Absolutely Natural Welcomes Kroma as Marketing Partner

Absolutely Natural has entered into an agreement with KROMA Makeup Studio to cross promote our 100% natural sun care, skin care, personal care and spa products with their fabulous 100% natural make up line.

When I was first introduced to founder Lee Tillett and her husband and co-owner Chris Tillett, I was immediately impressed with their business philosophies and especially their insistence on using only the finest raw materials in the production of their very broad makeup line. They share the same dedication to quality and customer service that we have lived by for almost 20 years.

Lee is a renown makeup artist who has honed her craft for more than 22 years and started KROMA in 1999 when nothing on the market achieved her incredibly high standards. Just as we do, she buys only the finest grade raw materials and then hand crafts the various bronzers, blushes, powders, eye shadows, mascara, lip products and more.

Another exciting factor to me was both Lee and Chris share our "educated consumer" philosophy. While it seems most companies dealing with our respective products would rather keep people in the dark about what is really in their lines, KROMA has a great education program touting both the features and benefits of the product while teaching the end user how to properly use their line. Just like our famous 3-P's program for our sun care.

Recently Lindsey Pushman, the "face" of our facials' line (literally and figuratively!) and I went to the KROMA studio in Maitland Florida where Lindsey got a consult from Lee. It was very informative and here are Lindsey's thoughts on the program,

"I was excited to take part in the visit to the KROMA studio with Charley because I am a huge fan of high quality ingredients. My first impression of Lee was that she was very knowledgeable about her products, passionate about her company and she loved making people feel beautiful. During my brief make up session, Lee blended custom colors to fit my unique skin tone, discussed the benefits of each product and demonstrated how to properly apply the make up. I immediately was impressed by the quality and feel of the make up. I could distinguish the difference between KROMA's make up and the other leading brands I have tried. The session was informative and Lee made me feel beautiful."

-Lindsey Pushman

For all of our Central Florida customers, KROMA is stocking a full line of our sun care, facials, organics, personal care and spa products. They can be reached at 407-622-1086 for directions or visit them online at www.kromamakeup.com

Best regards
Charley

Absolutely Natural Opens Store in Kauai

The finishing touches are being put on our new store in Kauai. Bob Virgillitti (B.V. to his friends) has been the driving force behind the project set to have a soft opening next week with the grand opening occurring in May.


The store is located at the Anchor Cove Shopping Center close to the cruise terminals in Lihue.

B.V. has been our main man on Kauai working and managing the pool kiosk at the Kauai Hilton since January 2009 as well as running the wholesale division for the Garden Island. The store is slated to be a prototype for many more to come both in the islands and mainland USA.

We'll have a complete array of our sun care products as well as the highly popular Facials Line and the Organic Oil and Creme.

In addition, the Absolutely Natural store will be the first brick and mortar location for our brand new spa line. Featuring a new look for our spa products designed by award winning artist, Suzanne Clements, we will carry sugar scrubs, salt scrubs, mineral bath salts, organic bath, body and massage oils, body butters and spritzers all in our refreshing cucumber mint fragrance as well as our island inspired Papaya/Pineapple. The oils and mineral bath salts will also have a product featuring Arnica, excellent for sore muscles. As usual, all products will be 100% natural with an emphasis on organic raw materials.

We are very excited about introducing our new sulfate free personal care line featuring our two signature fragrances in shampoo, shower gel, lotion and conditioner. Our test markets (a fancy way to say friends and family!) have raved about these new 100% natural formulas that work well and are extremely friendly to skin, hair and the environment.

Additionally, we have five lip moist products to introduce including Papaya/Pineapple, Strawberry, Vanilla, Mango and Mint.

The store will also have an "oil bar" where clients can make their own product using our fractionated organic coconut base oil and an array of essential oils to make their own signature fragrance.

Also featured in the 600 square foot space will be the largest selection of Maui Jim Sunglasses on the island.

Personally, I want to thank Suzanne, B.V. and Lindsey Pushman for all their hard work in the design and implementation. Also Todd Anderson, Danny Richards and Bob Hamner in production and shipping. Great job guys!

Be sure to visit the store or look for our new products on line, coming soon.

Best regards,
Charley

AN Store Opens on Kauai; La Peau Couture Debuts

Suzanne Clements Star of Space Coast Addy Awards

Movies have their Oscar. Television has the Emmy. Music the Grammy.

Have you heard of the Addy? It is the reward given to people of the advertising and marketing industries. Maybe not as well known as the big three above but equally important to the 100's of thousands in the industry and the millions of people who are educated, informed, entertained and encouraged to buy products from the business owners who benefit from their creativity. Like Absolutely Natural.

I was privileged to attend the 2010 AAF Space Coast Addy Awards last night at the Melbourne Beach Hilton in Melbourne Florida. Our design artist (and so much more!) cleaned up. Suzanne Clements, who has her fingerprint on just about everything we have done the past two years, picked up six gold medals, 5 silver medals and the Best of Show Award in Electronics for a web site she did!

Suzanne is the one woman dynamo (doing business as Suzanne Clements Graphic Design, LLC)who has revamped our web site, created our brochures, collateral material, posters, logos, new packaging design, mail outs and more.

