Opal Essence All Natural is a solo venture by Katherine Howard which started out in a Boston suburb in Massachusetts and is now moving to an Atlanta suburb in Georgia. We are a one-woman-show type of operation. Each lip balm formula is hand-made in a small batch to assure product freshness. Ingredients are mixed and poured by hand into the lip balm tubes using a pouring tray, and then when they've solidified, they're capped and hand-labeleled.
Opal Essence All Natural was inspired by my own difficulties with extreme chapped lips and my neverending quest for a lip balm that worked. I tried them all (found I was allergic to Carmex along the way...) and none of them really seemed to work. So I did some research and came up with my first formulas. I gave some extras out to friends and coworkers, who liked them well enough that they encouraged me to sell them online.
And so I had to learn this e-commerce software package and do a lot of work, but here I am, selling lip balm online. I also have a shop at Etsy.com: Opal Essence All Natural on Etsy, (though you'll find better prices here at my website, due to Etsy's fees.)
A note about pricing... My lip balms are not priced randomly; they are priced based on the cost of the ingredients. You'll notice that some lip balms come with a more premium price than others—this is not whimsy, but a reflection on what that formula's ingredients cost. If you're curious, the base price that I start with is $2.95 for regular formulas (beeswax), $3.00 for vegan formulas (candelilla wax, which is actually more than twice as expensive as beeswax), and $3.50 & $3.55 for SPF formulas, regular & vegan respectively, then add a small surcharge for certain more expensive ingredients.
