Episode 4: Debora Pokallus - Bel Essence with BestViewsReviews

Apurv : Welcome to the podcast the product life its for passionate people about everything from home and kitchen to electronics all about products this is your host apurv sibal and today we have Deb she is the founder of Bel Essence so could you tell us a little bit about yourself Deb.

Deb : okay well um I never intended to go into business with skin care when I turn 40 I started developing you know age-related skin care problems really dry skin point of bleeding and irritations and discolorations and all that kind of stuff and so I went through all of the drugstore Brands which did work I'm not going to bash anybody's products but they didn't do anything to permanently change my skin and that's what I was looking for so I started doing research into natural ingredients to find out first of all what doctors and scientists said do you need for your skin to look its best what were the components the nutrients that you needed and then I started looking at literally grocery store items that I could buy and use on my skin that had the components that the doctors and scientists said were important and so I spent about 10 years developing two products for myself a cream and oil and they worked so well that I started getting compliments on my skin and people were asking me you know what I used I and I was handing out the recipe I said here you can make it and people were saying I don't want to make it I want to buy it where do I buy it so that's when I decided to launch it and I've launched first on Amazon with two uh just two products we did phenomenally well and uh you know time went on and then we now have uh close to 30 products in the line uh for skin care for all different types of skin for all different types of issues.

Apurv : well that's some amazing growth so what is the key differentiator of your product from the other competitors in the skincare domain

Deb : the thing that differentiates us is this was made for me I'm a consumer and I went through the products all the products that are out there and I made my laundry list of what I wanted in a product and it's pretty much the same for most people they want it to work the first thing is they wanted to work the second thing is they want it to work the third thing is they don't want it to be expensive and they don't and and people do not want to have to have 25 different products and an hour-long skincare routine every day so when I and that's that's me I want to put on one product have it work have it do its job not cost a fortune and and be done so when we I formulate uh our different products I basically take the kitchen sink approach we put everything in plus the kitchen sink so that any one product you can use and it will do it'll moisturize it exfoliates it it uh anti-ages it takes care of skin and the whole laundry list are done and you can find the product that works the best on your type of skin so you only have to buy one which is kind of counter-intuitive for a business but you know that's that's the that's the way I I operate so it sets us apart because we don't go through selling kits and things like that that you know oh my gosh you have to have this serum and this cream and this um you know product here and this lotion and and here you can have the whole set for a hundred dollars you can mix and match whatever you need you can switch up your routine which dermatologists recommend every once in a while switch a product and you can do it with one product from our line.

Apurv : wow that is actually interesting so how do you choose that one product out of those 30 options that you have

Deb : well we we have it basically broken down by skin type and overall effect for example we have three basic face creams for oily skin for you know normal to dry skin and then for severe dry skin so you can buy uh the basics a basic skin cream based on your on your skin type then we have other products we have a um an antioxidant uh cream that just is overloaded with antioxidants and it also exfoliates we have a cream that that moisturizes but leans a little more towards exfoliation and all of this we outline on our website you can read about the products and what they do and what the ingredients are in there and then also if you want to find out more about the ingredients we have a page on the website where we list every single natural ingredient in our that we use in all our products and it and it discusses the benefits of each individual ingredient so if there's something specific that you're looking for if you've if you've heard about an ingredient and you want to see what it's about we do have that on our on our website and then you can choose a product based on ingredients too and then we're always customers email us all the time this is the problem that I have with my skin whatever and and we can go through the products and help customers choose the right one for them.

Apurv : that makes sense so are all your products 100 organic?

Deb : we do use organic oils and we do use some organic products they're all natural um organic tends to run a lot more expensive and it and there are benefits to organic processing but when we research our products um and where we Source them we look for our primary concern is responsible sourcing to find those that have the least uh impact on the environment and um and are responsible they don't they don't damage the environment and they are um effective and and and the companies are produce what they say they're going to produce.

Apurv : got it so how did you manage to bring out the product on your own right from an idea to a ready-to-use product to Market did you have a team or some experience in product building?

Deb : basically it was on my own I I've you know I've been prior to being going into this business I worked in the fashion industry for about 30 years and I focused mostly on ethical fashion so I do have that sustainability responsibility side to my business and and that's always been important so that was one aspect of it and I knew how to go about sourcing in in a different industry but I but it also applied to this so I knew how to go about sourcing ingredients but mostly what it came down to is um I I know how to research so when I was looking for um what would work on my skin the first thing that I did was I went it did Research into What specifically is it that uh doctors and scientists say and there there's the database of um medical journals online so you can do your own research in there and you can look up questions and read actual Journal articles about what has been found to be effective what they say about certain vitamins and certain components and that's what I did originally because I was looking for my own for my own interests and it kind of becomes um a little addictive you know once you start doing this research you want to discover other things too and as I've been going along and looking into new new uh ingredients and doing that research you know he hides most of the time and but today he's uh but I will say this this is we are cruelty free certified cruelty free and we support um Animal Welfare Charities and environmental Charities with our our company so he's kind of a mascot for that

Apurv : so could you introduce your assistant to our viewers as well?

