Kosmea Natural Skincare

In 1993, Marie Jenkins was a stay-at-home mum raising a young family. Today, she manages Kosmea which has grown into an international success. Here is her story in her own words...

My first inspiration was my mother.

From when I was young, my Greek mother taught me about all the wonderful things nature could do for your health and used herbs and flower essences to keep us all healthy.

I am not a scientist.

I do wear a white coat but I have no formal qualifications in science and/or chemistry, the University of Life has taught me. Making a recipe for a beauty product is a bit like cooking – you have to experiment with the ingredients to get it right. I love doing that.

I stumbled across an idea.

I was mixing up a recipe for a face mask for myself and one of the ingredients I needed was rose hips. I went to my local nursery to buy some and they just gave them to me as they had no need for them. As well as the rose hips, I was given an article about rose hip oil and this was inspirational for me. It said rose hip oil was great for many skin concerns - ageing skin, reducing the appearance of scars, dry and sensitive skin and even skin dehydrated by overexposure to the sun. It was then that I decided to try to bottle and sell it to make a little extra pocket money. I look back now and call this moment my entrepreneurial seizure!

Along came hurdle one.

Sure, this was a great idea but I was a stay-at-home mum with 3 small children and an unemployed husband which meant that there was no spare money to start a business. I spent a lot of time trying to work out how to come up with the money because I really believed in my idea. No one in Australia was selling the oil and I knew I had to get people to try it. So the only way to raise the money for the oil and the bottles to fill it, was to sell our family car much to the dismay of my husband!

Research, research, research.

Now that I had my money I had to search for suppliers and found my first rose hip oil supplier. It wasn’t easy, trying to communicate in different languages to suppliers all over the world. Those language dictionaries didn’t really help either.

I came up with the company name and had to get a logo designed.
The company name Kosmea was decided on because it means 'to harmonise or bring into balance' in ancient Greek. I thought this was the perfect fit especially when one of rose hip oil’s properties is balancing the skin.

I also had to get a logo designed so I looked in the Yellow Pages and found a company that I thought sounded nice so I booked a meeting with them. I didn’t even realise that they were one of the best design agencies in the country but they must have felt sorry for me because one of their junior staff members worked with me and they only charged me a very small amount of money.

Then came hurdle two.

I found out that 4000 was the minimum order for the bottles I wanted to bottle the rose hip oil in. This really worried me and I started to fret about whether I was doing the right thing and what would happen if it all went wrong as I had put all of our money into this one idea. But I had to get over these doubts and kept thinking positively. So I ordered one drum of oil then my family and I all sat around the kitchen table and filled the oil into the bottles and labelled them.

I had to sell 4000 bottles of rosehip oil.

Because rose hip oil is a natural product, I decided that my market to sell the oil would be health food stores. I was really nervous on my first day and I dressed up looking like I had been selling for years. However, because we bought a really old car to replace the car I had sold, I had to park it around the corner from the store so no one would see me get out of it. Over the weeks I went into about every health food store in South Australia (about 80 all up) and a few pharmacies selling a tray of bottles to each store. This first campaign was a success and within six months, the first drum of oil I purchased was all sold.

Then came hurdle three.

I wanted to buy some more barrels of rose hip oil to expand the business but the bank refused my loan. Although it was frustrating, I did understand their refusal, they saw me as a risk. I had to get my husband to co-sign the loan since he had found a job by then.

I got even more inspired and focused.

Since Kosmea’s rose hip oil was so popular and I received great feedback from both health food stores and customers, I began to work on a formula for a moisturiser. That was the easy part but looking for a manufacturer to produce it was very difficult mainly because they didn’t take me seriously because of my lack of scientific qualifications. They thought they knew better and would try to change the formula. It did take a long time but I eventually found someone to make it the way I wanted the moisturiser made.

Don’t believe anyone who tells you it’s not possible.

One of the high points came early in the business. In 1996 I began exporting my rose hip oil to Hong Kong. One government export advisor said that he didn’t think it would be possible but I did it from believing in myself and knowing I could do it. Nowadays I deal with all sorts of markets from Asia, the USA, UK and Canada.

I have a strong belief in natural skin care and will not compromise on this.

My belief in natural skin care means that I will never compromise on sourcing the finest natural ingredients or their quality. I am passionate and dedicated to changing the way people treat their skin and to do this I have worked hard to bring innovative natural products within the reach of every woman. I made Kosmea one of the first skin care companies to challenge the conventional manufacturing of skin care to avoid the use of harmful synthetic ingredients.

Customer feedback makes me feel successful.

When I get thank you letters because one of my products has helped clear up a skin condition like acne, I know I’ve made it. If I’ve made a difference in someone’s life then I know I’m doing something right. I feel that I am very in touch with my customers because like them, I like using products that I know, do not contain any harmful synthetic ingredients.

We like to give something back to the community.

A few years ago, Kosmea decided to give something back to the community and elected the Salvation Army Women’s and Children’s Refuge Centres as its dedicated charity. A lot of women and children have to leave home with nothing on their back during the most horrific time of their life. It makes me feel better to know that when they arrive at these shelters, they are given Kosmea products to treat themselves with. It makes perfect sense to help others less fortunate than myself.

The Kosmea Vision and Mission

Our vision is to be recognised as the No.1 natural skin care company in the world. It’s a big task but you have to have the vision of what you want and can be achieved. Our mission has been the same since day one, to change the way that people treat their skin by bringing it into balance. There is only one ingredient that can do that – rose hip oil!

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