{"id":11714,"date":"2015-08-26T11:44:13","date_gmt":"2015-08-26T15:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=11714"},"modified":"2015-09-02T14:37:51","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T18:37:51","slug":"young-entrepreneur-savours-sweet-smell-of-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/young-entrepreneur-savours-sweet-smell-of-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Young entrepreneur savours “Sweet” smell of success"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

As she entered her pre-teens, Avery Benlolo was becoming frustrated with the dry and itchy skin on her hands.<\/p>\n

Nothing seemed to work: she tried out the various products at places like Shopper\u2019s Drug Mart, perused the cosmetics aisle, but nothing quite got the situation under control.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the inventive student decided to take matters into her own hands, looking online for remedies that might help.<\/p>\n

\u201cI searched online and found ingredients that were already in my house and I made different samples from there,\u201d she explains. \u201cCoconut oil is a product that works really well in exfoliating skin. I tried it and showed it to my family and they all told me they liked it and it just went from there. I decided to start buying my own things and make more products.<\/p>\n

Where it went from there is Sweet Scrubs & Stuff \u2013 a business spearheaded by the 12-year-old Aurora resident, who plans to set up shop again this Saturday at the Aurora Farmers\u2019 Market \u2013 a return visit where her first foray into the business world created something of a hit.<\/p>\n

Her experiments in the kitchen first hit upon a coconut lime scrub, which was a hit with her friends and family. It was then they encouraged her to branch out into more scents and flavours.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to the Aurora Farmers\u2019 Market every weekend with my mom, but I didn\u2019t really know after looking around where I could sell the stuff,\u201d says the Country Day School student. \u201cI then decided the Market was the perfect place to do it. I registered for the Market and waited to hear back. When I did, I got my dates and started making lists of what I needed for what I already made.\u201d<\/p>\n

With some chauffeured shopping and some seed money from her parents, she was ready to go and first hit the Market in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first Market date was amazing and I think I did really well,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was a good experience for me and I got a lot of good responses from everyone who came to the Market. The next week I was there, everyone I saw on my first day said they showed it to their family, they all loved it, and it kept [the momentum] going more. It made me really happy that a lot of people were thinking well of what I was doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

That first date, Avery was only selling scrubs. Her first creation, she believes, was a lavender vanilla combo, but by the time the second date rolled around, she had expanded her product line to include bath bombs. This Saturday, she is debuting a line of four body scrubs \u2013 coconut lime, lavender vanilla, gingerbread and citrus, along with grapefruit, vanilla and lavender bath bombs. <\/p>\n

One scrub sells for $5, two scrubs for $9, and three scrubs for $13. Bath bombs go three for $2. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just like to break even every day so I am not losing anything from what I have bought,\u201d says Avery.<\/p>\n

What money she has made is going straight into savings, laying the groundwork for future business expansion as well as keeping an eye on her post-secondary education. Passionate about math and science, as well as language arts, her goal right now is to pursue a university career with a goal to become a pediatrician. But, she admits, she is still young and this path is subject to change!<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to do well in school, and I want to go to a good university,\u201d she says. \u201cI would like it if this business went a bit bigger, but right now I think I am in the perfect position where I am, and at the Farmers\u2019 Market. If you think of an idea, you just have to go for it. At the beginning, when I had my idea, I didn\u2019t think it would go anywhere. I just thought I would be giving it to my friends and family to use. But, when I got accepted into the Farmers\u2019 Market, I just knew it was going to start a bridge. For anyone younger than me, if you have an idea and you\u2019re looking to do something, just go for it. If you fail, you can just try again.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir As she entered her pre-teens, Avery Benlolo was becoming frustrated with the dry and itchy skin on her hands. Nothing seemed to work: she tried out the various products at places like Shopper\u2019s Drug Mart, perused the cosmetics aisle, but nothing quite got the situation under control. Eventually, the inventive student decided […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/2015-08-27-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-32W","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 02:48:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}