BUSINESS NEWS
Coast River Business Journal
April 2021 • 9
Treat yourself, locally
Local businesses offer natural bath and beauty products
Story by Emily Lindblom
Coast River Business Journal
elindblom@crbizjournal.com
Several businesses in the Columbia-Pacific
region make and sell sustainably-sourced, natural
bath and beauty products so customers can practice
self care while also caring for the environment and
the local economy.
The Magical Bee
Acupuncturist and herbalist James Carter and
his husband, Daniel Uribe, create and sell a variety
of natural candles and soaps through their business,
The Magical Bee.
Uribe’s brother is a beekeeper, which inspired
the Astoria-based couple to try their hand at mak-
ing beeswax balms and salves for Carter’s clients.
“We dove right in and started making many
types of candles,” said Carter, who runs Luna Acu-
puncture and Wellness in Hillsboro as well as a new
location in Astoria. “A lot of times people who see
me at the acupuncture office are not able to take in
herbs, I see a lot of chronic conditions. So we started
mixing herbs into candles and soaps with essential
oils and it evolved from there.”
Uribe added it took some trial and error, but
eventually the two came up with successful recipes
for soaps and candles using beeswax mixed with
coconut wax and soy wax.
Since then, The Magical Bee has grown and now
uses herbs from all over the world, including tur-
meric, frankincense, myrrh, wintergreen, copaiba
and French lavender. All ingredients are sustain-
ably-sourced, paraben-free and chemical-free.
Uribe said it’s really important that people in the
area can get access to locally-made aromatherapy
products.
“People could really benefit from a good aroma-
therapy candle,” Uribe said. “If they have anxiety or
depression I’d always recommend one of our laven-
der-lilac candles to ease their mood.”
Carter said it’s important to have these products
available locally at the Astoria Sunday Market, as
well as online and on Etsy.
“There are huge pockets in the U.S. that don’t
have natural products so it’s available online for
them too,” Carter said.
Part of the profits from The Magical Bee go
toward Love, Peace and Harmony, a humanitarian
nonprofit foundation, and Carter offers free Love,
Peace and Harmony meditation sessions.
Harmony Soapworks
Fellow Astoria Sunday Market vendor and soap
maker Diana Thompson owns Harmony Soapworks
in Oysterville.
Thompson said she and her husband started the
business in 1997 in Portland, when they decided
they wanted to have a business of their own. Thomp-
son got involved with small business development
programs at her local community college and got
her start in making soap through one of her class-
mates, who was also running a soap business.
Thompson and her husband moved to the Long
Beach Peninsula in 1999, when Thompson began
working for a friend whose company sold decora-
tive soap molds.
When a company in Japan, Tree of Life, con-
tacted the soap molds company, Thompson brought
along samples of her own soap to give to the repre-
sentatives, who were impressed with her products.
Since then, Thompson has been making soap for
Tree of Life, as well as selling wholesale to local
shops on the Long Beach Peninsula and online to
customers.
“We try to be really careful about where we get
our ingredients,” Thompson said. In addition to nat-
ural plant oils, Thompson uses essential oils from
a company in the Portland area, as well as local
herbs and plants, including cranberry seeds and
fiber from Washington. Harmony Soapworks also
uses powdered goat milk and has even made a beer
soap using beer from local breweries Astoria Brew-
ing Company, Willapa Brewing Co. and North Jetty
Brewing.
“l’m lucky I’ve had some really good employ-
ees,” Thompson said. “When we have a small busi-
ness and we’re paying people for their work, that
money goes back into the local community, which I
think is always a good arrangement.”
Royal Makaha
Ever since she was very young, Julie Greene
has been interested in studying plants. She went on
to get a master’s degree in botany and took classes
about the use of essential oils. After two decades of
making essential oil products for friends and family,
she decided to become a registered aromatherapist
in 2015 and began selling her products at the Astoria
Sunday Market and Ilwaco Saturday Market.
She named her business Royal Makaha — Good
Vibrations Blends, after her family’s favorite desti-
nation, Mākaha, Hawaii.
“It is lots of fun and it’s nice because they’re all
health-based products that can help with pain and
anxiety,” Greene said. Some of her products include
essential oil sprays to address pain, allergies and
mosquitos, and she even makes sprays for pets to
reduce their anxiety and ward off fleas and ticks.
During the pandemic, she created a mask spray peo-
ple can spray inside their masks that has a pleas-
ant scent and is meant to be good for the respira-
tory system.
“I source the oils directly from small family
farms from all over the world that are organic or
non-sprayed,” Greene said.
Greene said she believes in vibrations, so she
only makes batches of her products when she’s feel-
ing great. During a new moon, she’ll take water
EMILY LINDBLOM
Amy Francoeur owns Sacrilicious Beauty in Astoria.
from the spring off of Highway 26 and states her
intention that it will do the highest good for healing
whoever’s going to buy it.
“I don’t think you’re going to get that from big
factories and machines,” Greene said.
Sacrilicious Beauty
Another place to find locally-made, natural bath
and beauty products is Sacrilicious Beauty, a brick
and mortar store in downtown Astoria.
Owner Amy Francoeur started her career as a
cosmetologist for 15 years at Aveda, and has always
been fascinated by the power of plant extracts in
beauty products. She started her own salon in Den-
ver and began making bath bombs and lotion as a
hobby.
“In 2016 I moved to the coast and really put
effort into developing new formulas,” Francoeur
said. She founded Sacrilicious Beauty out of her
Oysterville home in 2017, started her first storefront
in Long Beach in 2018 and moved to her current
Astoria location the following year.
“I fell in love with this space,” Francoeur said of
the Astoria store.
Now, she has expanded the business to sell not
only her own products but others from predomi-
nantly women and LGBTQ-owned businesses.
Some of her own products include bath bombs,
salts and bubbles, skin care, cleaners, lotions and
body creams.
“I like to use things you don’t often see here,”
she said, adding she infuses baobab oil and kukui oil
into moisturizers. “It’s also an opportunity to learn
COURTESY OF HARMONY SOAPWORKS
Harmony Soapworks demonstrates making custom
round soap.
about different cultures and beauty practices around
the world.” She has traveled to India to learn about
Ayurvedic rituals for hair and skin care involving
hot oils.
According to Francoeur, when it comes to self
care products, there are two options: Going to a big
box store and blinding buying things without get-
ting to ask questions, or choosing to visit a local
shop where the maker can be easily contacted to
give advice and explain what goes into the products.
“I’m happy to help,” Francoeur said.