The first thing youll notice when you look at Kates Dear Baby website is that it looks completely different from any other BeesWax website you may have seen. The first thing Kate did when she got her hands on her BeesWax site was rip it down to the studs and put in all new content, design, layout, extra pages, blog posts, and everything else she could think of. She even imported her own fonts!
Pretty dang awesome for someone who claims she has “minimal” web design experience. We approve!!
We were fascinated by Kates inspiring story and her beautiful website design, so we asked her to participate as a featured website. heres what she told us:
Tell us a bit about yourself (name, location, personal stuff).
I am Kate Dear from Fulton, Maryland and run Dear Baby Products with my sister, Emily Dear. It took a thyroid cancer diagnosis during pregnancy to convince me to leave my day job as the executive producer of a morning news program (think Rachel McAdams in “Morning Glory”) and become a stay at home mom. On a mission to live a more natural life, I started hand-making my own skincare products and the rest, as they say, is history.
What is the first thing you can remember making by hand? How and why did you make it?
My sister and I learned how to sew from our grandmother, who made us the most beautiful quilts and smocked dresses. The first thing she showed us how to sew were pillow cases. The best part of taking home the pillowcases we made at her house was that they still smelled like her when we got home. Its a memory my sister and I cherish now that shes no longer with us.
What inspires you? Where do your ideas come from?
I was inspired to start this company by my own battle with thyroid cancer during pregnancy— and by the needs of the two beautiful children Ive had since then. I wanted to live a more natural life, starting with my diet and my skincare routine. I started paying more attention to what I was putting both in and on my body. My sister got involved with all her business smarts and we started selling the all-natural products we were already making in our moms kitchen.
I develop products based on my own childrens skincare needs. Our Best Selling Dear Baby Bottom Paste is the result of a particularly rough bout of diaper rash. Our black tea self tanner came about after I wanted a little more than the natural pregnancy glow during the summer, but couldnt find anything that lasted through a shower that didnt contain DHA.
What are your favorite materials?
I love that you can find most of the ingredients we use in any natural grocery store. We use avocado oil, coconut oil and shea butter in most of our products. I also love bitter almond essential oil (extracted from apricot kernels), which naturally gives our products their unbelievable scent- think waking up to the smell of warm marzipan cookies while youre bundled up in a crisp white duvet in a cabin on the Swiss Alps. Seriously, it smells that good.
Any tips for selling handmade stuff?
Sell only what you love to make. I started out selling teepees. They were selling very well and they helped generate buzz about the brand. But every time I got an order, Id find myself going “Ugh.” Now, whenever I get an order I get super excited to make the customers products because I was in their position before— looking for something completely natural to put on my childs skin. Every time we have a new customer, I get a thrill that we found each other. Every time we get a repeat customer, it makes my heart happy that they love something that I made just for them. Selling what you dont enjoy creating is the maker equivalent of working in a cubicle. Get out of the box and claim that corner office with floor to ceiling windows.
Apart from creating things, what do you do?
I am a full time mom to a two year old and a seven month old and a part time MBA student at Carnegie Mellon University. My sister works full time for a large company in finance, is planning her wedding and is also getting her MBA from the University of North Carolina. So you could say were both very busy, which is another reason why you have to look forward to filling orders. We do this in our very limited free time, so it has to be something you enjoy doing just as much as binge watching Netflix.
Besides Etsy, do you sell anywhere else?
Yes! We sell in boutiques across the country and in our local Whole Foods Market.
What do you love about BeesWax?
I love that all of the tedious work of building a web page was automatically done for me. I didnt have to import listings or add to the menu bar. It was so tidy! All the right information was on the right page the first time I logged in. That left me the energy to use my creative juices on sitedesign and style instead of on importing data.
How can BeesWax be improved? Any feature requests?
I would love if I could import my blog directly into the new site. I would also like to have an Instagram follow button available in the social icons. Oh and shopping on the actual site instead of redirecting to Etsy.