On Black Friday I worked with a small business owner who was closed for the day. While we worked, I also interviewed her.
She was gearing up for Small Business Saturday after being closed both Thanksgiving and the day after. She and her business partner wanted to give their employees those days off, plus they needed the day to prepare for increased internet sales. Their physical location in the West Loop was closed, but on the internet the door is always open. Black Friday is one of the few days in the year they offer products at sale prices.
The woman I interviewed has a smart phone app that shows online orders in real time. The sale started at midnight. At 12:01 product began virtually flying off the shelves. She showed me the graphic. During the short time I looked at her screen sales increased. She was smiling.
"There are some whopping big orders in there. I think some customers are doing all their Christmas shopping at once."
She put her phone down. There was other work to do.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
We were seated beside a plastic tub of granular looking white stuff with purple running through it. Beside it was a box of jars with lids.
“We’re going to fill these jars with a sugar scrub, label and pack them. I was a little short on a wholesale order from a nearby business, Flowers for Dreams. They create and deliver flower arrangements, and are are launching a program that offers add on products to their floral orders by incorporating products from other businesses like them.
They wanted something unique from us that related to their services. So, I custom made a scrub that uses lavender buds along with essential oils and sugar. We simply call it Flowers for Dreams Scrub. They need a couple dozen more jars.”
She began sifting the material through her fingers, blending it together, fluffing it up.
“What’s in it?”
“Well, sugar of course. Pure plain white sugar is the base. Then ground lavender buds, sunflower oil, apricot kernel oil, and natural vitamin e. I finish it off with essential oils; lavender, jasmine, neroli and ylang ylang.”
Lavender and Jasmine I understood. I decided not to ask about neroli and ylang ylang.
“The ground lavender can clump up a little in the sugar. As we’re jarring this up if you see clumps just break them up between your fingers.”
She was using a cylindrical measuring cup that was sized perfectly for the jar. She gave me a big spoon.
“If I had another of these cups, I’d give it to you. I pack them very tightly because they can settle when they’re shipped. Hate to have customers open jars that aren’t full. Press down hard with that spoon please.”
We were in one room on the third floor of Feather Loft LLC, an old repurposed building in Chicago in the West Loop by the Metra tracks. It used to be a feather warehouse.
Now it is rented out by the room. Her simple 12 x 15 space; high ceiling, original brick exterior walls and hardwood floors, is a storehouse for raw materials, a workshop where skin care products are made, and a lab to develop and test new products. Other loft units are used by artists and musicians. The possibilities are endless. Each has good light, big windows, and they are affordable.
“So, you make all your products by hand like this? Nothing purchased and passed on from somewhere else?”
“Everything that has our label on it is made right here in this room. I mean we sell jade rollers, small brushes for masks, and accessory items. But every product of ours: the lip balm, the butters, the deodorant, the soaps, soaks, scrubs, oils- everything with our logo on it, is put together just like this. Sometimes I have helpers like you, but I make it all.”
The space I visited is pretty much a one-woman operation, and the woman I interviewed likes it that way. Around her are five-gallon buckets of oil, sacks of dry goods, jars of things I couldn’t recognize. And by the window is her work space; scales and simple tools, a single industrial hot plate, beakers and containers, books that hold recipes, a laptop computer, and lots of raw material. That's where her real work gets done.
One of our first bars was Lemon Poppy. It was scrubby. We asked friends to try it and they liked it. We started selling on Etsy but soon my partner put up a basic web site and internet orders increased.”
The woman I interviewed graduated with a food science degree from University of Illinois in 2006. She worked in a lab for a company that managed private discount labels, testing contents to make sure they met standards and were labeled correctly. Later she was one of the first lab and quality control technicians at the new Lagunitas Brewery by Douglas Park on Chicago’s west side. Soap was a sideline. But profitable.
