I Dream a Dream ~ From Dreamer to Entrepreneur: My Journey of Starting a Business

I'm a Pisces. According to its description, among other things, that means I'm a dreamer. Whether you believe in astronomy or not (I take and leave which bits I find interesting at the time haha) I have to agree that this is a trait I have. From a fairly young age I have had dreams of earning extra money by making and selling various things. However, because of my dreamer nature, I would just do, try to sell, and fail. Which would lead me to be discouraged and allow myself to get distracted by other things, leaving my dream of entrepreneurship to the next idea that popped up.

I have decided 2018 is the year I finally force myself to get serious about this business I am trying to launch. No more just dreaming about the day of financial independence and working for myself. This is the year the cogs properly need to start moving in the right direction. I've got plans, to-do lists and research coming out of my ears! I've practised bath & body recipes, tested them myself and asked friends and family to test them too in exchange for honest feedback. Now, after a very long road, I finally have my own business name and a lovely logo. I'm building up my website and Facebook page. I even have a few products ready to go on sale.

I'm into too many different crafts to just focus on one, of course. So to make life that little more difficult...I mean interesting for me, I have decided to focus on a few different areas. Please bear with me while I build each element up. It will all come together in the end...I hope. (Origin story is planned to appear in a blog post in the future)

The main bulk of the business will be bath & body products, so I have focused my theme around that. Still in testing (not an exhaustive list), and all handmade by me, are:

Soap

Lip Balm

Shower Steamers

Bath Bombs

Bath Salts

Body Scrubs

Face Masks

Bubble Bars

Whipped Body Butter

Lotion Bars

I focus on ingredients that are natural and nourish and/or benefit our bodies. However, at least at this stage, I didn't want to commit to being completely natural. I will have varieties of each product that are completely natural and with or without essential oils for fragrance, but there are too many awesome smelling fragrance oils out there to not include them in my products. That being said, I will be checking the fragrance oil's ingredients list carefully to make sure I'm happy with it. Some of the fragrance oils can bring so much JOY when using a product in peach or raspberry for example...nature just can't replicate that which makes me sad.

The bath & body (cosmetic) industry is heavily regulated. Which means anything sold as a cosmetic in the EU has to meet specific criteria, safety assessed and then submitted to a board. I'm still at the safety assessment stage but this takes a lot of time and money :( which is why I'll be launching the site without any cosmetic type products. We can all celebrate together when I can finally launch them!

The other parts of my business will be items created with my sewing skills and also my many years of playing with papercraft.

I am planning to highlight each product in a blog post so you can get to know each one, the thought behind creating it, suggestions on how to use it and maybe even a look behind the scenes to see how it was made.

So come and join me right from the beginning of my journey of launching my business and lets see where it takes us! :D

#Dreamer #Startingabusiness #Onewomanbusiness