Naturally For You Offers Earth-Based Soaps and Lotions

After getting fed up with lotions and soaps full of “ingredients that we can't pronounce,” Sharalene Wheeler decided to make her own bath and body products. Four years later, the products she made for herself and her family have blossomed into a full-time business.

Wheeler and her son have eczema and psoriasis, and she got tired of wasting money on skin products that didn't help them, she said. She also became disillusioned with commercial bath and body products.

“I started actually reading the ingredients and Googling it, and finding what's in there and why it's in there,” she said. Often, she says, commercial products have ingredients that aren't healthy for the skin, but allow the company to produce the product more cheaply.

“They are in it to make money,” she said. “They could care less. The more I found out, the more frustrated I got.”

So Wheeler began making her own lotions and soaps in her home out of all-natural ingredients – things that “came from the Earth.” Although she “knew absolutely nothing” before starting, she learned that soap-making is a fairly simple process.

“It really only takes three ingredients to make soaps – it takes oil, it takes liquid or water, it takes lye,” Wheeler said. To create different fragrances, she adds plants, essential oils, and fragrance oils, such as chamomile and lavender.

Her products are vegan and vegetarian, and contain no perfumes or alcohol-based fragrances. She also offers gluten-free products.

“The skin is our largest organ, and we're feeding it every day, whether we know it or not,” Wheeler said.

Her products, which she sells under the name Naturally for You, are versatile. The lotions can be used all over the body, and her bar soaps and liquid soaps can double as shampoo.

“All of my things, I want to be head to toe,” she said. “The skin on my feet is the same as the skin on the rest of my body.”

Wheeler, who says she has met more than 90 percent of her customers in person, also makes custom products on request. She works with customers to find a recipe they like, which usually involves adding ingredients like coconut milk, green tea, or flowers to a product.

“I enjoy the formulation,” she said. “I enjoy making and coming up with stuff.”

After expanding her business beyond her own family and friends, Wheeler now sells her skin products on her website, and at festivals, craft shows, holiday shows and farmers markets in Lilburn andLawrenceville.

At the Lilburn Farmers Market on a recent Friday afternoon, shoppers stopped by NFY's table for samples of hand cream and a short hand massage from Wheeler.

Tracy Ashby of Lilburn, who was visiting the farmers market for the first time, says NFY's natural ingredients convinced her to buy a bottle of lotion.

“I like the clean scent,” she said. “I have very sensitive skin – I got that from my grandmother – so a lot of products with preservatives, I get an allergic reaction. With all natural products, you don't have to worry about that.”

Wheeler says she'd like to see Naturally For You grow someday, but she wants to keep the company's integrity intact.

“I hope I can continue to create on a larger scale, but I don't want to outsource it to a larger company,” she said.

For now, she keeps busy running all aspects of the company – making the soaps and lotions, marketing them, and preparing their eco-friendly packaging – and is happy to see her products making a difference for people.

“If you change and start using something that's healthy for you, your skin really will respond,” she said.