Home business grew out of problems with cross-country move

LORALEA KNOX

The Edmond Sun

Starting her own bath and body product line Salt Soothers was no easy task for Andrea Fredericks. She literally had to suffer for her art.

Moving to Edmond from California in May 2004, Fredericks found herself faced with an enormous problem. Her skin.

"My skin hurt so bad," she said. "It was cracked and bleeding from the dry weather and climate here."

Not knowing any other remedy, she tried using lotions to heal her dry skin.

"I was applying lotion anywhere from four to five times a day," she said.

It was then that Fredericks knew she was going to have to try something else. She remembered hearing that Cleopatra used to soak in olive oil for her skin.

"I figured if it was good enough for Cleopatra, it's good enough for me," she said.

After using the olive oil, Fredericks began to notice that her skin wouldn't hurt or crack for a day or so. Wondering how she could get the results to last longer, she remembered some bath salts that her daughter Page gave her as a mother's day present.

"I just decided to mix the salts and the olive oil together one night and it worked wonderfully," she said.

After doing some research on the use of olive oil on the skin, Fredericks discovered that all natural carrier oils, such as almond and coconut oils, penetrate the skin much better and leave no oily residue behind. After some trial and error experimenting and using the new salts and oils that she ordered from Israel, she found the perfect combination of oil and salts to soothe her skin.

"I was so happy," she said. "I thought, 'This is perfect for me. Now I'm done.'"

She hadn't even considered creating a business until her aunt and her girlfriends began to rave about her products.

"All my family and friends kept telling me to do something business related," she said.

Fredericks approached her husband, William, with the idea to start a business. Not only did he get on board, but he also took the money he had been saving for two years to buy himself a travel trailer to invested in into her dream. That was when Fredericks' business Salt Soothers was created.

"I am so blessed to have a husband like him," she said. "Not only did he give up his dream for me, but he also helps make scrubs and does labeling."

Fredericks premiered her product last February at the Affair of the Heart in Oklahoma City to some pretty skeptical people.

"After the first day, we hadn't sold one single jar of scrub," she said. "I was completely devastated."

Fredericks knew that women were turned off by the word "oil" but if she was able to demonstrate the scrub on women and they could feel how soft it leaves the skin with no oily residue, then she could start selling.

"I saw that the line for the women's bathroom was a mile long," she said. "I just thought, hey, there's an audience with nothing else to do while they are standing in line."

Fredericks decided to do demonstrations on the women while they were waiting in line and as they approached the sinks to wash their hands. "It seemed crazy at the time," she said, "but I completely sold out of the scrub, so I guess it paid off!"

After the first show, her business has grown tremendously. She now sells out almost every show she attends and has people all over the United States ordering products from her Web site.

"We do a private label of products exclusively for the Rusty Gables Gallery and Guest Lodge," she said. "And we've started putting the products in salons and spas."

Besides women, her clients also include diabetic patients with poor circulation in their hands and feet, and men.

"Men come kicking and screaming to my booth," Fredericks said. "But men are my biggest repeat customers."

Fredericks also recently decided to revamp the clipart logo on her labeling with some real artwork. She got local artist Chris Matlock, an art major at UCO, to come up with the perfect image: A woman relaxing in the bath tub.

With Fredericks finishing her finance degree at the University of Central Oklahoma and with the business growing so rapidly, it won't be long before a warehouse is purchased to help with the distribution she now does all by herself, she said.

"When people ask me if I'm overwhelmed by being a wife, a mother, a full time student and running the business out of my home, I tell them that I am always overwhelmed," she said. "But when I'm at a show and I have a person say, 'Wow, I love your product,' it's so rewarding that the other doesn't even matter."