Nadarra Natural Skin

I was recently contacted by the Glass Packaging Institute, the trade association that represents all glass container manufacturers and suppliers in North America.They wanted some comments from me on Nadarra’s use of glass packaging and this is what i wrote:
It is interesting that you contacted me at this stage in my business’ development to talk about glass packaging. I’m glad you did, because there’s lots to say about it!
Deciding to package my products in glass was a deliberate decision that was (and still is not) by any means easy. However, the benefits of having made this decision are obvious to me on a daily basis as my business continues to grow.
Last week I was on a business trip visiting retailers in Montreal and Ottawa. Yesterday I visited Hamilton to sign up with a chain of popular retail stores that (like most of the locations that sell our products) pride themselves on selling healthy, natural products that are good for people and the environment. In every store I entered, buyers were impressed by the choice of glass packaging. I think they are impressed with the quality glass suggests, in a world where plastic seems to be the easiest and most economical choice for many.
Buyers tap the bottles and look at me in semi-state of disbelief and ask, “is this glass”? When I tell them that it is, they are pleased with this choice and say that the packaging is attractive. They are happy that I am using recyclable materials and some who are more ‘in the know’ approve of the choice to not use plastic in order to avoid the chemicals that often leach into the product from the packaging. This is of special consideration with natural products, whose potent ingredients can often interact with plastic and cause it to erode slightly or pucker or warp over time.
I first decided on glass when I started Nadarra in an aim to create skin care products that were as free as possible of synthetic ingredients and harmful chemicals. I wanted to create products that were good for people and the environment. The common substances used to preserve, fragrance and emulsify products on the market were unappealing for me to use on my own body and I wanted to create an alternative for myself and others. It seemed only fitting to package my carefully crafted formulations in a substance that would not degrade them.
My parents had given me money for a wedding or a rainy day. I decided to use this money to buy bottles and pumps rather than a wedding, which will hopefully someday take place despite the fact that all of that money has now been spent on my company. In this way I became personally committed to using glass when the five thousand cobalt blue bottles I had ordered arrived on my doorstep.
Glass packaging is definitely gaining in popularity despite the difficulties of doing business it represents. For one thing, it is much heavier to ship and needs to be carefully packaged since it is breakable. It is more expensive and therefore presents an additional incentive for a company to recycle its own packaging by reusing it—an additional cost. Its inflexible nature makes it slightly more difficult to extract the last drops of a product by squeezing or tapping.
However, consumers are clearly excited by the recyclable nature of glass and the potential environmental benefits of having companies reuse their own packaging. As I previously mentioned, they also view glass as an indicator of quality. It hints of days gone by in a world where less was disposable and products were made locally and with more care.
The trend today is toward products that help to encourage a healthy and socially/environmentally conscious lifestyle. Glass is a great fit for this, though it has only begun to gather a fraction of the popularity it will soon achieve. As far as I have seen, consumers are the ones who are driving the demand. The cosmetic packaging industry is very sluggish at getting on the band wagon. Most of the manufacturers I’ve spoken with cannot believe that I would choose to use glass and they have very few packaging options to offer me, in terms of pumps that are compatible with my glass bottles to alternate packaging options in the way of bottles, jars and airless pumps.
They should make more options in glass available soon, in order to be ahead of the surge in demand that is beginning in Europe and will soon reach North America.
In the near future, I would like to make my use of glass a more environmentally and financially-friendly option by implementing a recycling program whereby bottles would be collected from our retail locations and washed and sterilized for reuse. We are doing this on a small scale already, but plan to implement it on a larger scale to improve our own eco-footprint, cost savings and consumer appeal.

TheStar.com | Small Business | Sweet smell of success

SMALL BUSINESS???????? ????? ????????

TheStar.com | Small Business | Sweet smell of success

Sweet smell of success

Nàdarra founder starts small but she thinks big

Paul Brent
Special to the Star
Achieving success in small business generally takes far longer than most entrepreneurs expect, or plan for. It’s a fact that Julia Michener knows only too well.

Michener’s company is finally at the cusp of profitability after three years, an entrepreneurial journey that has taken her to India, found her initially mixing her natural products in kitchens and going store by store to convince merchants to sell her Nàdarra skin care line.

“When companies really start making it big, they are either picked up by a major company or they are promoted by a celebrity, or both,” said the soft-spoken English major. “Neither of those things have happened with us.”

