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Johanna: Welcome Nicole and Carol to the Alopecia Angel podcast. I'm so excited to have these two ladies with us today because they have not only started their own skincare line, but they also have different attributes that you can't find on the regular market. And it's all natural and organic. And so I really wanted to showcase their products. I use their products, let me just say that as a side note. I love their serum and I love their polish, and I love so many other things.

In my quest to always upgrade my health and upgrade my hair and upgrade my skin and my skincare, and especially as I get older, it's always good to see what else is out there. I found these ladies originally at my local farmer's market and I spoke to a gentleman, I don't know if it was a father or husband or, somebody both very educated on the products and I was really taken aback at how, you've come to market each product with a different lady's name from the Bible. I found this to be very I found my curiosity peaking and I wanted to learn more. And so that's how I reached out to you guys, and now we're here. So welcome again.

Nicole: Thank you. We are so excited to be here.

Carol: We'd like to thank you for what you're doing for the people who have the alopecia issues. That's really a ministry and we appreciate that.

Johanna: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. It's a very soul, purposedriven situation and because the struggle was that devastating and that hard, it just, it makes it so much more sweeter when you can help others. Sorry, I got choked up there.

Carol: Good good, good.

Nicole: That's certainly a part of our ministry. We love what we do in this business. I love the product creation and testing, but we see this as a ministry. We are able to reach out to women and our goal is to help women to feel as beautiful as God sees them. And women were created to want to be lovely, and that is wonderful. That's how we were made and we really wanna encourage that with everyone that we interact with.

Carol: We see them respond to that. When we say something like that, they just feel like: Oh, it's not vanity. It's okay to want this, it's a matter of soul.

Johanna: Absolutely. I think beauty is skin deep and really it's not just how we feel in our skin, but it's also how we present ourselves, because beauty is definitely more than skin deep. What I've come to find is that even with alopecia, it affects you. It affects how you present yourself at work, how you conduct yourself within your friends, in your hobbies and the activities that you wanna partake in, whether it's windy outside or not. Whether you want to go outside just because the wind may, lift up a certain area or aspect of your hair.

And so it's it's not so easy going through hair loss, but going through bad skin is also something that I've experienced myself. In my 20s I had really bad cystic acne, and that's probably part of the journey too of healing because, I would go to so many dermatologists and skincare was always important to me because, as a teenager, as a young adult you're covering it up with makeup, right? And it looks almost like chalky, and then the concealer gets all dry and it looks horrible. It absolutely looks horrible, there's no way to cover up bad skin. There really isn't.

And so it's so important, and I feel that both of these skin and hair are actually very connected. But tell me first, how did you guys start this company? What issues or health concerns did you have that prompted you to say: Hey, let me start my own company for skincare and a full skincare line?

Nicole: For anyone who doesn't know, this is my mother. So we're a mother-daughter team here. And so you started with a line of daily devotionals. And honestly, the story of Esther about how it says in the Bible that she was already beautiful and then she had a year long beauty treatment before she was shown to the king. Just the idea of taking care of yourself is really what inspired the line of body care products that we have.

Carol: We created a fragrance for each of the women, some, not all of the women, but for women in the Bible based on their character or their circumstances, just to remind us of their lives and the lessons we can learn from them.

Nicole: You had mentioned some struggles that might have inspired the business. So I have always been interested in skincare. I love trying new products, I love comparing products, comparing ingredients seeing what works, what doesn't, and why. I had actually gotten a sample of a very highend, facial serum. I tried it, I loved it, and I went online to buy it and it was $180. I said this is just outrageous. To have to really get access to good quality products, you're required to spend that much money?

So along with the women of the Bible and that connection to God that we are trying to inspire, we also want to create the very high end products. And make them accessible to every woman. Because it's not just, the very wealthy that should be able to feel good in their body. We really want that to be available for everyone. So that's what inspired the serum. I took a look at the very high end products out there, what made them good, why they were good. I examined all of the ingredients, and you would be surprised how many of them include things, that are just fillers in there for just taking up space?

A lot of them have dyes to make them that beautiful golden color. Our serum is naturally golden because it has all of the nutrients in there, and you'd be surprised how many facial products include perfumes. We love smelling good, our body products are scented. We love that aspect, but perfume doesn't really belong on the face.

Johanna: Absolutely. I actually took some courses in skincare and the lady had mentioned that water is one of the first ingredients in almost every product, and it shouldn't be in every product. If you see water as the first ingredient run, because that's not what should be buying and it's diluting the potential to do anything for you.

And so it's just not worth your time or your money. And I like to dispel a lot of these gimmicks, only because there's a lot of gimmicks and hair loss and all the one size fits all, whether it's a laser cap or PRP or minoxidil, or the supplements or anything else that's, geared for one person and trying to heal hair loss, it never ends up well because again, it's not getting to the root cause. I do love your serum though. So what is the name of your brand and how did you come up with the name for it?

