Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Bobbie DuFresne. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Bobbie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.
I only had a few face lotions, a body lotion, and some lip balms that I made for myself and my family. I’d share the process of my hobby with my friends on Facebook. When I’d meet up with a friend or needed a hostess gift I’d give her a scented body lotion because I was so proud of it. Then when it was gone the conversation would usually go like this, “Hey I need another one of those body lotions, can you sell me one?” I’d laugh and say, “Are you crazy? It takes 2 hours to make 10 bottles. Consider it seasonal jam and I’ll give you another one next year.” They’d say they were serious and I’d say I was too. They started putting in orders months in advance so I wouldn’t have an excuse for not including them in the batch. I’d get orders if they had any special event coming up and they wanted a unique gift. The batches got bigger and bigger and the pressure to get a website was mounting. Like any other startup I had a GoDaddy website my husband pieced together for me. Being technologically challenged it was actually mind blowing to me that I had an e-commerce site. I didn’t know one thing about online marketing and now I was going to pay for a website and have to drive traffic to it. I was a right brainer from the beauty industry, how would I pull this off? Once it was up and running I shared it on Facebook and friends shared it. The support from friends, family, and my old clients was fantastic. My first order from a stranger came from a friend of a friend in Texas and it was for a bag of 10 lip balms. $30.
Without the excitement of my craft in social media I wouldn’t have had a following.
Bobbie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
When I was a kid growing up in the 70s I had a Malibu Barbie. She was tanner and blonder than the other Barbies and she had pastel lips. I didn’t look anything like that. She lived at the beach, did beach stuff. I lived in Michigan and looked like a waif out of Oliver Twist, ghostly white with freckled skin. I looked more like Midge. The Midge Barbie had paler skin, freckles, red hair, and was discontinued when I was 3. Few friends had one and they were quick to trade her if they did. Not the beauty stereotype of the 60s, she was replaced by P.J., Barbie’s best friend. Same face and body as Midge but without the freckles and red hair. They made her a blonde! This was never lost on me. No one wanted to look like me.
I grew up with cupboards filled with skincare products as my mother was an “Avon lady.” She never made a dime because she sold at cost to her friends and never recruited anyone but we had endless skincare. I learned to sound out colors on the bottom of the lipstick samples when we’d deliver her packages and I had my first complete skincare regimen at 10. My thoughts from a very early age were that I had to be more diligent about my skin and makeup than the average girl because I was embarrassed about my skin. I would need a lot of tricks.
When I was old enough to wear makeup my future started to become clear to me and nothing was going to deter me from going into the professional beauty industry. I would become an expert at covering my skin or dressing to distract from it, that was the plan.
I was a stylist for years, primarily a colorist. I had a clientele I loved and a consulting job with a haircare company back in the 80s and early 90s. I did in-salon workshops and platform work at the beauty shows and I loved the energy working with other creatives. The energy in a busy salon is like electricity and I never thought I’d leave but marriage and kids change your course sometimes. I kept one foot in the industry while throwing myself into my mom gig.
Years of sunburns and tanning booths caught up with me in my early 30s when I had my first skin cancer. I was young to start getting carved up in biopsies every time I had a skin check. I would become crazy diligent about the sun after that and that meant limiting any sun time and picking my recreation time wisely. I’m a complete drag on a tropical vacation.
I was at an international beauty show in Manhattan when I got to try cosmeceuticals for the first time. It took all of 5 minutes for me to be forever hooked on glycolic acid. I had been reading industry publications about cosmeceuticals for a few years but at 32 aging wasn’t something I was concerned with enough to seek them out. After one application I was a believer. A hybrid of medical and cosmetic skincare they’re proven by science to slow the aging process by exfoliating the surface to create cell turnover, penetrate deep, and stimulate collagen and elastin. This was not snake oil, this stuff really worked. Would it make much difference in the long run? I had no idea but without the natural sun protection most others had and crazy sensitive skin, I needed to take it on faith. Plus it made my skin look amazing every morning and healed zits lightening fast. Looking like Casper was one thing but being a wrinkled Casper was terrifying. Since cosmeceuticals help peel pre cancerous skin cells while slowing the aging process I needed to get cozy with these products. Between vitamin C, Alpha Hydroxy Acids, and Retin-A I had a good thing going and I was happy to be ahead of the aging game at an early age. But…..there’s this personal era called middle age and menopause. They come in like a freight train leaving us in a state of perpetual spin and confusion as we no longer recognize ourselves anymore. Everything changed for my skin as my body chemistry changed. The cosmeceuticals line I’d been using and working for for years became too harsh for my skin, I started to react and it was devastating. My skin became so raw I would go days without washing it. I needed to find something simple with no additives. I was getting different diagnoses from different dermatologists and the topical cortisone they prescribed worked great as long as you used it forever, it seemed. Any anti aging benefits were disappearing and it was showing. I was almost 50 and my skin felt like it was attacking itself, I didn’t recognize my face, and my lashes were disappearing. Coming to the realization that this is what I was going to look like, never being able to use active cosmeceuticals again, and just accept this new complexion was crushing.