So far, her path to success has been through online sales, trade shows and a very limited retail sales presence. The Nàdarra line is currently sold in 23 independent stores in the country, mainly in the Toronto area.

“We keep on picking up accounts,” Michener said. “They are not large accounts but the products seem to sell really well when they are in stores.”

Michener does not have a celebrity, but like many successful little companies that grow to something bigger, she has a good story to tell. Working at a medication safety department in a Toronto hospital she used her lunch hours to treat a mysterious rash on her forehead. That led her on the path to develop her first skin care product.

From there she travelled to India to learn the country’s ancient Ayurveda method of health care before coming back to Canada to craft a product line that boasts “expensive, beneficial herbal and vitamin ingredients” rather than the “fillers and additives” of most big brand competitors, the company’s website claims.

Word-of-mouth is Nàdarra’s main sales driver.

The Nàdarra buyer is typically a health-conscious consumer who worries about what she puts on her body.

Mitchener has positioned her 11-product line as the most natural on the market: everything is sold in glass containers (plastics can leach nasty stuff over time) and the products are touted to contain only natural oils, herbs and other plant-based ingredients.

One of the most difficult choices I made in creating Nàdarra products was the choice of emulsifiers. Emulsifiers are the ingredients that blend oil and water so that they do not separate the way an oil and vinegar salad dressing would. When I first began to create natural creams to use on my irritated skin, I did not add emulsifiers and resorted to the natural binding properties of shea butter, vegetable glycerin and beeswax. What resulted was usually a crumbly, waxy mixture that felt heavy and greasy and that I didn’t want to use. Furthermore, without added emulsifiers, these mixtures would melt apart in a warm room.

I searched on the internet and with ingredient suppliers to find an emulsifier I would be comfortable using on my body. What I found was a host of substances containing various alcohols, chemicals and sensitizers that made me squirm. Then I stumbled upon glyceryl stearate and sodium stearoyl lactylate, two substances that were used in the food industry and were safe enough to eat. These substances were moisturizing to the skin, environmentally-conscious and vegetable derived.

A small component of these emulsifiers is stearic acid. This is nature’s most long-chain fatty acid found naturally in plants and animals. Stearic acid is an ingredient of both of these emulsifiers that is only derived from plants when used in Nàdarra products. It is also abundant in sunflower seeds and chocolate. Stearic acid has been shown in studies to reduce the instance of chemically-induced tumors and to lower cholesterol. The other components of glyceryl stearate, sodium stearoyl lactylate and polyglyceryl-3 stearate are other plant extracts and oils.

The four emulsifiers Nàdarra uses are as healthy as can be found in the natural skin care industry, compared to deceptively-named ingredients like “vegetable emulsifying wax” that contains cetearyl alcohol, polysorbate 60, PEG-150 Stearate & Steareth-20, a concoction of various chemical substances. Other “natural” emulsifiers such as lecithin have surprising health implications though they are dubbed “natural” and used by many organic/natural skin care companies. Lecithin is present in the nervous tissue of all living organisms and is often derived from eggs and soybeans.

An equal offender is borax/boric acid/sodium borate. This substance is used in harsh detergents as well as “natural skin care products” and is by nature synthetic, toxic and highly irritating. Even the large companies that list their products as 97% or 98% natural use this ingredient freely in their products.

In addition to being natural, it is important that skin care ingredients are healthy. In developing Nàdarra products, I’ve opted for the most healthy and effective ingredients available. Not only are Nàdarra products an infinitely healthier alternative to most skin care, their quality shows in how well they work to make your skin beautiful!

streap pokertournois poker onlinecomment t�l�charger jeu de pokerpoker en ligne gratuites texasgagner poker en lignetelechargement jeu pokerpoker gratuites macle jeu poker gratuites fran�aisjeu de poker en lignecasino poker texas holdemtelecharger poker comdirect pokercomment jouer o pokerpoker a telecharger gratuitementregle jeu pokerforum poker en lignejouer online poker tourjouer au poker gratuitementjeux gratuites poker texasjeux 7 card studtexas holdem flashpoker comjouer de pokeracheter jeu pokerla r�gle de jeu pokerle poker t�l�chargement gratuitesgagner poker internetpoker gratuites gagnerpoker en ligne 3domaha holdemjouer poker texas holdemworld poker tours,world poker,world championship pokerpoker en ligne sur macpoker ligne gratuitespoker 3dmeilleur jeu pokerpoker en virtuelpoker school onlinepoker en ligne bonustelecharger jeu poker texasworld class pokerapprendre jouer au pokerjouer o poker gratuites7 card stud gratuitesjouer poker omaha gratuitesjeu video poker gratuitesstud poker onlinecomparatif poker onlinejouer poker tour gratuitesjeu poker gratuites mac

