Interview with a Star - Sasha and Veronika (Herbolution)

Today, at this beautiful Earth Day we are appreciating all the gifts Nature brought to us and we are happy to introduce you to our teammates who cares so much about environment that they made it their lifestyle. Please meet Sasha and Veronica at Herbolution!

Please tell us a bit about yourself
We are Sasha and Veronika, a couple of Ukrainian origin – owners of Herbolution that is located in Tennessee. From name of our shop you could guess that our products are made from herbs and natural ingredients :) We do our best to provide the purest and most beneficial power of herbs to our customers through our skin care, aromatherapy and household accessories. We are proud to make all products from scratch and input a lot of love and care in every item, even tiny samples :) And we care about environment as much as about our customers. All our products are made with conscious attitude to Earth and care about condition of our soils. Our products are made of 100% natural ingredients and organic or wildcrafted when possible. All formulas are carefully created to experience full potential of Nature's power of herbs and our packaging is designed to give pleasure of feeling proud to support eco-conscious business.

What brought you to this kind of business?

Love of herbs and Nature was seeded in our hearts from early childhood and was growing and maturing ever since. The desire to express our creativity through body care products and everyday household items was just a matter of time. So we couldn't hold that passion inside and Herbolution is what burst out from that need :)

Why did you start selling at ETSY?
Etsy is all about passionate creation and self-expression - exact place for our needs :) We started actively selling on Etsy about year and a half ago and immediately fit in to handmade community. We like the demand for customizations and individual approach to every product and Etsy all about that :) Etsy customers value our hand made products and are generous on descriptive and detailed feedbacks full of sweet words and happy experiences.

What tools do you use to promote your work?
Our passion and sincere efforts do most of the promotion for us, thus we have many return customers, but we also use Facebook, Twitter, Blogspot, our website and Etsy's promotional tools like treasuries, showcases, teams, etc, as well as arrange giveaways, promotions, reviews and samples.

Where else can we find your products other than ETSY?
We also sell products on our website at www.herbolution.com, ArtFire, eCrater and few other marketplaces.

Do you make сustom items?
We love customizations! This emphasizes our personal approach and gives us advantage as handmade company over mass produced corporations. Personal attention is the key in our business.

Where do you get your Inspiration from?
Our love of Herbs, sincere care for Planet, our love to each other and desire to create things that both Earth and people can really benefit from and enjoy – are our inspirations and never-ending sources of ideas. Everyday life shows us needs and wants of different people and we are challenged to provide eco-friendly and herbal solutions to ones :)

What are your goals for your shop?

We are currently 88% plastic free and our goal is to become 100% free of any kind of plastic. We also plan to introduce some of our products to more retail stores and spas. But the main goal is to shift the thinking of common consumer to value and give priority to Earth-friendly products, and also to restore the trust in amazing powers of herbs.

How did you come up with your shops name?
We LOVE herbs! We wanted the name to reflect both herbal passion in creation of our products and some new, revolutionary solution with herbal products – fresh, 100% natural and eco-friendly ways to engage herbs in our everyday life. That’s how we came up with Herb+solution+revolution= Herbolution.

Do you both create your products or does one do another aspect of the business?
We try to be both fully involved in every step of Herbolution growth whether it's increasing our products assortment or transitioning to renewable energy. But still, Veronika is mostly responsible for formulation, development and testing of products and Sasha is focused on technical part, labels design, vision and eco-friendly solutions implementation.

What would you suggest to new Etsy sellers to promote their shops?
Be confident in what you make, don't cheat and be honest with you customers as with yourself. Give customer service as good as you never received yourself. And remember to treat your customers with generous sales and discounts, like the following one: for celebration of Earth Day we offer 25% OFF EVERY ORDER until Apr 24 (use code "love4earth"). Be sure that you support earth-friendly business while shopping for natural and delightful organic products.

Sasha and Veronika