Experimenting Turns Mom Into Mogul

KansasCity.com:

Two years ago April Lacher was a stay-at-home mom and wife. That alone was hard work — taking care of her son, paying bills, cleaning house, running the day-to-day errands. Still, she wanted more.

She’d discovered she had an artsy side when she was planning her wedding. To save money, she took on the task of decorating the facility, designed the floral arrangements and helped create the invitations.

“I realized I loved creating beautiful things that other people could appreciate,” says April, 32.

So when a family member couldn’t use a lip balm because of an allergy to almond oil, April figured she could make some.

After hours of online research, experimenting with recipes and testing them out, she made her first tube of lip balm. It cost $150.

She thought she was going to give her husband, Brian, a senior estimator for a Kansas City contractor, a heart attack. But through trial-and-error, the costs of her experiments went down, and she soon learned to make other things such as belly butter and hand cream.

“I’m surprised at how many things I have come up with,” she says. “I had no idea that I could turn all natural ingredients into products.”

Last summer while getting her hair done, April pulled out some homemade butter crème-scented hand lotion. Her stylist loved it so much she wanted to carry it in her salon.

Just like that, April went from stay-at-home mom and kitchen chemist to a businesswoman. That weekend, she added webmaster to her duties. She launched an online store, Birdz and Beez Baby (www.birdzandbeezbaby.com), and her late-night kitchen creations ($4 to $20) became a hit.