How did I become a cosmetics manufacturer and product developer

Riitta Jänkälä, a self -taught pioneer in domestic natural cosmetics

“They lived in the early 2000s. I and my sister spun a hairdressing beauty salon. I worked as a hairdresser, but in addition, I did many other beauty care works. I did color analyzes, permanent pigmentation, makeup, structural nails. At the time, the smells of hair dyes and permanent and nails were really strong at the time. I began to worry about what these powerful chemicals and fragrances do to humans when they are dealing with daily. At that time, there were no eco -hairdressers or eco -cosmetologists.

However, despite the downside, I really liked the work and the wonderful clients I had. I am glad I have been able to work with beauty care, after all, it has been very useful for me for my current profession. In addition to aromatherapy, it has been a good base for the effort. However, I wanted to do something more organic. A story about aromatherapy came to my eyes. I became interested and started looking for more information about it. I borrowed books on the subject and the more aromatherapy, the more I became excited about it. In addition to my work, I started aromatherapy studies. I got a diploma aroma therapist's title after about a year and a half after studying. The plan was to start doing aromatherapy treatments in our own care class and leaving hairdressing and nails at some point completely. ”

Soap it left

“The plan changed when my interest in making skin and hair care products from clean vegetable oils and essential oils arose. I am an easy -to -get type, I got information online and found ready -made recipes that I got to try. Through me, a whole new world opened through the internet. The burning on this topic was hard and the evenings were long in the evenings. I noticed that there were many small entrepreneurs in the world who handcrafted products from natural ingredients, vegetable oils, essential oils and herbs and more. I was very inspired by their stories and started dreaming of my career as a cosmetics manufacturer. In aromatherapy training, I got a good knowledge of vegetable oils and essential oils, but then I learned about the production of all other cosmetics at the "heel" university. I am so -called self -taught.

When I started, there were no courses and schools for this profession, at least in Finland. But it didn't stop me from continuing to my dream. My enthusiasm was so hard that I wasn't stopped by anything. Things left so -called glove. I did test items and developed my own recipes. Little by little, they started to become quite the right products. I started by making organic, fragrant soaps that I had been crazy about before and bought them whenever it happened. Then it was shampoo, as a hairdresser, of course, was interested in hair care and organic hair detergents, next came the latches and shea creams. There are still a few products in our range that are almost original. Of course, they have also been slightly improved over the years.  These include marigold, tea tree and hemp shampoo pieces. Ring flower-hea butter is also one of my oldest recipes. ”

After all, not just rural romance…

“Over the years, many things have been learned through the company and the mistake of making cosmetics and running and growing the company. There have been many bends and obstacles along the way, but they have always been overcome. There have been moments when I wanted to throw the towel in the ring and stop the whole thing. After a couple of days of resting, I have grabbed the bull's horns again and pushed forward. The early years were busy time, it was good that the hours a day were enough. Often in this area you can see romanticized stories about small companies in this industry. At first, it felt like that too. How wonderful it felt like doing this kind of work! 

At first I made products on weekdays and sold on weekends directly to consumers at small events. I had time to do this, it was pretty relaxed when the manufacturing items were small and I was already living it myself. When wholesale sales came into the patterns, a really hard work began. I had to make larger quantities of products, pack and mail. The family helped what it was. After wholesale sales started, the back room of the garage was not long enough. I had to buy larger spaces and at the same time the margins decreased and the expenses increased. Making money was now tighter and had to work more to do so.

The early years went into the drug of enthusiasm, but in all things, everyday life enters the patterns at some point. I was tired of hard work and got a variety of symptoms, physical and mental. This was where romance was far from! As a result of the stress, I spent sleepless nights, sick shingles, got panic attacks, and magnesium deficiency was symptomatic of live mice and jerking in my eyes and mouths. I went to the homeopath for my trouble and heard from him that I had all the symptoms of exhaustion. I had not understood it myself. I received homeopathic medicines, Chinese medical massage treatments and mocking, and minerals, including magnesium deficiency. Little by little I returned to normal. After that, for the second time, I have experienced some degree of exhaustion after Christmas sales. It took at least two months to wish for a state of fatigue caused by hurry. As a wise man, I have learned to slow down as soon as stress symptoms occur. Yes, after these events, my stress tolerance has become permanently lowered. Nowadays I want to spare myself and take it quite calmly. ”

Customer Feedback Motivate

“Now that I have been 16 years since the start, I feel I am a professional and strong in this specialty. The best thing about this job has been over the years, and still is the great feedback provided by customers. How different skin problems with our products have been treated! It is the core and resource of everything that retains the spark of enthusiasm and really gives meaning to this work. A lot of this has been learned from all of this and I want to say that I wouldn't change a day. I've enjoyed Flow's whole trip. ”

Artikkelin kirjoittaja

Summer