Buyers have their work set out for them when it comes to understanding healthy vs. unhealthy ingredients in consumer products. The struggle is no longer relegated to mass manufactured food and body care products sold in mainstream stores. It has now spread to fringe health food stores, organic supermarkets and holistic beauty boutiques.

When I walked into a Canadian pharmacy the other day and saw a “natural” (but chemical) line a popular UK retailer had recently launched, I felt sick. They had formed a united front against health-conscious skin care users by advertising “pure” skin care products “from fruits and herbal ingredients” that were almost exclusively made up of harmful synethics.

Not only are these companies deceiving consumers, they are creating smoke and mirrors competition (not to mention ammunition) for lines like Nàdarra that are truly natural.

Worse are the offenders who list ingredients like parabens as “plant-based, natural preservatives”. I went to a holistic spa once where they told me that their skin care line was superior because it contained a natural preservative derived from blueberries (i.e. methylparaben). The Princess Margaret Hospital later released a study linking methylparaben to breast cancer when it found parabens whole and undigested in breast tumours.

However, not all cosmetic ingredients are as straightforward as parabens. Many natural skin care products will list “vegetable emulsifying wax” as the substance that blends oil and water in their products. It sounds innocent enough until one does a bit of digging to figure out exactly what that means.

“Vegetable emulsifying wax” is in fact a combination of cetearyl alcohol, polysorbate 60, PEG-150 Stearate & Steareth-20, ingredients with various health concerns. For example, PEG-150 is a polymer of ethylene oxide, a known human carcinogen that can produce the carcinogen 1,4 dioxane as a by-product of manufacture.

Steareth-20 is a member of the steareth family, a range of synthetic ingredients also manufactured from ethylene oxide. Polysorbate 60 is an emulsifier also associated with the 1,4 dioxane contaminant known to cause cancer.

Sounds pretty nasty, but if you look up “vegetable emulsifying wax” on the Environmental Working Group’s website, they give this ingredient a “0” risk factor, listing it as entirely non-toxic.

Buyers of consumer products shouldn’t have to be sleuths. Not everyone has the time or interest to do research on–not just the ingredients–but the ingredients of ingredients– in the products they are using.

In the next blog entries I’ll be taking a closer look at some of the ingredients used in natural skin care products, including Nàdarra. Once you’re better acquainted with them, product labels won’t seem like such a puzzle.

I’ve learned a lot about the cosmetics industry since beginning Nadarra. Most customers strolling through the aisles of Shopper’s Drug Mart, browsing through rows of glossy, labeled bottles would be surprised to see just how their body lotion or conditioner is made. The ads selling the products on TV show healthy, attractive people nurturing themselves. But step into the factory and you will see this: petroleum to “moisturize”, propylene glycol to “smooth”, fragrance to…well…fragrance… A dash of vitamin E to condition. Then come a slew of broad spectrum preservatives to make the stuff outlast most time capsules.

Often the cosmetic company has nothing to do with the ingredients or formulation of the product. It’s created by an independent commercial lab and branded as the company’s own. Once faceless, plastic bottles are filled, the labels give it identity. The advertisers then go to work to make it worth your money.

The sad thing about most of the cosmetics industry is that it doesn’t have a lot to do with what is good for customers or beneficial for their skin or bodies. Moreover, often the products that are put on the market degrade your beauty rather than nurture it.

For example, when I use the shampoos and conditioners sold in Shopper’s Drug Mart, my skin becomes red and irritated and worse looking in general. It responds to the chemicals in the product by creating a rougher, weathered barrier. Thank goodness there are good natural products for hair out there…

While running a business in the cosmetic industry for almost three years, I’ve come to learn that most cosmetic companies are actually marketing companies–and I can understand why. It’s so hard to do everything yourself. What I’ve accomplished with Nadarra over these three years has amazed me (if I do so say myself!)