“We made a Buddy Bar soap for pets named after my business partner’s beagle. We continued to put food products in soaps for texture and collaborated with a local coffee roaster called Dark Matter coffee to make a nice bar. After making all kinds of soaps, we began making oils and solid products we called butters. The orders kept growing. Then we added salt soaks and sugar scrubs, and they slowly gained sales. My boyfriend made me better reusable soap molds. I liked it.
But then my business partner talked me into renting retail space. It scared me to death. I didn’t know why we would want to spend the money when we had so little overhead and were selling product anyway. She convinced me we would never get to the next level if we didn’t take risk. So, I closed my eyes and said yes.
We moved into a tiny street level space in Roscoe Village near the corner of Damen and Addison. I started making product in the basement. It was such a relief not to carry ingredients up into a second-floor apartment. My Uncle Denny made us benches for a waiting area that doubled as storage boxes. A friend made us inside signage that mirrored what was on our label. We installed an awning with our logo on it. For the first time our brand was visible on a Chicago street. We had walk in traffic and regular customers.
We also bought three chairs and started giving facials and foot soaks using our products. We hired some help very part time. It was a new day for the business. I was anxious but after a time it all began to click. And all the while internet sales were increasing.”
As we talked, we were filling jars with Flower for Dreams scrub.
“How do you get all this sugar up here?”
“I carry it on my shoulder. 50-pound bags.”
“That’s three floors up. I thought I saw a freight elevator out there.”
“It’s sort of a theoretical freight elevator. You’re supposed to make an appointment with the building manager. He unlocks it and runs the elevator. But I can never seem to find a time that works for both of us. So, I do it myself. The next space I rent will be bigger. Ground floor with an overhead door that can accept pallets.”
She’s learned to plan ahead.
“Bang that jar on the edge of the tub so it settles. You have a little void in that one. And when you start putting put the lids on make sure there are no grains of sugar in the threads of those jars. It keeps the cap from sealing well. Here. Wipe them off with this towel.”
She was particular about every detail of the work. When I had all the lids on, I thought we were done.
“Now for the labels.”
She walked to a giant peg board holding spools of adhesive white labels with black letters displaying the company’s brand and meticulously detailing product ingredients. From the board she took two spools to the work counter and spread them out a thick black towel. She laid one of the jars filled with Flowers for Dreams scrub on its side on the towel.
“OK feel the side of these jars. You’re going to notice two little ridges. You may not see them, but you’ll feel them when you run a fingernail over them. They mark the exact halves of the jar. We want one label on one side between those ridges and another opposite it on the back side. No labels on the ridges. They don’t stick as well. Put them on the jar equal distance from the space below the lid and the bottom. Make sure they’re straight.”
She showed me how. She was fast but careful. I would have slapped them on. That was clearly not her style.
“Where do you get these labels?”
The story on the labels says something about this small company’s values.
“We made our own labels on a home printer using peel off Avery labels for years, but we knew at some point we would need to outsource that. They weren’t waterproof. They didn’t look professional.
We asked around and found this guy Juan on Western Avenue who had a small business making big signs and window decals. He had never made labels but figured out how to modify his process. The stickers came out on huge wide sheets like Christmas wrapping.”
“Not at all like these,” I said, picking up a roll of stickers, perfectly sized for the width of the label, easily stored on the pegboard.
“Nope. These are from StickerMule, a new on-line company catering to small businesses. They have great online tools and good customer service. But we still like to buy local from other small businesses whenever we can.”
I was putting on my third label.
“That one’s a little crooked. Here, let me fix that. I can get them off easier than you.”
“You really are particular about these labels.”
“Yeah, I am. The people we sell to want to know exactly what they put on their skin. We need to list every ingredient accurately, in descending order of amount, in plain language, and make it easy to read. We’re proud of our ingredients. We take a lot of time to make sure they work well together and get people the results they’re looking for. They’re not inexpensive, because we choose ingredients based on quality not cost. That approach is working.”
We finished the labels on the scrub jars and moved on to our second task; filling, capping, labeling and packing 8 ounce bottles of Tea Tree Cleansing Oil.
