Melissa Wilson always enjoyed makeup, often playing with her mom’s makeup when she was a child. But in her teen years, Mel suffered from acne and scarring. Later she found out she has polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and that hormone imbalance was causing her acne. After trying many products—that didn’t work—Mel decided to try creating her own, natural skin-care products.
She’d been creating her own eyelash serum for a while, and friends and sisters encouraged her to go ahead and run with that. The serum is all natural—every other brand she’d tried from the salon would turn her eyelids colors, and she spent hundreds of dollars trying to get her eyelashes to grow better. She loves DIY projects like refurbishing furniture—all kinds of making and creating. She explains, “I’ve always been an artist, and I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I already had the ingredients. I had the time. I decided to make a bottle for each of my sisters. It was around Christmas-time, and as I texted my friend that her bottle was ready, she asked if I’d make one for her friend. So I did. Then I created a professional-looking label for the bottles. At first I was going to call it Elnaturel, but my sister, who is sassy, said, ‘You forgot the M, duh! Why not call your brand Melnaturel, playing off your name?’ And I thought, ‘Great idea!’ Soon after that, I posted on my Facebook page that I had 8 extra bottles available for $10 each. I ended up selling 165 bottles in that one post. I hadn’t even set up an official business yet! So I got to work ordering ingredients, setting up an LLC, getting insurance, and making everything legal, and on January 22, I launched the business—Melnaturel.”
Meanwhile, she had been working on looking for other natural skin-care products for herself, researching all of the reasons why she should be using completely natural products on her face. She had tried everything under the sun to treat acne but couldn’t get rid of it. Then when she started going 100 percent natural—no harsh chemicals—she started to see a major difference with scarring going away and acne clearing up. Then other people became interested in her research and products. By the second month of Melnaturel, she had already sold product in eleven states, and now her products are being used in over twenty states and in Australia.
She explains: “Once I started the official business, I started testing product with girls in various locations around the country that I knew were having problems. I mailed them product to test and give me feedback. Then I grouped them according to skin type and did various trial tests. If the trial worked, I’d bring it out to market. I had known it worked for me, but I wanted to know it was working for other people. And now I have frequent users all over the country.”
More information and Melnaturel’s full product line can be found at www.melnaturel.com/, or by following Melnaturel on Facebook, Instagram & Pinterest. You can also purchase some of her products locally at The Local Store (Volume One) in Eau Claire.