Nicole: So the name of our business is Her Legacy Beauty & Gifts, and that really came about, you wanna share that?

Carol: Sure. It goes back to the devotionals and specifically we focused first on Queen Esther because again, she was already beautiful and then she went for a 12 month spa treatment. And so it's an acknowledgement that we have this desire, women have this desire to feel beautiful and to make the most of the beauty that we have, but, additionally, so the women in the Bible, they can leave a legacy of beauty, but they can also leave a legacy of faith. And so it was the combination of leaving both of those types of legacies that got our business started, and we went from there.

Johanna: How did you go about choosing all the different names? I saw you have Deborah and Hannah and there more women that I actually realized that are in the Bible. I was like: wow. How did you go about choosing them individually? Or did you just scour the Bible just for women's names? Here's one.

Carol: Actually, and I'll speak to this. I write the devotionals first. Whatever I felt, whoever in the Bible, I felt I needed to have her story told to women today, I would select that woman. I would do the research and write the devotionals for that woman. We had quite a few of them already written it. And then we formed our business and so then we took those women and were then able to create a fragrance for each of those individual women.

Nicole: And we really spent some time just thinking about their story, and we worked together to come up with ascent that would just remind us of them. For example, Eve, from the Garden of Eden, her scent is pomegranate mango, so it's very fruity. Esther was royalty, so hers is a very elegant floral scent. Hannah is very clean and refreshing. Deborah, a lot of people haven't heard of her, but she was a Israelite judge and military leader, so hers is a little more masculine and more of a powerful scent. So that's the background of how we come up with those.

Carol: It's just a way to remind us of their lives. We've had several of our customers come back to us and say: I was wearing this and walking through the office and someone said: Oh, you smell good, and then that provided them an opportunity to talk about that woman in the Bible and talk about Christ. It is a ministry for us.

Johanna: So your background, Nicole is in chemistry is in what exactly?

Nicole: So I ama degreed physicist. And then on top of that, I've taken additional courses in chemistry and cosmetic chemistry. And then my husband is also a scientist. So he has a doctorate in pharmacy, and really how we develop our products is very scientific based. We go online and we find all of the medical studies and we ensure that when developing new products. And so that's something that we try to do. We try to keep it as natural as possible while really blending science and nature, getting the best of both worlds, to make sure that the products are going to be effective, that they're really going to have an impact on women. It's been amazing to, to get the sort of feedback that we've heard.

Johanna: What are some of your top sellers and what do you think sets your line apart from others that are out there?

Nicole: So our most popular product is by far the serum. It is our legacy Illuminating serum right here. Since it came out 3 years ago it has always been the best seller. And so, like you had mentioned earlier about water being a filler ingredient, this has no water in it. It is an all oil blend and I love having listened to some of your other podcasts, how you really take the perspective of treating an issue internally and externally, because you miss out if you just focus on one area. So we certainly encourage good health, good diet, good nutrition, but also the skin can really benefit by applying nutrients topically.

And based on various medical studies, applying oils like our serum topically is just as effective, if not more for skin health than getting those nutrients, those fatty acids in your diet. We are the topical side of it, we're focusing on that to help women with some of those skin concerns like dryness, eczema, psoriasis, excess oiliness even. And so our serum really soaks into the skin and it doesn't leave you heavy or greasy, so it's perfect for a variety of skin types.

Carol: As a mature woman, in addition to skin health, it also is wonderful for, you, your suppleness wanes as you get older. And I noticed that the texture of my skin is so much smoother, and of course the hydration and just the appearance of fine lines. When we get older we get these fine lines and then we put makeup on and then they are accentuated. So it's a physical appearance based benefit, but it's because of the nutrients that the skin is absorbing.

Johanna: I fell in love with your serum because having moved in so many different places around the world, your skin and your hair change, it's not like your products, they have to change. The shampoo, the conditioners, the even the moose or whatever it is that I'm using has changed in all these different countries, because the weather forces me to do that, the environment, the humidity levels, or even in this case, how dry it is where we live. The first year I moved here from Japan. I was actually quite astonished how drying it was where I was going through tubes and tubes of chapstick. I was just like: Oh no, the winter is going to beat me up. Lo and behold it did.

And then following then I was just like: Ok, I'm gonna really prepare for this. I'm gonna go look into different serums, into different things. Your serum has been amazing because not one day had I been dry and only if I was, it was because I was in between finishing one bottle and going to find the second bottle to to purchase. That was the only time. I like to tinker around myself with different oils and like to see in this course that I had taken for skincare, they teach you how to make oils, but nothing like yours. And I was just like: Ok, nevermind. So from when did you actually start and have your full product line to sell to market?

Nicole: So our business began in 2021. So we've been doing this for about 4 years. We are continuing to expand, we're continuing to develop new products. I think I mentioned the serum came out 3 years ago. We have the facial polish, the microdermabrasion polish, it's called our Renewal micro polish and that came out last year. It has been very well received, very loved. And then we also have body creams, perfume rollers, and exfoliating scrubs for the shower. And then as well as the daily devotionals, and then we also have some little drawer sachets. That is wonderful for someone with very sensitive skin that wants to enjoy the scent, but for some reason or another they can't necessarily apply very many products to their body. They really love to purchase the sachets. 