“This product is one of our biggest sellers. It’s selling so well we’ve gone to larger bottles. We sold it in only 2 and 4 ounce bottles and noticed people ordering multiple bottles. Like a 2 ounce and a 4, or a couple of 4 ouncers. So, we offered it in 8 ounce bottles for less and now that’s our most popular size.”
“What does 8 ounces cost?”
“$30.”
“Wow. I just buy Bag Balm at Farm and Fleet.”
“That’s petroleum based you know. Has some lanolin, and a touch of Hydroxyquinoline sulfate, but mostly it’s petroleum jelly.”
“So, how is Tea Tree Cleansing Oil used?”
“It’s a deep facial cleanser, great for removing make up. You spread the oil all over your face, steam your face with a hot cloth, and wipe everything off. It’s a healthy alternative to soap for your face.”
“So, what’s in this oil that makes it work?”
“I experimented with this mix for a long time. The ingredient that does the most work is castor oil. That oil is super thick and great at dissolving skin sebum, our natural face oil. But you can’t use straight castor oil because it’s too strong and by itself would dry out the skin. So, I use sunflower oil as the base, and blend it with jojoba to improve the texture.
Then I add Tea Tree oil to give it a nice fresh scent, and also acts as an anti-bacterial. Finally, I add meadow foam seed oil, a premium oil that prevents oxidation and ensures shelf life naturally. After lots of trial and error I think I arrived at a really good blend.”
“OK. So how did you get from Roscoe Village to the West Loop?”
“Our place in Roscoe village was too small, and people were coming from other places in the city to get to us. We weren’t necessarily serving Roscoe people. We needed to move. And if we were going to move, we wanted to get to an area that had a lot of foot traffic, drew a lot of people to the neighborhood to work, and was a desirable destination.”
“So, you found that in the West Loop, but you had to move several times, right?”
“Yes. We tried a spot in Fulton Market for about a year, but wanted to get closer to the action in the West Loop. We hired a lawyer and worked with a real estate broker through a series of pop ups while negotiating a deal on our current space in a historic building that needed a lot of work. At some point during that time I quit my job and worked the business full time. In October we opened a space that carries a ten-year lease. We designed it ourselves with an architect.
We learned a lot. And we’re pleased with the neighborhood. It has great restaurants, new hotels, and lots of consumers who are drawn to our brand.”
“What is your brand?”
“We’re a food grade skin care and wellness company. We make a full line of natural skin care products by hand, offer wellness programming in our space, a ten-seat mask bar which is a facial class led by an instructor. The mask bar, used by both individuals or groups, is designed so people can make and apply their own mask using products we sell.
We offer varied wellness programming from yoga to meditation to calligraphy, dance and more. We maintain flexible event space people rent for celebrations, parties, corporate events, often with catered food. They sometimes pair up an event with seats at the mask bar. And, as always, there are in store and online sales of products. We want to create an inclusive wellness community.”
“You have a lot going on.”
“Yep. It’s not just soap in orange juice cartons anymore.”
“How many staff?”
“Eight, in addition to my business partner and I, and volunteers oddly enough. People are drawn to our space, offer to help in various ways, and we let them.”
“So, 2020 is the start of your tenth year in business.”
“It is? Yeah, I guess it is. Wow. We’ve been too busy to count.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. And thanks for the interview. You asked questions I hadn’t thought of.”
“Well, I have a real interest in both you and your future. I like watching you grow.”
I labeled my last bottle of oil, put it in a carton, and closed it up.
“Can I help you carry this stuff down to your car?”
“You don’t have to, but if you want to, I’ll let you.”
Full Disclosure: The woman I interviewed is my daughter Maureen McClure.
She and her business partner, Elizabeth Leipold, both formerly from Ottawa, Illinois, own and operate
Nice interesting story, Dave! Good interview!
ReplyDeleteThank you. I had good material to work with.
ReplyDelete