Natural Hair Products - Meet Julia Reschow Of EverEscents
| My guest today is Julia Reschow of EverEscents Organic Hair Care. Julia and her husband, Luke, own and run the company. EverEscents natural hair products are made of 100% plant based ingredients and certified organic ingredients. Julia’s company has won numerous business awards and has received extensive press coverage. Let’s talk to Julia and find out her secret ingredients to success in the natural hair products business.Read and get inspired. | ||||
| Can you tell us a bit about your natural hair products business? | ||||
| EverEscents Organic Hair Care is a 100% Australian owned and manufactured company that sells salon quality organic hair care to hairdressing salons throughout Australia and overseas. The company was founded by a passionate young woman who after her grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, was finding it very hard to source good quality hair care that didn’t contain all the nasty chemicals.What then followed was the birth of EverEscents Organic Hair Care. Our core range is shampoo & conditioner which we have available in 3 varieties to cover all hair types. We also have a brand new styling range with the first 2 products just released at the recent Sydney International Hair expo. We have our product ranged in over 200 professional salons across Australia and we even have some in the USA, Europe and Hong Kong. | ||||
| What are the benefits of organic shampoos when compared to normal shampoos? | ||||
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There are countless benefits of using an organic product (of any type) over a commercial “normal” product. Some of benefits are: | |||
| • The benefit to the environment and our waterways. As your shampoo & conditioner runs down the shower drain it is imperative that what we use is biodegradable and will not further pollute the environment. | ||||
| • The health benefits for us. Many people don’t realize that around 65% of what they put on their skin and hair is absorbed through your skin and directly into your blood stream. Many of the nasty chemicals that standard hair care brands use are highly toxic. | ||||
| • By using organic you are limiting yourself to synthetic insecticides, fungicides and herbicides because these chemicals are not applied to Certified Organic crops. Pesticides are poisons designed to kill organisms and have increasingly been implicated in cancers, birth defects, nerve damage and genetic mutations. | ||||
| You bought your business recently from the original owner. What prompted you to purchase EverEscents? |
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After 7 years in corporate life and 5 years running my first business in the home and garden industry I was ready for a change and so I had been looking to purchase a business for some time and was fairly specific with what type of business I wanted. I wanted a business that I could feel proud of and feel that I was helping to positively contribute to our future rather than further pollute it. I have been brought up by a very “green” mother and so have always appreciated the importance of conservation and healthy living. I also wanted something that would be fun, interesting and give me the chance to meet new people. I heard about EverEscents through a mutual friend and proceeded to arrange a meeting with myself and the previous owner. By coincidence, it turned out that we had attended primary school together in country Victoria so it really seemed like fate that we would cross paths again after all these years. | |||
| Are you planning to set up an online shop for your products as well? | ||||
| Yes, definitely. Our comprehensive website was constructed early last year and has received many accolades from wholesale and retail customers alike. We are currently in the process of meeting with our web designer to further enhance our site by adding a shopping cart facility with safe and easy payment functions. We envisage that by adding this facility it will increase online orders dramatically particularly for those in remote areas with no stockist nearby. | ||||
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| You have a huge list of stockists for your products. Have you got a couple of tips for business women (just starting out) who are trying to find stockists for their products? I mean how do they go about finding new stockists and how do they convince them to store their products? | ||||
| There are a few ways to appeal to your target market and therefore to get new stockists onboard. Firstly by having a good website with great search engine optimization is essential. Many of our stockists (and end users) find us through the internet by keying in “organic hair care” or similar and we come up on the first page. Those people that are serious about stocking a new product and take the time to search the internet will usually then go on to place an order. Once a potential stockist has approached us or we have approached them, the only way to ensure that they are excited about stocking our range is to get them to try our products through sampling.Secondly, it is critical to have really good PR. If you can get maximum exposure of your brand name and company image then people will begin to recognise your business which will give them confidence in your brand. Most people before making a purchase of a product will need to see it in 3 different avenues before making the final decision to make the purchase.Possibly the most important is to actually have a great product. Nearly every single person who has sampled our products loves them and therefore wants to stock them in their salon. In line with this is the fact that we are not competing with the major players. Our product is unique and simply gives consumers an organic choice to those other major brands that contain the veritable cocktail of harsh chemicals. | ||||
| What are some of the things we need to be careful about when we buy a business? | ||||
| The biggest piece of advice I would give when buying a business is to do your homework. Make sure you research the industry and ascertain the strength of the market for the product / service. It is also important to complete a cash flow projection that is specific to your business environment to ensure that the business is viable and that you will be able to pay all your bills including yourself!The buzz word is “Due Diligence”, which means taking the time to check out all facets of the business you are buying including stock quality, bookkeeping records, plant and equipment and supplier commitment.Last but not least is to always get professional assistance. A good Business Broker, Accountant and Solicitor may be expensive upfront but could end up saving you plenty down the track. | ||||
| Finally, your five keys to success? | ||||
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| Sites Of Interest | ||||
| Visit Julia’s website to get more information about her natural hair products. | ||||
| This interview was published on 7th September 2007 | ||||
| To read more stories about women in hair and beauty products business click Natural Hair Products company. | ||||
Entry Filed under: Hair Beauty Products