Deb : can I have my assistant what

Apurv : could you introduce him or her what this is

Deb : Frederick he actually is is a temporary house guest but he is here frequently I I babysit for for him for somebody else but yeah he's he does take an active interest in what in my work you know Laying across the keyboard and everything like that so yeah but he's kind of a mascot for uh for our our environmental and and uh conservation support um but yeah when I when I uh did the did the research like I said you know it kind of Builds on it once you figure out how to find one thing that you're looking for you can start it becomes that much easier to find everything so what that's the process that I go through when I hear about all these new trendy ingredients that cost a fortune I usually look into what their what the components are and then I look for ingredients that are already out there that aren't as expensive that have the same if not better uh Effectiveness than the new trendy thing you know whatever it might be some rare flower on some remote island somewhere in the Pacific that everybody's reading about for the most part nature provides the same kind the same benefits in many many different uh forms so that's part of my research too so that we can keep the costs down for our customers.

Apurv : impressive so how has the journey been so far in terms of product success sales?

Deb : well it's been up and down you know covid of course um hit everybody very hard and and uh recessions you know people say okay I'll be okay if I if my skin looks a little red because I I have to cut back on expenses and and so in those in those respects there's ups and downs and and there's fluctuations in the business but we have an incredible base of extremely loyal customers I have customers that go back to when I first um put the products out for sale and they've been buying for since we started uh and they are my you know they're my favorite people um I I know who they are I know what they order as soon as I see their name I know what they're going to be ordering and so it it's it's been excellent It's been um affirming that what we're doing is we're heading in we're in the right direction we're on the right path and um we take our customers comments and and reviews very seriously if there's a problem we fix it immediately and which is a benefit of being a smaller business you can you can uh adjust and respond a lot more quickly so it's it's up and down but it's no different than any other any other business.

Apurv : so what difficulties have you faced while developing this brand?

Deb : um the difficulty sometimes control because we we I when I look for new ingredients and new packaging and things like that I make sure that I have backup sources for them in case um one one company's out we can get it from someplace else but you know that's been a little bit difficult particularly after the the pandemic um the other difficulties are just getting the word out too is is that's probably the biggest thing between you know developing the products have that down you know producing them have that down and just making sure that people find out about us is really the only um the only difficulty that we face because it's an ongoing constant you have to and you have to come up with new ways to to promote your business um so that can be that can be a challenge

Apurv : got it are you using some technology for marketing and sales?

Deb : we do use social media but you know what honestly I I come my background goes way back you know in the analog days where you called up you know uh newspapers and magazines and you talked right to the the writers and the editors um and that's who you invited to your events and everything and and I guess for my to if I were speaking to small businesses don't negate that because that actually has produced more for us than these so than social media we do use social media we do digital marketing but the one-on-one and uh personal we've done some some events and um have personally represented the company that has a lot more of uh an impact in a lot of ways than you know Google ads and um Amazon and and all of that so if I were to speak to other entrepreneurs I would say I would say Do not dismiss that as as not being the way to go you know old school can can generate uh a lot of business for you too.

Apurv : got it that's some good advice so what sort of competitor analysis did you do while entering the marketplace?

Deb : I looked it up there are a lot of natural beauty beauty products out there and um and it's gonna and it's exploding it's becoming a major major force in the in the beauty industry going natural and when I looked at competitors um I found that a lot of them they build their their companies and their products around a particular ingredient or they build it uh just have they basically build something that that you know it's just it's all natural and that's that's the focus of it making it all natural I drilled down a little more like I said into what do I want as a consumer since I was the original consumer for this I want I have on my list of uh must-hats when I buy any kind of a product and that's what I looked for so in terms of our competition I think we um we're more specific about filling the needs um the specific needs of of our customers and so in a competition that's what sets us apart and that's what gives us a little bit of an edge over other companies that's not to say that people can't can't find in another company a product that works for Them um you know we're not we're not the only option out there but we're looking at what our customers specifically want and need and and filling that.

Apurv : got it what are your plans for the future is there a plan of expanding your product line?

Deb : well we're always expanding the product line um and I think probably what I'm looking at is growth into uh wholesale and spas and salons and and those kinds of businesses perhaps even hotels uh so going into more wholesale and being a little more specific about it I'm not really looking to go into the necessarily going into the targets because uh our products we would have to we would have to change the product in order to be able to be bought by the big um major chain stores and I'm not sure that I want to do that unless I made a specific product product line for places like Target and polls so we're looking to expand more into smaller retail chains and like I said spas and salons and always looking at new products that we can offer our customers so that that's just a standard um a standard thing that we're doing is is always expanding the line and revising it you know there are some products that we may decide that we're going to change we take them out because we've come up with a better formula for the same product so we're we're always looking to improve the products that we have and add to them to add to the mix.

Apurv : got it I wish you good luck with that so with this we have come to the end of our episode so I would like to thank our listeners for listening to this and please visit bellessence.com and especially for you we have a 15 discount coupon code which is best reviews and thank you again for listening to this episode and hope to see you back in the next episode thank you thank you.