Where it Began…

Fleur Bomb of the week.

I remember the first time I walked into the first major bath store out there… something happened to my soul. The store either stole it or energized it and I loved every second. The smells, the colors, the music, the product placement, the diverse crowd. I was ready to give up my career and work in this amazing place. Well…a 12 hour drive and a ferry ride was a little to long of a commute!

What happened next was just the beginning.

I came home and was in the process of raising two young boys on my own, full time hairdressing and grabbing any extra spare job I could to make ends meet. I spent any little extra cash I had on grabbing ingredients to try and copy every single product they had.

That was 20 years ago.

I dabbled and made products for friends and family. Sometimes actually getting enough back to just cover costs.

I created recipes and used recipes that I remembered being used on farms. Next I started incorporating recipes from other countries as I found them.

Opening a business in a scenic valley was when I started to take it a little more seriously. Health and Wellness and as natural as I could make the business. Pouring time and effort into living the dream. Haha well if you’ve ever been an entrepreneur of anything, it is far from living the dream… at least in the beginning.

I won entrepreneur of the year and fell in love with the atmosphere of the small town people walking in and out of my tiny store.

Soaping land didn’t happen in my little store. Owning your own business, you realize there isn’t time for extras. However, I continued with soaping for family and friends and then managed to start selling at some craft shows.

My husband got a promotion in the oat industry and we picked up and moved. I sold my little shop and continued on to new adventures. We bought an acreage. My husband’s first time mini farming and I was now back on the farm. We even added chickens so we could officially feel like farmers.

Fleur on The Farm. Fleur being French for flower and my nickname since I was a little girl. Jennifleur.

I don’t fully understand why my mom decided to put a delicate French flower in my name? Possibly in hopes that one day I would remove myself from the mud puddles and put the dirt bikes aside . Put on a cute yellow dress and start acting like a lady. Plus… come to think of it, I’m Irish not French.

P. S I recently found out there was a little Italian in there. Just think you should know who you’re dealing with.

Anyway, back to soaping. I picked it back up again and started putting things in tradeshows and getting a lot of amazing feedback but then hit a serious wall. Do I continue at a crafting level or level up this venture. What to do??? So, it sat and sat and sat. One of my favorite pastors of all time, Joel Osteen said, ”just do it, write the book, open the store, sell your product, and if it doesn’t work, then try something else but you need to keep moving” and keep moving has been my word ever since. I’m not good at the business side of my business, I’d give it all away for free and I’m not going to be poached into the NASA program. I do, however, have a husband who is incredibly supportive and a genius with the business side.

The business sat for quite some time and then finally I dove in. No parachute and I burnt the bridge behind me. Definitely some people who gave up and walked away. I’m a firm believer that whoever is meant to be there at this time will be there. I have learned that people come and people go. That’s just how it is. Then I had new people walk in. These people were different then the ones that walked away. These ones started sending encouraging messages and memes. These ones didn’t need anything from me. I had to let some go in order to get these new ones. Will theold ones come back? Sometimes, but they come to a new improved version of me.

Wait…what happened??? Ok back to soaping. We invested heavily and right at the time that Canada Post went on strike, olive oil crops failed and cocoa butter over tripled in price.

There will always be issues. Crops, economy, environmental, competition, you name it. The question is…what am I going to do with it? In my opinion, what we put out there is what we get back. It took me a year to dig myself out of that one.

I needed to reinvent the wheel without reinventing the wheel. People love my products. I’ve made them with me in mind first. What do I need, love and will use and then I involved my husband and best friend. What do they need, love and will use. Then the circle slowly started to open. Always coming back to products that I will use first. I have sensitive skin but love fragrances, I love 100% natural but realize from single parenting and a husband who is attuned to false and scare advertising that all natural isn’t always feasible. But…I do what I can and will never mislead you on the ingredients.

Right from living in mud puddles to today, I realized that anytime I strayed from keeping it real (for me), I was miserable.

Saying… I love helping people sounds so overdone. I do however love watching my people excel. Watching people heal and level up. So how to incorporate this in my business. Soap=watching people excel???

Watch me make mistakes and get back up. Watch me learn as I go, and watch how deeply I care, then you’ll understand how I’m reinventing the wheel without reinventing the wheel.