli comes my way throughout the day. Anoint Me! Solid Perfume are 100% vegan, made with candelilla wax, jojoba oil and essential oils. The texture is easy to "dab," not so soft that my finger gets all greasy and not so hard that I have to scrape it out with my nail. I haven't used my jar yet but Kim tells me that the soapstone jars retain their fragrance after the perfume is gone so I will look forward to keeping the jar to store a tiny heirloom or two.
Anoint Me! Solid Perfume is available in Solace, a light floral blend, and Nimue, a rose fragrance oil and patchouli essential oil blend. Solace has a matching linen spray too!
You can order your own Anoint Me! Solid Perfumes from Thyme Wise SpiritWorks. And remember that, Kim is a fantastic Web site designer so if you're in the market for a Web site that helps your products stand out on the Web, contact Kim at Fallen Muse WebWorks!Visit The Handmade Beauty Connection Archives.
Visit our suite of Web sites serving the handmade toiletries industry:
HandmadeBeauty.com: the leading industry trade organization
MangoButter.com: 400+ suppliers of raw materials and packaging, updated weekly!
MakeYourCosmetics.com: ingredient encyclopedia & original cosmetics recipes
DonnaMaria.com: sound advice for your small business, Create The Life You Love™
Handmade Skin Care.com: secure online shopping for handmade toiletries products!
Have your ad seen by over 3,000 subscribers! ! Click here to see why Essential Wholesale says that the returns from their newsletter ad "just keep on coming," and why The Scent Shack says, "Our sponsorship of The Handmade Beauty Connection went over very well, we had a huge number of hits on the day the newsletter was published, plus we got quite a few new customers."
Donna Maria, Editor-In-Chief, DonnaMaria@HandmadeBeauty.com
The Handmade Beauty Connection
The Handmade Beauty Network | www.HandmadeBeauty.com
© Copyright 2002 Donna Maria and affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Click here for important legal information.
