Like beer, aspirin and toilet paper, the demand for makeup will
never be obsolete. Jamie Chambers and Sara Spencer took this
likelihood, coupled it with a skyrocketing market for organic,
natural, sustainable products, then ran.
Like beer, aspirin and toilet paper, the demand for makeup will never be obsolete.
Jamie Chambers and Sara Spencer took this likelihood, coupled it with a skyrocketing market for organic, natural, sustainable products, then ran.
Yet from their shopping list, you’d think they were running a bakery.
“We use a ton of oats, sugar, extra virgin olive oil and grape seed oil,” said Chambers, who said she stocks up on ingredients from the bulk section at a Whole Foods Market grocery store. “One time the checker looked at me and said, ‘What do you need 20 pounds of oats for?’ ”
Spencer joked you could probably add honey to one of their face scrubs and make muffins.
The friends of five years met at Gavilan College and are now business partners spearheading Purely Pleasures: Natural Comforts & Cosmetics from their home offices – the kitchens of either Jamie or Sara.
“Depending on which roommates we want to (tick) off,” joked Chambers.
Spencer, 25, grew up in Gilroy and lives in Aptos. The San Jose State University alumna who has a master’s degree in counseling psychology and is due with her second child, said she was sick of seeing unpronounceable preservatives in cosmetic ingredient labels.
“Normal mascara is garbage,” she said. “It’s full of nasty chemicals.”
Chambers, who lives in Gilroy, is currently neck deep in Gavilan’s nursing program and grew wary of shelling out $25 for quality foundation makeup on a student’s strained budget.
“So I started researching online,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “And I found out how to make it myself.”
The two began mixing and bottling in October 2010. By November they were shipping orders, promoting their fresh-faced company via social media and ringing up roughly $600 in sales the first month.
Their entrepreneurial creed? Skin-nourishing, environmentally conscious, affordable products that don’t force shoppers to choose between groceries or makeup.
Any one of their 52 eye shadows go for $4 each in vivid hues that pop on the skin much like the trendy brand Urban Decay – a cosmetics company that totes its eye shadow at $17 for 1.42 grams, according to the company’s website.
Purely Pleasures sells five packs of eye shadow for $17.50.
Chambers pointed out their company gives buyers three grams of eye shadow for $4; where as Bare Escentuals, a major name brand in the mineral makeup sector, is a little more pricey.
A customer service representative for Bare Escentuals confirmed the company lists its eye colors at $13 for .02 ounces per container; about 0.56 grams.
“Financially, we could afford it,” said Spencer of her products. “All of the body scrubs and products are made in a kitchen.”
Each week the duo gets together for makeup madness; weighing, measuring, mixing and stirring ingredients in stainless steel pots, saucepans and glass bowls, then brewing beautiful batches of body care bliss.
Or, as Chambers puts it, “by the time we’re done, it looks like makeup threw up all over our kitchen.”
At a quick glance it looks like they’re baking cookies or concocting potions – combining oats and sugar for one of their body scrubs or scooping tiny spoonfuls of hot pink, emerald green or deep blue powders into plastic containers. With glass vials, lavender, herbs, orange peels, plants and various ground-up minerals scattering their work station, the word “alchemy” comes to mind.
Chambers joked people get irritated when the pair turns an entire section of the house into production headquarters, the ensuing glitter, powders, colors, labels and everything else it takes to compose a professional-grade skin care line “flying around” in a mini maelstrom of creation.
“One time I wore a black T-shirt, and came out looking like a kaleidoscope,” joked Spencer.
Today they have a gamut of polished formulas in the bank, but it took hours on end of trial and error.
Spencer said the process of conjuring their sugar wax – a natural hair remover – was like making candy. The two said they encountered a sweet crisis after attempting to triple the batch.
“We were having a nice, gooey, sticky, mess,” she laughed. “We’ve also had issues with jars.”
Chambers interjected.
“Jars were leaking,” she said.
From the way Chambers spoke of quantities and measurements and gauging various factors such as adhesion, then revisiting the “whole mess” of sheet paper with different numbers scribbled here and there, she could have been describing an algebra class.
“We’d have to figure out what the hell we just did, so we could duplicate it later,” she said.
With recipes tweaked to perfection and initial kinks hammered out, the Purely Pleasures inventory is established and taking orders.
Intense pigment mineral eye shadows come in bursting hues including “unicorn,” “blue velvet,” “sex on fire,” “sour apple,” “stratosphere” and “ancient orchid.” There are also sea salts, “give’em the blush off” blush, sugar scrubs, therapeutic comfort wraps, eyeliners, brow fillers, lip balms and flawless finishing veils.
The two envision Purely Pleasures becoming an all-encompassing one-stop online beauty resource, and are working in that direction one creation at a time.
Chambers said the best part is that everything is natural, organic and chemical-free: No artificial preservatives, no artificial scents.
“We rob Sara’s mom of organic orange peels and lavender,” said Chambers, who said they use as much locally grown and produced ingredients as possible.
Spencer pointed out the skin is the largest organ on the body, and that anything it comes in contact with is quickly absorbed and directly deposited into the bloodstream.
So when she’s rubbing on a lotion or applying a cosmetic, she wants to know exactly what’s in it.
“I’ve been realizing how much stuff is out there we don’t need to expose ourselves to,” she said, adding there are cheaper, healthier alternatives that do just as well performancewise.
The two applied this concept to their website. An interactive feature allows shoppers to highlight any word such as “magnesium stearate” or “mica,” then a “learn more” link provides a pop-up box giving viewers an exact definition. There are also video tutorials and slide shows demonstrating various color combinations using the pigment eye shadows.
On the business end, Chambers said February has been a good month, adding new items including mascara and lip glosses are in the works. She said their company is gaining interest from beauty bloggers and consumers, having filled orders from Hawaii, Canada and Puerto Rico.
In the future, the ladies hope to offer their products in salons and local businesses, and are focusing on promoting their affordable line to students at Gavilan.
“People want to look and feel good,” said Spencer. “If you look good, you feel better, if you feel better, you look good. It starts with health. You don’t have to have a bazillion dollars to afford good products.”
To go to the Purely Pleasure website, click here.
