Episode #128—Pure and Natural with Mizzi Cosmetics
Brenda Mierzejewski spent years working in the pharmaceutical industry before leaving the workforce to stay home with her kids. When her family moved up into the mountains of Connecticut, they weren’t prepared for the way the porch of their new home was right in the direct path of what turned out to be a wind tunnel through their valley. Suddenly her entire family was plagued by chronic chapped lips!
“I thought we were sick. I thought something was wrong because everyone was getting these chapped lips… We were using all of these over-the-counter products but there was some kind of interaction. It was affecting our lips. We were getting the red ring around our lips. And we were putting the stuff on constantly, every 20 minutes. Especially my kids, they were trying to eat it. It was bad.”
Brenda did not want her kids eating petrolium and putting it on their lips every 20 minutes. “It is a barrier, but it isn’t healing. I wanted something else to use as my base. A vegan base.”
Brenda first cooked up a few hundred pots of lip gloss based on her research about coconut, jojoba, almond and other oils as well as the healing properties of essential oils, honeycomb and honey. Those first pots of lip balm not only lasted for hours and tasted good without any petroleum jelly or nasty chemicals, they also had a really attractive gloss effect that looked good on its own, or either over or under lipstick.
Things really took off for Mizzi Cosmetics when first Kylie Jenner, then Kate Hudson both gave completely unsolicited celebrity endorsements of the lip gloss and lip scrub products. Right now Mizzi Cosmetics is on the cusp of massive growth, but going from a boutique company that makes roughly 1000 units per week to one with massive national distribution can be a tricky time for any consumer product based business. Personally, I am totally rooting for Mizzi Cosmetics to start showing up in stores all the way out here in Flagstaff, Arizona so I can get easier access to all of their fantastic products. Especially the allergen-free versions so my own Tallulah can satisfy her insatiable desire for lip balm and chapstick without risking exposure to either hidden nut, wheat or dairy products or chemicals that she might be sensitive to.
You can connect with Brenda Mierzejewski via her website at https://mizzicosmetics.com.
My name is Brenda Mierzejewski. In June of 2013, our family finally closed on our newly built home in the quaint little town of Portland Connecticut. Our home is on a mountain and borders the Meshomasic State Forest, the views are simply amazing.
As the fall and winter approached, we experienced that living on a mountain was extremely windy. The snow found us almost immediately after Halloween and we had no idea that the winter was going to be so long, bitterly cold and white.
January arrived and between my husband and our two small children, we went through many different lip balms to help heal and prevent the chapped and dry lips we had. Nothing truly worked. I decided since I was a stay at home mom that perhaps I should start a DIY project and make our own lip balm. Something that was natural, using all natural and organic ingredients. So I did. And after a couple of months of going through all these different recipes, I have perfected the best lip balm ever. I started to give them away to family and friends and they all loved it and asked for more. The feedback was overwhelming and I thought, “ I can really do something great with this product”. It’s local, natural and provides numerous benefits for all ages.
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Jen x