Formulating a product, producing it in small batches on a weekly basis, launching at shows, getting into stores, building a website, attracting media attention, fulfilling orders… And the fun has just begun!! Would you like to know more about the ‘real world’ of cosmetics?

The cosmetic industry is a challenging field where small but ambitious companies like Nadarra must strive to bring value to people who use cosmetics. Instead of buying a bottle of junk, customers should be aware of the other options available to them that have perhaps not yet made it into Shopper’s Drug Mart.

In order to give customers that option, the small company must first cough up a rumoured $15,000 stocking fee to be on the shelf for a few months once they’ve paid their production costs. On the shelf, they must compete with the few million dollars Unilever has recently spent to advertise Dove (totally toxic) and Sunsilk (neither sunny nor silky).

Whether or not individuals indulge their skin with Nadarra, it is my hope that they make efforts to support small business in favour of a consumer market where there is choice. The myth of the overnight entrepreneurial success springs eternal. The truth is that most success claws its way up rather than springs and that “principles” are often its dearest albatross.

Ok, sunscreen is better than burnt skin. But do you really want to put the rest of this stuff on your body?! Check out what my recent investigation of a popular sunscreen turned up:

The Essential Moisturizing Sunscreen SPF 15 With Antioxidants For Face and Body contains:

Active Ingredients: Octinoxate 7.5%, Titanium Dioxide 2.17%, sunscreen agents).
Other Ingredients:

Water
C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate (thickener)
Methyl Gluceth-20 (emulsifier) – Emollient, solvent
Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil (emollient) – low grade, non-therapeutic oil
Cetearyl Alcohol (thickener) – can cause eczema and contact dermatitis
Cyclopentasiloxane (silicone skin-conditioning agent)
PEG-40 Stearate (thickener) – Cleansing agent and surfactant. Cancer suspect, developmental/reproductive toxicity, contamination concerns: ethylene oxide, 1,4-dioxane, endocrine disruption, organ system toxicity
Ceteareth-20 (thickener) – Synthetic. This ethoxylated ingredient is made using ethylene oxide (oxirane), which can form 1,4-dioxane, a carcinogen, as a by-product of manufacture.
Anthemis Nobilis (Chamomile) Flower Extract - Good
Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, (soothing agents) - Good
Panthenol (water-binding agent)
Tocopheryl Acetate – Vitamin E
Retinyl Palmitate (antioxidants) – Vitamin A
Butylene Glycol
Sodium PCA (water-binding agents)
Lithium Magnesium Sodium Silicate - Bulking Agent; Viscosity Increasing Agent linked to developmental/reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity
Alumina – Abrasive; Anticaking Agent; Bulking Agent; Opacifying Agent linked to cancer, developmental/reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity, organ system toxicity
Polyhydroxystearic Acid
Silica (thickeners) – Viscosity adjuster derived from silicone dioxide
Stearic Acid (emollient) – Linked to skin allergies
Xanthan Gum (thickener)
Butylparaben – Preservative. Developmental/reproductive toxicity
Ethylparaben – Preservative. Cancer suspect, developmental/reproductive toxicity, allergies/immunotoxicity, endocrine disruption
Methylparaben – Preservative. Cancer suspect, allergies/immunotoxicity, endocrine disruption, neurotoxicity, organ system toxicity
Propylparaben - Preservative. Developmental/reproductive toxicity, allergies/immunotoxicity, endocrine disruption, ecotoxicology
Phenoxyethanol - Preservative. Cancer suspect, developmental/reproductive toxicity, violations, restrictions & warnings, organ system toxicity, neurotoxicity, endocrine disruption

Most of this information is from http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/, a database created by The Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org). This organization is a highly regarded environmental and public health watchdog agency.

It is sooo hot and it’s the Friday before a long weekend. It’s tough to work in this heat. Today I feel like I have ADD, with my mind flitting from one task to the next. It makes me pretty nervous–seeing as Nàdarra ’s busiest season is just around the corner–but sometimes you need to just have faith and let it flow.

It’s amazing how the fates begin to work with you when you’ve been doing something for long enough. I have been a stubborn voyageur with Nàdarra , or perhaps I should say “determined”. I am so determined to build it into something huge and fantastically green that I’m like a horse with blinders. My Mother has always said I was the same way toward other things as a child, only she describes this characteristic as “bulldog determination”.

