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It had always been the goal of Adeline Ravana, who gives a lot of importance to primping, to have a business of her own. So what better business could she do than selling organic beauty products ?  

None, really, so Ravana put up Embodyment Organic Essentials, a company that now carries a smorgasbord of organic personal-care products for every body area from head to toe.

Ravana, who was then working as a writer with a public relations agency, started laying the groundwork for the business in August 2007 together with her fiancé, Leroy Angelo Quiambao. The two had decided to come up with an extra source of income in preparation for their married life.

Selecting the type of product was easy for Ravana: “Personal care products and home spa treatments are things I already love, while their being made from natural and organic ingredients makes them a better option for my sensitive skin.”

But she and her beau knew nothing about coming up with their own brand and product lines, so they started by just reselling an existing brand of personal-care items to friends, neighbors, and relatives.

By that time, Ravana recalls, Filipino consumers had already started to appreciate the benefits of using organic products as part of their lifestyle. “More people were therefore embracing products made up of natural ingredients,” she says.

Towards the end of 2007, Ravana and her partner decided to ride on that trend by coming up with their own brand and product lines. With P60,000 in starting capital, they put up Embodyment and initially offered bar soaps, body butter or lotion, foot soaks, and bath gels. And from just doing door-to-door selling to neighbors, family, and friends, they started joining bazaars as well.

Their first few bazaars were just one-table setups carying only a few products. Gradually, however, Embodyment added more and more variants until its product line grew to 26 at present, from shampoos and night creams to body scrubs and linen sprays.

Ravana has become a regular merchant in bazaars, and also sells her products through e-mail correspondence and through her website. But she enjoys selling through bazaars more than anything else. She says nothing compares to the experience of talking with customers and having them actually test your products.

Ravana takes great pride in Embodyment’s product lines: “They are homemade and are produced in small batches, so our stocks are always fresh. We’ve also kept their prices affordable to encourage more people to go natural.”

Recently, Ravana resigned from her PR writing job to concentrate on her fast-growing business, pursuing a new career as a freelance writer and Internet marketer instead.

But Ravana considers bazaars as indispensable to Embodyment’s continuing success. “Throughout the years, bazaars have always been a most effective venue for introducing our products,” she says. “It gives us every opportunity to get new customers and contacts, find new distributors and spas to supply to, and sometimes even get invited to TV shows to talk about our products.”



EMBODYMENT ORGANIC ESSENTIALS
(02) 346.4817
embodyment.oe@gmail.com

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