Today we’d like to introduce you to Lindsay Lund and Mackenzie Rebant.
Lindsay and Mackenzie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My husband Mac and I opened our shop in 2003 with the hopes of creating a store that specialized in herbal and nutritional products, face and body care, and teas that we created and produced ourselves. Most importantly we wanted a place the customer could be helped with educated advice on these products. Both of us have always had a passion for plant medicine and while working at Wild Oats Market in the late 90’s we were blessed to meet each other and fall in love! Knowing the quality and ethics of most the companies we worked with were declining due to corporate buyouts of mom and pop operations, we knew the only way to know the quality of a product was to produce it ourselves.
Once I finished an intensive three years herbal and nutritional education with Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies in Boulder, I had already formulated the idea for the store and luckily Mac shared my vision and wanted to be a part of it! So we set off to my home town in Salida, got a sizable loan from the bank and got to work. We didn’t have very much time financially to be out of work so Vital Living started with selling other company’s products that still had ethical practices and focused on blending our own tea blends to start slowly introducing our own product line.
We won’t sugar coat it, the first few years were tough. The location we started in was in a very small space connected to what was intended as a healing center. Unfortunately, the healing center never took hold and we were stuck in a space that was far off the main street where people shop and without the destination of a healing center there was very little business. We survived by working other jobs on the side to get us by as well as my herbal and nutritional consultation business. After our lease was up we moved to a building a little closer to Main Street and were finally able to have enough business to breathe and begin our vision of making most of the products we sell ourselves. We introduced elementé, a skincare line I had created based on the five elements in 2006. It was what we were meant to do and I realized that formulating and making these products was absolutely my passion! Mac was able to produce and help design the labels as well as building our online store in 2007.
The elementé line grew slowly but constantly as I came up with ways of formulating and producing as many things as I could using only natural high-quality ingredients. The line grew from the face and body care into mineral makeup, soaps, bath bombs, first aid, and cleaning products. Under the name Vital Living, we formulated more tea blends and started flavoring teas with organic extracts. We also started a supplement line focusing on herbal formulations in capsule form. We finally moved onto Main Street in 2009 and in this very large and popular location we had the room to expand and continued to grow. With the production lab, we created in the back of the store, we were finally able to produce onsite. We now make over 300 different products from scratch and produce over 90% of what we sell in the store and we continue to formulate every day! It has been a long and beautiful journey (albeit a sometimes stressful one!) and we wouldn’t trade this experience for the world. We get to do what we love, help people with advice and high-quality products, and create every day!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Along with the difficult location in the first few years, I would say the biggest struggle was having to work so many hours in the first ten years. We didn’t just have a store that was open eight hours a day but was also formulating, making all of our products, and occasionally having to work other jobs to stay afloat. At times we were each working 70 hours a week. Working that hard for that long can be taxing on the body and mind. However, even with all of that going on we always felt like it was worth it, to be doing what we love to do every day. We never dreaded going to work as we both had felt in the past working for others.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Vital Living Herbs and Nutrition – what should we know?
We are most known for our naturally handcrafted products and for a place to come and get useful herbal and nutritional advice.
We are very proud that our products are not just natural, but also work very well. We are constantly testing and improving formulas to be sure that they are even more effective than the commercial options. Some of these lines such as the makeup and hair care line took years to formulate to our standards.
No one should have to compromise on results by switching to natural products and we are extremely happy that no one has to!
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Passion! We truly care about our customers and the products we make for them.
Contact Info:
- Address: 148 F Street
Unit B
Salida, Co 81201 - Website: vitallivingherbs.com
- Phone: 719-539-2090
- Email: vitallivingsalida@yahoo.com
- Instagram: intsagram.com/vitallivingherbs
- Facebook: facebook.com/vitallivingherbs
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