When you go to the store to buy beauty and skin care products, chances are that you stick to the brands you know. You purchase Dove soap, Aveeno lotion, or Clean and Clear face wash—big name branded products. But these products are uniformly made and lack that personalized feeling. You might not think to buy handmade products for your beauty routine. And while handmade products can be more expensive, they are also often times better quality There are several big brands and way more local brands that make their products by hand. Columbia, Missouri is home to several of these. Local Shops: Black Honey Bee Cosmetics
Chances are if you’ve been in the Student Center in the last couple of weeks, you’ve seen the sign for this new cosmetics shop. Black Honey Bee Cosmetics is a skin care/bath company that makes bath bombs, soaps, scrubs, and more. All of their products are made by hand. The shop is located inside of the Student Center and had its grand opening in October. Its goal is to empower women of color through their products, but of course the products are for everyone
Life Soap Simple
This shop makes handmade soaps, lotions, lip balms, and laundry products in Columbia, Missouri. The owner uses simple, natural products in all of her products. Her pastel colored soaps and natural products are totally worth checking out!
Larger Companies: Lush
This is probably the shop that you think of when you think of homemade bath products. Lush is a cruelty-free, homemade skincare and bath products chain shop. But even though you can find one of these shops in just about any mall, it feels local. Their brightly colored bath bombs and quirky soaps and other beauty products make them stand out from store brand items.
Da Bomb Bath Fizzers
This bath bomb company may be more widely distributed, but they still make their products by hand. You can tell since each bomb is a slightly different shape. Each of the unique bombs has a surprise inside of them. You can find these bath bombs sold at Box Lunch, Hot Topic, Rue21 and Tilly’s.