Five of Suzanne's medals came from Absolutely Natural entries. We won gold for packaging (facials sample pack), brochures (our new sun care brochure) and catalog (our spa wholesale catalog). We were awarded silver medals in packaging (our new Organic bottles) and for our 2009 year end mailer. What an outstanding job.

Suzanne also won gold medals for her web site work with a Sea Turtle book, a catalog for the same project and her website work with Makoto's restaurant.

The evening was exciting, the crowd large and prestigious and the event was very well done including a hilarious ongoing video skit by one of the anchors of Chanel 6 News.

But the highlight, of course, was the win after win announced for Suzanne, who was absolutely shocked by all the accolades. I wasn't surprised at all but I have to admit I relished in every moment that our brochures, catalogs, bottles etc were flashed on the screen with "Gold Medal" beside them! Suzanne was the star of the show and we are lucky to have her. Well done, Suzanne!

Best regards,
Charley

This and that ...

A belated Happy New Year. It is terrible that half the month of January has flown by before my wishing our great customers the best for 2010. There's a good reason; we are incredibly busy!

Since mid-December we have shipped more than 1000 gallons of product (sugar scrubs, salt scrubs, bath salts, shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, massage oils, cremes etc) to Sandals in the Caribbean and to Aria Spa, the cornerstone of the new Las Vegas complex City Center. City Center is a 7-8 billion dollar project and we are supplying all the treatment products for their spa. Go to www.citycenter.com and get prepared to be amazed.

In addition to the gallons, we are working on 100,000 retail bottles for our various customers. 2009 was a banner year for us and we are grateful that the recession has not slowed our growth. We are thankful to our customers and it just goes to prove that when you never compromise quality and offer a good value, it works.

Some notes:

1. We welcome Brittany Quave to our staff. She is handling our mail orders, customer service and other duties replacing Kelsey Carter who has been accepted to nursing school and started classes this month.
2. I will be in Hawaii next month as well as Reno and Las Vegas.
3. Our new packaging for our Organic line has been a great success. Our retail sales were up 40% for the Oil and 35% for the creme.
4. We are now supplying amenities for Amelia Island Plantation and Spa. This is in addition to the spa products and retail we already provide for them.
5. The Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay is doing well with their new retail line we developed. They are in the wine country and the line includes products with Cabernet and Chardonnay essences.

There's much, much more and I am personally thankful for our excellent staff and cherished customers.

Best regards
Charley

The benefits of all natural

Not too long ago I became aware of just how sensitive the human body can be. Years ago I developed lactose intolerance and lost my gall bladder to a prescription medication. Since then my awareness for what I put into and onto my body has grown considerably. The lesson seems to be, as we as a society solve more of life's annoyances with new pills and products, often we aren't aware of the potential dangers we create at the same time. BPA anyone?

I no longer cook on Teflon coated pans (want to know why? Google "Teflon" and "safety concerns"). You won't find me eating ground beef... ever. Meat, in general, is not something I consume frequently, but if I have to, I prefer free-range, vegetarian-fed sources. I take my shoes off at the door so as not to track in the chemicals sprayed onto neighborhood lawns & ground into my home. And now I'm going one step further, making each and every meal I eat at home from scratch.

I was first inspired to begin this by a brief trip to South Korea back in September. The food there was amazing. So fresh, so good. When I returned home, it was obvious to my taste buds that my food here was laden with preservatives and "flavor-enhancing" chemicals. Here in the US we push the limits of what we consider food. Since when is it ok to have a carton of egg whites that will easily last 2-3 months? Nature makes THE BEST storage container for eggs, not some box manufacturer!

Since early September I've been cooking diligently from scratch. I can't go as far as growing my own vegetables (I have the brownest thumb known), but at least I know better now than I did what I'm putting into my body. I'm not always the best cook, but I get no complaints.


Homemade waffles (waffle-house style)


Homemade buttermilk biscuits

Want recipes? Let me know, maybe I'll start posting some of my better culinary adventures to share.

Customer Service: A Lost Art?

Customer service has become a luxury as of late in a world where so many of our interactions are digital and automated.The last time I tried to contact my local cable company to update my service I spent a frustrating afternoon attempting to get through their phone system to a human being. Once I did, I was immediately cut off before finishing my sentence and transferred over to yet another automated system. That is not service. And all too often, even the day-to-day human interactions are less than stellar. A cashier hands me my change, I say "Thank you." and they say "No problem." Where's their gratitude for my business? Shouldn't they be thanking me? How would handling my business be a problem for them?

That said, here at Absolutely Natural, we appreciate each and every one of our supporters. We constantly receive rave reviews from our customers for the way we handle orders, shipping, disputes and the way we treat our clients and do business.

Our phone system does have one of those automated mail box features, but we chose purposely not to use it. From 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. EST the phone is answered by a human. Yes, a human. The rest of the time it is an old fashioned answering machine extolling you to leave a message; the message is then returned by a human. Yes, human - one of us here at the main office. You get personal, one-on-one interaction with the very same people who develop the products you use. Who else can say that?

Beyond our daily personal interactions with our customers, we ship products the same day we get an order (next day if we get it after 3pm). We make sure you get all you ask for and take full responsibility for any problems ... even when it's not our fault.

I could go on and on but for 18 years we have had a simple philosophy ... we service our customers! Want to know more. Call us; I might even answer the phone and we'll answer all of your questions and take care of all of your needs.

Best regards,
Charley