When Lela Rain Barker founded Bella Luccè in her kitchen in 2003, she could not have envisioned that her scrumptious, all-natural skincare products would end up being sought after by movie stars and the world’s finest spas. Neither could she imagine that she would soon be taking international business trips that give her fantastic opportunities to immerse herself in other cultures—opportunities such as having dinner with Bedouins in the desert of Jordan and watching them make beauty products using ancient techniques.
Instead, the newly single mother was completely focused on turning her hobby into a viable business that would allow her to stay home with her two young daughters.
Lela’s interest in making natural beauty products was sparked when her older sister had a breast cancer scare in her 20s. After learning that some 90% of cosmetics and skin care products being sold at the time contained the potentially cancer-causing chemicals known as parabens, Lela cleaned out her bathroom cabinets and set out on a mission to refill them with natural, healthy beauty products. Although she found several products on the market she felt safe using, she was less than impressed by their quality. Not long after, Lela started concocting her own beauty products that were natural, safe, and luxuriously pampering.
When Lela launched her business a few years later, she printed her product labels at home with a black and white printer. She soon realized that having full-color product labels professionally printed would add value to her products and increase her customer base.
“I thought there had to be a market out there for beauty products you can feel good about and still have beautiful packaging—products that you could leave out on your vanity,” Lela recalled.
The first printer she tried used a flexographic press. The plate fees nearly killed her. Because her product line was (and still is) constantly evolving, label designs had to be changed frequently. After learning about Lightning Labels from other beauty entrepreneurs, she soon discovered the benefits of digital label printing. She was also thrilled at the personal attention she received from Lightning Labels.
Just six years after its founding, Bella Luccè’s natural spa products can be found in some of the finest spas and beauty boutiques around the world. The company currently has approximately 150 distributors in Europe and the Middle East; and 500 in the US. Approximately 90 percent of Bella Luccè’s business is wholesale, while the other 10 percent is sold directly to customers through the company’s website, www.bellalucce.com.
To say the company is a huge success is an understatement. Bella Luccè products have been included in the celebrity gift baskets at the Billboard Music Awards, selected by the producers of the 11th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards for inclusion in their celebrity gift collection, and given to VIPs at the Cannes Film Festival. Most recently, GCI (Global Cosmetics Industry) Magazine recommended Bella Luccè in its July edition as one of five beauty industry professionals to follow on the popular microblogging site Twitter.
Despite its success, Bella Luccè has remained true to the core values Lela founded the company on, including making the product by hand using only the freshest natural ingredients. The products are made just like Lela used to make them in her kitchen, only on a larger scale. Scrubs and lotions are made 50 gallons at a time in a commercial kitchen.
Lela is quick to share the credit for Bella Luccè’s success with the seven employees based at the company’s Columbia, South Carolina headquarters, whom she describes as a “really fantastic group of women” that work very well together, pitching in whenever and wherever needed. On really busy days, for example, when a large batch of product is ready to be poured into containers, everyone in the office runs into the kitchen, dons lab coats, and gets to work filling the containers by hand.
At the volume of product Bella Luccè is now producing, Lela admits that continuing to make everything by hand is probably not the most profitable business strategy. But she believes the tradeoff is worth it.
“I want good ju-ju in these products. I want real people making these products in the US with their own hands,” Lela explained. “There’s a lot of love and attention in there.”
(Christy Correll)
