Founded | 2002
Headquarters | Tarpon Springs, Florida
Top Executive | Heidi Leist, Founder & CEO
Product Category | Personal Care
Like so many women, Lemongrass Spa Founder and CEO Heidi Leist had her eyes opened to the chemical ingredients lurking in so many personal care products when she was pregnant with her first child. She became a voracious label reader, protecting her developing baby from the harmful ingredients she realized were in most mainstream products. This realization—coupled with the spark of invention—inspired Heidi to create her own safe and simplified natural products, setting the stage for a business that’s been thriving for 22 years and counting.
Untapped Creativity
As the direct sales industry knows, there’s something magical that happens when women get together. Even when they’re simply sharing an evening together, lightning can strike, and new ideas can take shape. Over twenty years ago, Heidi and a friend hosted a group of women for a night of self-care—a term that certainly didn’t exist in the early 2000s—and together, the group laughed, shared a glass of wine and mixed up homemade bath crystals to take home.
Heidi had already been experimenting with natural bath and beauty products, driven by her newfound awareness of the chemicals roaming free on grocery store shelves. This party and her friends’ delight at the handcrafted goodies they made together, inspired Heidi to share her creations in a bigger way.
“I ended up taking the concept and deciding I really am super passionate about creating products,” she shared. “It was some sort of untapped creativity that I had never really discovered about myself. My awareness on what ingredients were in products that I was using in my home is really what fueled and propelled Lemongrass Spa. I had some of my own spa parties where I would have a host and invite friends, and they would make purchases and after doing that for a while, people started asking, ‘are you going to invite other people to become sales consultants, like a direct selling company?’ I was aware of the direct selling channel, supported it wholeheartedly, but I had never even become a rep for another company when I decided to launch Lemongrass as a direct selling company.”
With a small selection of handcrafted products and a few excited consultants, Heidi started Lemongrass Spa in her home in Bailey, Colorado. More than two decades later, Lemongrass Spa has grown to serve a field of 7,800 consultants, supported by 70 corporate team members in both the original headquarters in Colorado and the new main office in Florida.
What began as a revelation about the ingredient profiles of personal care products became a lifelong commitment for Heidi and continues to drive the development of new products at Lemongrass. The company’s catalog includes skincare, makeup, hair care and body care products that are safe for the entire family. These American-made products are hand measured and poured as well as dated on the bottom so customers can feel confident in their freshness. Every product is free from synthetic fragrance, gluten free and made with sustainable ingredients.
A Thriving Community
Heidi has cultivated a community that cares deeply about the company’s commitment to clean, nature-inspired products—with some consultants and customers rallying behind Lemongrass for more than 20 years. She’s infused kindness and respect into every corner of the business, from the culture of the field to the intentional care shown in every customer and consultant interaction.
“Our company is founded upon the belief of treating people with the utmost respect and commitment and having a partnership with our consultants,” she explained. “I’m incredibly proud of and grateful for the individuals who have joined Lemongrass. We have a lot of longevity, loyalty and—of course—very deep friendships that have been cultivated by the culture that we have here at Lemongrass. There’s a kindness that just oozes throughout our consultant community.”
Prospective consultants can join with three different kit options, ranging in price from $29 to $65, and Lemongrass offers a Discovery Kit, featuring sample sizes of popular products for only $11. Consultants most often join the company because they feel aligned with the mission of bringing pure, safe and affordable products to families. Heidi feels strongly that they’re not only attracted to the purity of the ingredients, but affordability of the products, income and bonuses as well as the warm, friendly environment of the consultant community.
Giving back is huge part of the Lemongrass story, as Heidi has made serving others a consistent piece of the company’s culture. As a corporate sponsor, the company has supported Feeding America, through donations and volunteer programs, various anti-human trafficking organizations through sales of its Human Kindness Kits and Operation Freedom Feet, through foot care kits that are sent to active-duty servicemen and women around the world.
Heidi is also passionate about supporting breast cancer research in honor of her grandmother, a 37-year breast cancer survivor. Through direct donations to research organization, sales of two special edition Pink Healing Balms, the Pink Box of Hope and sales of her book, Soul Soothing Stories of Cancer Survivors, she honors both Lemongrass consultants and customers personally touched by breast cancer.
A Solid Foundation
It’s been more than 20 years since Lemongrass Spa came to life in Heidi’s home, born of a newfound awareness and a spark of unbridled creativity and passion. These values continue to inspire the entire Lemongrass team today, as they research, test and share new, safer options for families everywhere.
At this summer’s 2024 conference, the company announced two new mineral sunscreens that are both skin safe and reef safe without the white cast of traditional mineral-based sunscreens.
New products like these innovative, safe sunscreens are often released in the company’s Bliss Box, a quarterly release of exclusive new or updated products that’s offered as a pre-sale full of special surprises and treasured favorites. This special release allows Heidi and her team to gather feedback from customers and consultants alike on new products, new natural scents and formulations.
Beyond new, clean products, Lemongrass will now have a new ecommerce and mcommerce technology consultants can use to grow their businesses. Announced at this summer’s conference, consultants can now leverage live shopping from the Lemongrass website, allowing them to invite customers to live, one-on-one demos of products and share shoppable videos with the products they’re discovering in real time.
Heidi is excited about these new developments at Lemongrass, as well more new products and programs her team has in store—and she’s grateful for the last two decades of growth and stability for the business she dreamed up right in her own home.
“It’s such a joy for us to think about the opportunities awaiting new people to join the company,” she shared. “One of the things that we’re really proud of here at Lemongrass is because we built such a solid foundation, our consultants know the owners intimately. We’re not going anywhere. Our consultant community knows that we don’t have a board that’s dictating the future and the direction of the company. The ownership has been solid, and we have so many of our employees and teammates that have been here for so long that they really appreciate that longevity and loyalty.”
From the October 2024 issue of Direct Selling News magazine.