Apparently it’s working, because every day, things seem to come together a little more. In the past few weeks, Nàdarra has interviewed for articles in Elle Canada and Fashion Magazine that will appear in the Fall. We’ve made great connections with accomplished individuals who own businesses with similar visions. I was told by a client with rosacea last week that Nàdarra is the only natural line recommended to her by her dermatologist!

In addition, there is still likelihood that Nàdarra will appear on The Dragon’s Den on October 1 to be gobbled alive.

Customers regularly tell me that Nàdarra products are the best they’ve ever tried and this certainly makes it all worthwhile. Still, things are not easy!

This weekend will be a great chance to step back and take a break from all the excitement. In the meantime, check out my next post. I did some research on the ingredients in a popular sunscreen and these were my findings…

J

Nàdarra has been quiet for the past few months, as its departments (i.e. me) have been preoccupied with infrastructure development and order fulfillment. Already we’re receiving orders from the UK and the far reaches of the U.S. without a plan for shipping costs to those destinations. At minimum of $20 to send a package to either of these destinations, offering free shipping is a dangerous thing.

The good news is that word is spreading about Nàdarra . Every small victory for Nàdarra is a victory for the environment and human health. As Nàdarra grows, I hope it will give major labels competition when it comes to providing consumers with healthy, environmentally-friendly products. While the cosmetic industry is still marketing-driven, people are looking past the gimmicks to ingredient labels to learn what the product is really all about.

One of the main strengths of Nàdarra is that not only are the ingredients pure and remarkably effective at healing and nourishing skin, they are also (I quote,) relatively simple. A cosmetic ingredient representative mentioned this to me last week and it gave me pause. After thinking it over, I decided that Nàdarra’s ingredients are mild and gentle for sensitive skin and that the more enzymes, extracts and stimulants I could potentially add would detract from this. Many of the creams and lotions I routinely sample in healthfood stores to gauge competition make my skin feel sensitive and irritated. This is never the case with Nàdarra .

Perhaps in the future I’ll look into plumping skin or dramatically lifting it in a natural way. For now, excellent skin care will help to achieve beautiful skin and reduce the need for the plumping and lifting.

The Fall will be an exciting new season for Nàdarra and we’re expecting great things. Stay tuned!

I frequently receive questions from Nadarra users that I should be addressing in my web info/literature. Here’s an interesting one about grapefruit seed extract:

Hi Julia, I hope your success is continuing.
I have been reading about grapefruit extract and the news isn’t good. Unfortunately the extract is not stable and is not a good preservative to use. I’m wondering what your comments on this and what this means for Nadarra products?
I note Skin Deep has changed the rating on their site. Although grapefruit extract is rated a 1 the data is 98% which means it has not been fully researched.
I would be interest to hear from you

Louise Peters
Victoria BC

Hi Louise,
As usual, you ask interesting and challenging questions. Nàdarra has actually taken GSE out of its formulas and will soon correct this information on the website and on its labels. I took it out because first of all, it’s outrageously expensive and second of all, it pulled my emulsions apart. Thirdly, GSE is a photosensitizer, which makes your skin more prone to UV rays. This was noticeable on my own skin, which would become tanned more easily on a frequent basis. In addition to all of these good reasons for taking this ingredient out, I’ve heard that GSE is so effective because it contains natural parabens (or is mixed with parabens). Though they may be natural, they are still not good for you—I’ve heard methyl paraben is derived from blueberries—some cosmetic companies try to pass their products off as natural by listing it as such.
So yes, GSE has dodgy origins and effects and I do not trust it. That said, I will rush to change this ingredient listing on the website right away. The products you used did not contain GSE. The preservative we’ve been using for over a year is derived from a lactic enzyme and glucose. They do not cause photosensitization. In fact, users find that even without sunscreen, their skin is more protected than normal.

Oh…and in case anyone’s wondering what else is behind the low ‘n’ note, here’s a full compilation of all the unfortunate things that have happened in the past month:

Got in a minor car accident

Repeated the same minor car accident the next day

Bumped my head very hard on a car and grew a welt the size of a Chinese pear that is still subsiding

That was 3 weeks ago…

Bumped my head again today on a table and grew a new welt the size of a leechee nut

Had my wallet stolen (temporarily)

Had my bicycle stolen

Received a $365 cell phone bill

Twisted my ankle

Suffered two sleepless nights of itching

…and a partridge in a pear tree…

Ok, now I’m done complaining Back to boundless positivity…