I started making simple emulsions where I had complete control. Oil, water, an emulsifier, and a preservative……simple enough with the right oils. I needed an oil that didn’t break me out and could help heal my skin. It had to be the perfect weight for day and night, have the right glide on its own, and have a long shelf life. I’d research until 4 a.m, get up and get my kids off to school, go back to bed a couple hours and start all over again. I was gifted a box of 25 exotic oils from a supplier and that changed the game. I’d read so much about emu oil’s anti inflammatory and anti aging properties that I decided to pluck that one from the box. It only took that night of sleeping with emu oil to know this was the ticket for my skincare woes. I was shocked when I woke up and did a deep dive into this liquid gold. Used by the Aborigines to survive the outback, emu oil has anti inflammatory, antibacterial, antifungal, anti microbial, and analgesic properties. It’s used on chemo rash, radiation burns, sunburns, bites, abrasions, acne, eczema, psoriasis, and rosacea. The government medical studies on Crohn’s patients is astonishing. Within a couple years I would have 3 different face lotion formulas pass at the lab, all with emu oil. My friends started buying them, my old clients started buying them and I’d built up a little clientele of skincare enthusiasts, I was their skin guru…..but I was bored. Whatever my skin was going through had passed. Emu oil stimulates 80% of dormant hair follicles so my lashes started growing back. I’d like to think my emu oil lotions healed my skin issues but that would be some serious chest puffing as there’s so many factors with body chemistry as we age. I started introducing active cosmeceuticals in a new line to slow the aging process in 2017. As we age we need the most aggressive treatment we can tolerate without causing more damage or hyperpigmentation to the skin. Combining cosmeceuticals with emu oil buffers any irritation, promoting healing, and giving you a glow. Emu oil has its own anti aging characteristics and penetrates deep to stimulate collagen. Although plant oils are used in our formulas alongside emu oil, they simply don’t bring the fatty acid composition my skin needs on their own. I also use snail slime serum for its regeneration properties, lanolin for superior, occlusive, moisturizing of the lips, and ostrich butter for it’s incredible healing effect. Combining Mother Nature’s best healers with active cosmeceuticals like vitamin C, glycolic acid, hyaluronic acid, vitamin K, and caffeine creates a well rounded regimen to regenerate your skin, keep it healthy, and slow the aging process.
As we age makeup settles into our fine lines emphasizing them. Skin loses its fat composition in the face and our complexion becomes sallow. This causes us to try to apply more makeup for color and coverage and it rarely looks good. Sadly it gives away every line…..we just don’t see it ourselves. The goal is to keep the skin looking new by constantly turning over cells, keeping it hydrated and plump by retaining as much water as possible, moisturizing with the right oils to retain that water, and diminishing sunspots and hyperpigmentation that make us look so much older than we are. THEN apply makeup with a light hand and a wet sponge, preferably.
When I started in the industry I just wanted to make people feel happy when they looked in the mirror and help buffer their insecurities. Years later knowing the insecurities that come from aging I really want to make that time a little easier and help everyone look and feel their best. I also hope to get through to the 30 somethings on slowing the aging process instead of waiting until it’s too late. You’re never too young to start giving Father Time a run for his money.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
The internet is such a game changer. When I started in my industry the beauty and salon industry was exploding. Salons weren’t new but retailing products had gone from a tub of Dippity-do on the receptionist counter to filling the entire waiting area with endless products for clients to purchase on their way out and to tempt them while they waited. If you had a product to get out to the industry you were going to have to get in your car and hit the pavement across the country, in and out of salons and distributors trying to get them to carry your product. The ability to reach across the masses through e-commerce is such an incredible opportunity. We learn self promotion without even realizing it, it’s how one builds a clientele. If you’re not good at it you won’t likely succeed. The online marketing however, is a new way of self promotion that us older chicks aren’t that comfortable with. When we took pics prior to cell phone cameras it was usually because we were having fun and wanted to capture the good time. The selfie era and constant content requirements definitely make marketing challenging without a major machine behind your business. I am really technologically challenged so I’m limited on what I can do for myself. I’m fortunate to have a great team that handles these anxiety causing tasks. I just want to live in my right brain, I hate to switch to the other side.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
I live by the motto, “Life’s a journey not a destination” and I want to enjoy every aspect of the journey. Customer satisfaction and their joy over their products and complexion make the journey far more enjoyable. Unhappy customers will make it unpleasant. In my industry it’s about retaining customers who love your products, not just making a one time sale. Word of mouth has been my best promoter and my professional reputation certainly helped. Sharing my enthusiasm for my new formulations on my personal Facebook page got people interested in what I was doing and they were extremely supportive when I decided to pull the trigger.
When you believe in your product, stand by it 100%, and genuinely appreciate every customer, not just once but as long as they’re you’re customers, and always make it about them, you build their trust. I brought every lesson I ever learned about customer service and applied it. I feel so blessed to just have a desirable product but I really feel blessed that someone trusts me enough to buy it. I never take them for granted. It’s about their satisfaction not yours.
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