We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lori Ann Alger a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lori Ann, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

I wish I had started making my products when I was back in my late 20s. I had always wanted to try to make and sell soaps, lip balm and bath products. As usual, as many people find, fear of failure was a deterrent. Happy Bee started when my niece was getting married and I thought personalized lip balm favors would be a nice touch at her wedding. Coincidentally, my beautician at the time had mentioned a site that she loved to browse through called Etsy. A site where creators could sell their own products. I looked into it and decided to take the plunge and open an Etsy shop. This paved the way to having enough courage to add soap into the mix, and to make my Etsy shop a place where people could get different kinds of bath products. When bath bombs gained popularity, they were added to the shop as well. I feel if I had started making my products earlier in life, not letting fear get in the way, I would’ve had more of an opportunity to expand my online business. We have had a few chances. We have some products in local retail shops. Our big opportunity came in 2019. I work at a popular convenience store chain near me. They are opening about 50 stores every year. Trying to expand, I sent them a couple lip balm that I had made, using oils infused with their “famous” coffee, along with some flavored glazed donut and blueberry muffin, which are items they sell as well. I created a label with their logo and sent it off. I received a reply that they would be very interested in marketing my lip balm. After speaking with them, I learned there was a problem that they no longer would allow products that could only be marketed in some of their stores. They said now their policy was that products would need to be available in EVERY store. At the time I believe they had somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 stores! I would’ve needed to create about 500,000 lip balm to fill their request. We can make hundreds at a time, but 500,000 would’ve been more than my husband and I could handle. So, unfortunately, there was an excellent opportunity that I felt, had we been 20 years younger, we could’ve had the opportunity to expand our business if we chose. Being we were in our early to mid 50s we felt it just wasn’t a good idea to start taking on such a large expansion when we were getting to the age where we would be starting to slow down a little. They then asked me if we would be interested in supplying the lip balms for their displays at fairs and markets in the summer. This was a number we would probably be able to handle, but then the dreaded Covid hit, and that opportunity was also a casualty. Business is still steadily picking up. I only work part time as we couldn’t handle everything when I was working full time and creating products in between. It still bothers me that we had to miss out on a possible life changing opportunity simply because it came too late. On the other hand, my husband is retired now and though I still work part time, we still have the pleasure of making our products and enjoying this time in our lives. The biggest lesson here is, do not let fear stop you from attaining your goals. Life goes by so quickly. You’ve got one chance to make the most of it.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started Happy Bee Lip Balm N Soap after making lip balm for my niece’s wedding. The wedding guests raved about the lip balm and some started asking me if I was going to start selling them. My beautician at the time had mentioned a website called Etsy to me. Stating it was a site where people could sell their creations in their own online “shop”. So, in 2014 I opened my Etsy shop selling just lip balm. At the time we also did personalized lip balm labels. It was slow at first, but business steadily increased. At the time my husband and I were working full time but could still handle the number of orders we were getting.

Our handmade soaps were added to the shop in 2015. I can describe soap making as my passion. There are so many beautiful swirls and swoops out there and endless colors and designs! Our soaps contain nourishing oils such as olive, palm, avocado, coconut and castor. I used to love decorating cakes, and now I could make soaps and also use my cake decorating skills to create one of a kind decorative soaps. The soaps were more work than the lip balm and I was finding it difficult to provide the good service I wanted to, taking time to go back and forth with customers, customizing their lip balm labels. So I eventually had to sell our lip balm with just our own labels on them. No more personalization. This opened up more time to work on the soaps. Then the bath bomb craze hit. We did some research and through many trials and errors and with some excellent advice from other makers on facebook pages our bath bombs took off. They took over soaps as our number 2 best seller. Lip balms are still our number 1 selling item. My husband Rodney is in charge of the lip balm operations. Without him, I could not have expanded my products as there just wouldn’t have been time.

We have done many special orders for people. They use them for favors for weddings, baby showers, fundraisers and all other sorts of celebrations. We are proud of our products and consider it a great compliment when buyers come back to us again and again for their bath products. There’s nothing more satisfying than knowing that something you’ve created and put your heart and soul into, makes others happy. I don’t know how long we will continue to keep creating our products, but I think it will be a long time before we decide to give it up completely. Hopefully by then one of our grandchildren can take the business over and turn it into something we could not. Perhaps brick and morter?

We live in a small town in Wisconsin. I worked 19 years as a Health Information Technician and my husband Rodney was a truck driver. We have one daughter and three grandchildren. Rodney is fully retired, and I retired from health care a few years ago to take a part time job at a local convenience store. I wanted a job with less stress and less hours to devote more time to Happy Bee as it’s popularity was growing.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I learned so much about SEO, Etsy and how to create and grow a business on You Tube. There are so many different sources out there, and there are so many channels so you have to choose the one that is best for you. The first person I saw was the young woman from Royalty Soaps. She was a 16 year old girl starting up a soap business. She was so creative and such a go getter for a 16 year old I couldn’t stop watching her. I learned so much about soap making from her. I learned about SEO and growing your Etsy shop through a woman named Renae. I cannot remember her channel name but she is now Renae’s Homestead. Another great influence and help to me on You Tube was Starla Moore. She was a guest of Renae’s and sold jewelry on Etsy. So, I started following her as well. They both taught me so much and I am forever grateful to them. All I can say is do your research. Find others out there who have already accomplished what you want to accomplish and learn from them.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me it’s a few things. I love it when people send me a note or review saying how much they loved the product(s) they purchased. When we do our craft shows around the holidays, I love when kids come up to our booth and just can’t get enough of the smells of our products. It puts a smile on their faces and that puts a smile on ours. I also love it when our grandchildren show interest in our business and how we create our products. They love being in the kitchen helping make different items. I think creativity is one of the best things you can show children.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.etsy.com/shop/happybeelipbalmnsoap
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/happybeelipbalmnsoap