Bombed out!

Let me tell you a story......

Disclaimer - I suggest you set your alarm on your phone.....I have a tendency to witter on....oh and talk about myself like I'm another person.....

you have been warned 

once upon a time a woman called Karin (yes I'm talking about me) used to work as a cop. For 15 years in fact she worked as a PC......she joined as a mum of three and along the way she somehow managed to accrue a set of twin boys and another daughter (don't worry as she has now found a way to stop that happening again) but slowly and surely the stress of the job started to get to her........she thought she was doing ok......until one day she imploded.  She stood outside the station with her radio in her hand and sobbed till snotters were hanging from her nostrils to her kneecaps and stray dogs 3 miles away could hear her.  She didn't recover with a cup of tea and pat on the head, and in fact 6 months of counselling only resulted in copious amounts of snotters, half a box of Kleenex on a weekly basis and over the space of a month she developed an aversion to getting out of PJs, brushing her hair or going out the front door.  Karin never returned to being a cop. 

Now i can tell that you are now playing an imaginary violin at this point, but you see Karin was not a quitter (okkkayyyy well technically she did quit her job) and she knew she had to pull up her big girl pants for the sake of her long suffering hubby and tribe of rug rats.  She HAD to get a job. But she needed a job that had the following attributes - 
no requirements to take off PJs
no hair inspections
no night shifts 
no dead bodies 
no going outside and facing people. 

easy right? So, she did what any self respecting recluse does and got a job online! Ta da! It ticked all the boxes - no boss, no commute, and no one can see her coffee smile and Mickey Mouse Jammie bottoms (don't judge).  So she began - she identified a gap in the market at the time - Bath Bombs. You know.....the fizzing, floating colourful dissolving thingies........Very few people were selling them by social media, so armed with £50 (as that's all she had to her name) she started to buy wholesale. A few weeks in, people started coming to ask if they could sell them too......,..

Beauty Bath Junkie was born!  A one stop bath time pamper shop, where  Karin sourced small companies products to sell via a network of work from home ladies (and gents) on social media.  It evolved as it grew.  Karin was still in PJs but she managed to grow a group of people
who believed she had a good thing on her hands ans who spread the word and sales started to flow.  Karin didn't have investors or loans and didn't have a clue about business.....she knew how to be creative and she knew how to manage a team, so she winged it. She devoured articles on google, she listened to audiobooks, she began meditation in an effort to one day be able to go to the shops (as she needed new PJs) .....then one day Karin decided to make bath bombs herself.  It became a journey of fun, of disaster (exploding bath dust can actually make you pee a little), frustration, joy and patience.  She spent every penny on research, ingredients, cosmetic safety assessments, equipment and all the other money black holes when you decide to unleash your products on the unsuspecting public.

Things really started to happen after that, these were new and unique, handpainted, creative (I can actually feel my head swelling.....) and people loved them!.......the business got bigger. 14 hour days became the rule and not the exception.  It was worth the hard work.....go see www.beautybathjunkie.co.uk

 Karin could not keep up with the demand. The kitchen was full, the kids bedrooms were stacked high, the bath tub was full of boxes and packaging and the main bedroom smelled like a sweetshop and on dispatch day no one could get in the hall or living room. Karin had fallen over so many times she considered wearing padding at all times. She knew she needed premises but that meant leaving the house! She hired her son instead to ease the 4am finishes and he began to help with the workload, but at 6ft 5 it just added to the dangerous health hazards that Karin would trip over.  Then something happened - it kind of crept up on her as the days passed and one day Karin got dressed! Actually put on adult clothes and left the house! She took on an accountant and decided to play grown ups and get out of the house into the real world! 



Now karin has her own manufacturing premises, a total family business and she dresses every day and actually talks to people with only occasional bouts of snotters. Hurrah for Karin! 

All is good in karinworld. She is proud she has managed all by herself but in moving to the premises she had to sell everything she had to fund the move and although that was
ok, in the end  it would be alright, Karin was used to not taking a wage and knew it would pay off in the long run. it meant there was nothing left for emergencies (or cakes on a Friday). As you can see by the photos, the transformation from a bare shell to a working manufacturing premises has been via karins better halfs skills as a cabinet maker and an amazon pot of blackboard paint. 


Here comes the begging part.....brace yourself! 

Karin would like to point out that as she lives in Scotland, it is to be expected that at least three days a week it will be dull, and quite possibly one day of drizzle.  This is the norm.  Karin can cope with this......karins bath bombs can cope with this.  What Karin cannot cope with is days of heat, sunshine, humidity and large rooms.  Karins bath bombs also cannot cope with this.....they have taken to smuggly sitting there all perfect ready to be wrapped and labelled and then without warning they morph into supersize doughboys that threaten to either explode or eat small children! Karin has a dehumidifier that can't cope and needs emptied 5 times a day, she has tried sealing the expanding blobs in boxes, pots of absorb boxes dotted all over, 3 fans and quite literally talking to them about their behaviour (since it works with plants). Now Karin is in a bind - she has lost £100s of pounds of stock in the last 4 weeks, has released a shedload of snotters and many sleepless nights over these badly behaved bath bombs. Here's where YOU can help........

karin needs money to fund an air conditioner for the bathbomb making room and a reasonable size dehumidifier for the Storage room. Karin just about had heart failure when she saw that to
hire one air conditioner was £350 a week......quite frankly it had better do the hoovering and make coffee for that price! 

Sadly, these things cost money, which Karin just does not have after sinking everything into the move.  Can you help? I mean if you can't, she will appreciate it if that at least one of you will share it with Richard Branson.......he might launch a takeover bid, make beauty bath junkie a franchise and keep her on as creative director......

heres what you will get in return for your 

£5  - a gushing thank you from the bottom of karins heart (did I mention that that she can get quite emosh?)

£10 - a unique hand made bath bomb on your birthday! 

£20 - 5 gorgeous bath baths to enjoy
amd make bathart with 

£50 - a pamper box with a selection of bathbombs, soaps and bath products. 

£100 - a Christmas pamper box for you or you can gift to a friend and we will send it 

£200 - A £100 gift card to be used on the website anytime you like  www.beautybathjunkie.co.uk and a Christmas pamper box. 

£500 - £100 gift card, a Christmas hamper and bath bomb made to your design, colour and fragrance, cosmetic safety assessment submission and first batch of 6-7 sent to you. 

£1000 - as £500 package and a "make your own bathbombs day" at HQ with 2 friends. Lunch included and you get to keep what you make! 

£5000 - I'm guessing your Richard branson but you want to remain anonymous? Happy to give you my soul or first born child. 

Now it would great if we could pass the goal - Karin has great plans for BBJ own bubble bars, shower scrubs, whipped soap, shower gel and so much more in the coming years. She will never get finance and sadly she is not the daughter of anyone famous. You are the only ones who could help to make those dreams come true by helping her out.  Karin won't fold without your help (we already mentioned she is not a quitter), but it will be a long time before she can buy the things she needs to. Going forward she needs climate control  so that come summer or winter she can churn out bath bombs without the fear of losing her stock.....She has some amazing ladies and gents who are patiently waiting for bath bombs .....

Now you may not like bath bombs, (you weirdo) but you may have a rich uncle that lives for his weekly tub soak with a sparkly unicorn so please share!

Can you see which unicorn ate all
the pies???