I just wanna let you know how much I appreciate you had mentioned in another video that you discovered you have an allergy to peanuts. We always encourage anyone, who has skin sensitivity is to find out what they're sensitive to. And that's something that we love to hear, when someone knows what they're allergic to, we really appreciate that.

Johanna: Thank you. In regards to any future product, that you're developing currently? Is there any sneak peek that you can give us?

Nicole: We are looking into a face wash. We have gotten a lot of inquiries about a moisturizer, but honestly, what we find is women who use the serum don't always need a moisturizer. And so we're trying to create top tier products at an accessible price point, and then also not push products that are unnecessary. So if the serum can take the place of a moisturizer for you, we love that. And we don't want to develop a moisturizer just to push it on customers. So we're really trying to develop only what's necessary and make that very high quality.

Johanna: You're absolutely right. I start to question sometimes when I see product lines at Sephora or at the drugstore or anywhere else, and I'm just like, is a toner really necessary? Is the face wash and the this and the that? Is it all truly necessary? Because in all honesty, I don't have the full gamut of things. I try to keep things as simple as possible and as easy as possible because time is of the essence, and then also, I'm no longer, how can I say this without jarring people. I'm no longer at a point in my life where I have hours to spend on my face.

Nicole: Actually we had chatted with a customer previously and she, like you, she does quite a lot of traveling. And she shared with us that when she travels, she brings the serum, she brings mascara and she brings lipstick. And that's it for her skincare.

Johanna: I agree. I agree. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our audience or maybe any tips or tricks in regards to buying and maybe vetting their current situation? With products and maybe their own product line that they're maybe now they're like rethinking about oh, maybe this line that I'm using isn't that great for me and I'm wasting a bunch of money thinking it's great for me.

Nicole: So another thing is you need to take into account like you had mentioned, adjusting your products for the climate that you live in. So in a very dry climate, focusing on oils for skincare is where you want to be focused on. And also there's a lot of products out there that advertise using a single oil and oils are wonderful for the skin, but each oil has a different nutrient blend for your skin. And the reason that we've selected the oils for our serum, is that you're getting the full range of fatty acids that your skin needs. It doesn't just need the omega threes, it doesn't just need the omega sixes, it needs everything. And so each oil has a different impact on your skin.

Johanna: So would your line also tackle any issues like eczema or rosacea or anything else? Now that we're talking I have my mother-in-law who has rosacea, but I know a lot of, even my clients suffer from psoriasis and eczema. And just other types of dermatitis all over their skin.

Nicole: So one of the real benefits about the serum is that it is anti-inflammatory for the skin. A lot of studies show that issues like eczema or issues like psoriasis, those can be caused by an imbalance of fatty acids. I know that you can add some benefit by adjusting your diet. But also you can add some benefit by adjusting the fatty acids that your skin takes in. So a lot of skin conditions including excessive oiliness, even, your skin's trying to overcompensate for a dryness in the skin.

In fact, I have a good friend that when she started using the serum, she shared with me that she began with an entire vial full each day. And that just blew me away. Her skin had been so dry and now her skin is balanced out to where she really only needs just a couple of drops each day. So I would encourage women to try different products, see what works, because not everything is gonna work for every person. Everyone's different, and you really need to take that into account. So don't get discouraged. Definitely keep seeking because an answer is out there.

Johanna: Awesome, I love that. I think that's very important to keep seeking, whether that's for your health concern or your skincare, or even for your haircare. Because it takes a minute, especially if you're traveling or if you move from one place to another place as many people are doing. It takes a minute to settle in, whether that's with your skin and with the new products, but then also acclimating to the various seasons. Every season is gonna be a little different, and I love skincare that can evolve with you, I love how different seasons of our life will require a different version of us. And in many ways, both of you showcase that too. Anything else that you'd like to add for our podcast?

Nicole: I would say that to just encourage your viewers and your listeners that, like we had mentioned earlier, we try to help women to feel as beautiful as God sees them because God doesn't see what we see. He sees what's inside, he sees our heart, and your heart is beautiful. And so, what is on the external? Just always remember that. Like I tell my two little boys: God's opinion matters most. He loves you and he thinks that you're beautiful.

Johanna: Amen to that. Thank you so much, ladies, for your time, for your inspiration, and then also for your product line and for your ministry, and then also for helping women like me acclimate to the weather here.

Carol: This has been really wonderful. We've really appreciated the opportunity to chat with you.

Johanna: Oh, my pleasure.

Nicole: We appreciate the invitations. We love to be here.

Johanna: Thank you so much for your time, ladies. This was very enjoyable. Yes. If there's anything I can do to support you, please let me know. I'm happy to help.
Carol: Thank you so much for the opportunity.