Natural Skin Care for Practitioners

Selling products to your therapy clients

If you're an aromatherapist, beautician, salon owner or any other therapist working in the field of complementary therapy, you can tailor-make natural cosmetics specific to your clients' specific needs/skin types and conditions and prescribe and sell to them directly. This add-on service is an excellent way to enhance your practice and to support your clients. If you increased the cost of a session by £10 or £15, your client would probably react badly but if you sell them an optional take-home product specifically tailored to their needs or condition, then they are more likely to accept it. Other positive aspects are that they are being supported in between sessions and they are reminded of your work with them every time they use the product, making it more likely that they will return to you for another session. Most likely your therapy insurance will cover you for selling to your clients after consultation but check with your insurer first. Usually you don't need extra insurance nor do you need to have your products laboratory-tested. We do, however, suggest that you follow standard good hygiene and record-keeping protocols. See Start a Business for more information.

Having taught people to make their own skin, hair, spa and aromatherapy products for over 10 years, we know you'll just love making these products.

Where do I start?

If you would like to sell tailor-made/ prescription products to your therapy clients, here are some recommendations and pointers:

• If you haven't already done so, we recommend that you attend Aromantic's courses in order to get a good basic grounding in how to make your own products the Aromantic way.

If you cannot attend our courses, you could also purchase The Aromantic Guide to Making your Own Natural Skin, Hair and Body Care Products as this contains a lot of recipes and other information to get you started. You can buy this book as a whole, in printed form or you can buy chapters of it in the form of eBooks (this is not the whole book though). We also recommend Kolbjorn's most recent publication (October 2010), Natural Spa Products: How to make your own professional and home spa products using natural ingredients, which has over 230 new recipes.

We also sell a 5-page eBook Selling your Natural Skin, Hair and Personal Care Natural Products: A basic guide to getting started. The mini eBook has the basic pointers you need to bear in mind when selling to the public, including basic labelling and insurance guidelines as well as links to extra resources to help you put the pieces of the puzzle together. We also have other books and recipe brochures. Click here to browse our publications section.

• If you feel that your need more in-depth support to create your own range of products, then contact us about our one-to-one consultancy services, usually provided in London or via Skype. During the consultancy we can create a range of recipes for your own brand of products. We sometimes also make products on the consultancy day, depending on your needs. Any recipes we create for you will of course remain confidential and we are happy to sign a confidentiality agreement if you wish.

  Note: Before opting for our consultancy service we strongly advise you to enrol on the Aromantic courses. If you need paid support for formulating your own products and recipes, please see Mike Harmon's details on our consultancy page.

• Once you've attended a course or chosen your recipe from one of our books, recipe brochures or eBooks or even seen a recipe on the website that you'd like to make, then you can order the ingredients you need to make the products.
• You don't need to have your products laboratory-tested but you do need to check with your insurer to see if you're covered for prescribing products to your clients as part of a therapy session. If you're not covered it is easy to get product and public liability insurance if you're a therapist making products. See our Getting Started Resources page for UK therapist insurers or look for home or soap crafting organisations in your own country.
• The rest, of course, is up to you but we are here to continue supporting you with our newsletters, new products and knowledge. We are not simply a supplier of raw materials as we equally value the importance of empowering our customers with knowledge. If you ever feel stuck, you can contact us for help.

Do I need any special equipment to make Aromantic's products?

It's amazing how many times we are asked what kind of equipment is required to produce products using Aromantic's recipes. The answer is that you don't need any special equipment at all as Aromantic's recipes are designed for standard kitchen equipment that you are already likely to have at home. We will say though that if you're starting a business, then we would recommend you use equipment especially dedicated to making your products. Aromantic does sell equipment that makes it easier for you to make accurate recipes and larger quantities. Click here for the equipment we stock. Click here for a free PDF document of the basic equipment you may need.

Therapists and Practitioners - moving on to selling to the public

• If you're a qualified therapist prescribing products for your clients, this is the easiest way to sell your products. But after getting all that positive feedback from your clients, you may want to take the next step by selling to the public. There are many options - you can sell at markets, arts fairs and festivals, host home parties, sell from home, build your own web shop, ask existing shops to stock your products or open your own shop. Before selling your products to the public, there are a few different legal areas that need addressing. See Starting a Business for more information.

We also sell a 5-page eBook Selling your Natural Skin, Hair and Personal Care Natural Products: A basic guide to getting started. The mini eBook has the basic pointers you need to bear in mind when selling to the public, including basic labelling and insurance guidelines as well as links to extra resources to help you put the pieces of the puzzle together.

• Through Aromantic' consultancy service we offer specialist business support for people working within the health & beauty sector. If you are interested in one-to-one support with achieving your business goals please see Simon Bowen's details on our consultancy page. If you are interested in one-to-one support for formulating your own products and recipes, please see Mike Harmon's details on our consultancy page.

Before booking a consultancy with Simon Bowen, you may first want to purchase Simon's 75-page eBook guide, The Essential Guide to Growing Your Health & Beauty Business: 50 Insider Tips to Take Your Business to the Next Level. Hundreds of business ideas were tried and tested over a period of 11 years - shortlisted to the 50 most essential tips and principles which you can apply in your business. Click here for more information and to order. ORDER NOW