Businesswoman creates own skin care products

Terri Peoples has good reasons to be a happy working class woman. This 35-year-old entrepreneur is her own boss in the highly competitive skin care business. Three years ago when things got really rough, Terri Peoples decided to go into the beauty salon business. After tiring of that, she decided to start making her own skin care products. She has been selling her skin care products all around the West Philadelphia area.

Under the business label “Urban Essence Spa,” Terri Peoples is selling her best body lotions, soaps and oils at a women’s beauty store called “Couture For Sure and More,” located at 2115 N. 63rd St. Her products are priced from $9.00 and up. Her products are done by hand and are made with natural ingredients such as brown sugar, demerara and turbinado sugars, cocoa and shea butter, sweet almond oil and other natural ingredients and beauty compounds. The businesswoman also makes her own soaps the old fashion way. She does all of this in her house from her hot kitchen.

“I do everything myself,” said Peoples. “I own my own labels and products. I label my own bottles. I create the lotions, the shower gels and the whipped body butter and sugar scrubs. The only thing I don’t do is make the plastic bottles.”

Peoples sells scented and unscented skin care products and has them available inside the 63rd Street store. Also with her products, she sells a product called Smelly Jelly, Bath Bon-Bon and Tea Bon-Bon.

“Our products are better because my skin care items don’t have a whole lot of chemicals in it,” said Peoples. “Our ingredients are all-natural. I had to learn everything about skin care from scratch and I’m still learning.”

Before Peoples placed her products on the store shelves, she had to make sure she obtained her business insurance and that her products met all Food and Drug Administration guidelines.

“When you start a business you have to take little baby steps and do things in the proper order,” said the wise businesswoman. “I also had to make sure all my labels were done properly.”

This year, Terri Peoples has done a pretty good job selling her skin care. She said she sold her 1,000th product this year and there are more customers coming to buy more of her skin care items. On July 14 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Terri Peoples will have a table set up with her products at Clark Park at 43rd and Baltimore Avenue.

“I really enjoy when someone comes up to me and try one of my products,” said Peoples. “The first thing they usually ask me, if I really made this lotion or if I really made this body oil. They can’t believe it.”

By Napoleon F. Kingcade, Tribune Correspondent
Read more from the article's source at: The Philadelphia Tribune