The StarShine Company

Here at The StarShine Company we are starting a new program.  Each month in 2010 (or unless we stop doing it) we’ll feature a new scent that will only be available during that month and only while supplies last.

We’ll try to find unique scents and who knows if they are exceptional we may just have to add them to the permanent line, so if you try one and absolutely love it, be sure to let us know!

So, to start things off, for the month of February, we are featuring “Coriander Rose“.   Our Coriander Rose is best described as a unique scent creation containing Coriander, Yellow Rose, Tuberose, Gardenia and Rosewood.  It is absolutely beautiful and feminine.

Coriander Rose is available in both our Hand Dipped Incense and our Perfume Oils.

Mineral Makeup can be used in all sort of different ways but using it as an eyeliner opens up a whole new world of color options!  Any Mineral Eyeshadow we carry here at The StarShine Company, can be used as an eyeliner, either applied dry or wet, whichever method you prefer.

If you have never tried applying your minerals wet it’s like getting two colors in one.  When you apply our minerals wet you’ll notice they are darker and more bold, so for a day time look, apply your minerals dry, then for a night out, just apply them wet by either dampening your brush, or adding a couple drops of water to your mineral pigments on the back of your hand.  Mix well, until the minerals and water are the consistency of paint.

And even for another dimension, you can use our Eyeshadow Primer & Color Enhancer under your shadows, which will keep your minerals in place longer and give you a nice bold color.  Once you try a primer under your shadows, there will be no going back.

More tips, tricks and advice soon!

The StarShine Company & The StarShine Company on Etsy.

(Model Rachael from Talk2TheTrees is wearing our Wood Elf Eyeshadow on her lids and Dark Chocolate Eyeshadow as a liner.)

As many of you know I sell all my great products both on my The StarShine Company website and in my shop on Etsy.  I know not everyone is familiar with Etsy so I wanted to create this helpful buying guide to make your Etsy shopping experience a little easier.  Of course, we love having you shop at our website!!

To start your Etsy shopping experience you’ll want to stop by our shop on Etsy.  You there?  OK good!  You should see something like this:

Depending on when you stop by the pictures may be different, but you should see our “The StarShine Company” banner at the top right below Etsy’s banner.  Just below our banner you’ll see our shop announcement, this is where we’ll put information we believe our visitors would be interested in or helpful in some way.  Off to the right of the announcement, you’ll spot all the categories you can shop within.  When you click on one of them it’ll nicely sort the items and you’ll only see what you are interested in.  Let’s click “Mineral Eyeshadow”.

At the top of the page you should still see the Etsy banner, our banner and the shop announcement, but I cut that out so you could more easily how the items are sorted and I am now only viewing the Mineral Eyeshadow I have available.  Let’s click on “Drowned” to get a closer look.

On this page the top will still look the same but you will no longer see my shop banner, or my shop announcement but you’ll get a big picture of the product and below the picture will be the description of the product.  To the right of the pictures you’ll see the (great!) price and the “Add to Cart” button.  If you scroll all the way down you’ll see the shipping prices.  What a beautiful color!  Let’s buy it!

Click add to cart.

Your page will look something like this.  If you aren’t done shopping this is where you’d want to click “Keep Shopping” and it’ll take you back to the last page you were on within my shop, which doesn’t help a whole lot since you already know you want to purchase that particular item!  On the right hand side of the page (after you’ve clicked “Keep Shopping”) you’ll see my little logo (Avatar, whatever you want to call it) and just to the right of that in very small type you’ll see the word “Shop” click that to go back to the main page of my shop, select a category and keep shopping.  You can shop from any category including our Hand Dipped Incense, Perfume Oils, Solid Perfumes, Soap, Mineral Eyeshadow and we have a couple categories were you can select the scent or color of your choice if you don’t see it currently listed in my shop.  Anything you see on my website can also be purchased in The StarShine Company Etsy shop. You can find our full fragrance list on our website.

Continue adding all the items you want to purchase to your cart, Etsy should keep track of all the items you want and will figure out the shipping for you.  When you are finished shopping you’ll want to click “Checkout”.

If you ever get lost and can’t find your cart…

You’ll find the link back to your cart at the top left corner of your webpage.  Now let’s go back to our shopping cart to make our purchase.  If you haven’t already, let’s click “Check Out”.  If you aren’t signed into Etsy, or haven’t yet created an account, it’ll ask you to do so now.  After you created your new account or logged into your existing account, you’ll be prompted to enter your shipping information.

If you have already entered your address you can select it from the drop down menu, but since it’s likely you are new to Etsy since you are reading this guide, you’ll probably need to fill in your address.  Tick the “Enter your shipping address” button and fill in the blanks, with your current address.  NOTE:  The address you enter here should match the one you have on file with PayPal, so be sure to update your PayPal address before you submit payment… more to come on that).

Finished with your address?  Great, let’s move on.  On the next page you’ll be asked to look over your order.  Make sure everything is correct before you click on “Commit to Buy”

After you’ve verified everything is correct, go ahead and click “Commit to Buy”.  You are now agreeing that you will purchase this item.  Like most sellers we use PayPal which is safe and easy to use.  Next you’ll want to submit payment right away to avoid any delays!  Before you make a purchase you might want to read the sellers policies which you can find on the main shopping page on the right hand side of the main page called “Shop Policies”, you want to be sure you agree to their terms before making a purchase.

You should spot a “Pay Now” button and payment options, we only offer PayPal so you’ll only see one option.  Others may accept money order or checks.

And/Or

After selecting PayPal as your payment method if applicable, click the “Pay Now” button.  You should be whisked away to PayPal to make your payment.  This is where you’ll log into your PayPal account to make your payment, or if you choose not to make an account you can still pay using your credit card using PayPal.  Etsy created a helpful guide on how to use PayPal to pay for your purchases.  You can view their guide here.

If you ever click off the payment page by mistake and can’t find your “Pay Now” button, make sure you are logged into Etsy and follow these simple steps to find your purchase order.

• Click “Your Etsy” found at the top of the webpage.
• Click “Purchase” found on the left hand side of the webpage
• Find your purchase order and click “View Invoice”.
• This will take you to your purchase order and about half way down the page you should spot your “Pay Now” button again.  If the button is missing, you will want to log into your PayPal account and check to see if they payment has already went through.   If you are purchasing from me do not hesitate to ask for help!  But that is true of all sellers, don’t be afraid to ask them questions!  A seller should be willing to help, and if they aren’t I’d be wary from purchasing from them.

Also I mentioned earlier that you’ll want both the address you enter into Etsy and your PayPal address to match, when you are in your PayPal account be sure to check your address is current.  During check out PayPal may have you select from address’ you have on file with them, just make sure to use the same one that you typed into Etsy!

To check you PayPal address, log into PayPal select “Profile” from the second navigation bar and under the “Account Information” column select “Street Address”.  You will now be brought to a page that lists your address’ and allows you to add an address.   It is important your address’ match so the seller knows where to ship your item(s), verifying they match and are correct right off the bat will help avoid any delays.

See how easy shopping on Etsy can be?  The first time might be a little confusing but we are here to help!  You can send us a message on Etsy and we’ll do our best to answer any purchasing (or any) questions you might have.

I hope you’ve found this guide helpful and enjoy shopping with The StarShine Company both on our website and on Etsy!

We’ve got some great ideas for 2010!  I’m not going to say what they are just yet because they may not end up working out, but I sure hope they do!  What I can say is that I know we will have some great new scents lined up and we will be retiring a few from our huge list of currently 600+ fragrances.  I hate having to retire fragrances, but our stock is getting out of hand!

One little thing I can give away is that our awesome soap will be back and we’ll have more great mineral eyeshadow shades and collections.

Hope to see you in 2010!!

Happy Holiday’s from The StarShine Company!

No, this isn’t a crazy pickup line, I really want to know what you are wearing as your scent of choice!  Perfume-wise to be even more specific.  Today I’m wearing a new scent that I’ve actually never worn myself until today… it’s our Violet Lime Perfume Oil!  And, it’s killer!

The scent is sweet, citrusy, fresh and clean and perfect for anyone who wears sweet scents or citrus scents well.  I’ve always loved citrus scents and they work well on me and recommend them for almost anyone.

Want to pick up your own Violet Lime Perfume Oil?  You can find them at The StarShine Company, and you won’t find this scent anywhere else!

Leave your comments below on what scent your wearing or your favorite notes!  Always love to hear from you!

~Kelly~

Today was a frustrating day, but at the very least I can remind everyone how important customer service truly is.

Saturday I placed an order with one of my suppliers.  Earlier today, I received a message from them that I no longer qualified for certain pricing, but that they would send my recent order regardless.  I contacted them and asked for clarification on the terms, and how I could again qualify for the special pricing.  In their response email, the customer service representative said they would no longer be able to send out the current order until I sent them more money.

O.O!!

Now, I’ll admit, I made a mistake and really didn’t qualify for the pricing as they said, BUT originally they told me they’d send the items anyway.  They went back on their word, and weren’t going to send out my order after just having said they would?!  So I had to cancel it.  I was perfectly fine being corrected, and even if they would have contacted me at first and said they wouldn’t be able to do it, it would be a different story.  But as a business owner, no matter how big or small your business is, you can’t change your mind mid-transaction.  Not only is it unprofessional, it’s bad business sense.  Providing good customer service is worth a whole heck of  a lot.

They refunded my purchase price and lost a customer, a customer they had for years and spent a WHOLE LOT of money with them.  As a business owner myself, I’d never, ever, EVER, go back on my word… I’m a little shocked that anyone would.

Anyway, the main purpose of my post isn’t to complain (I did enough of that to my husband), I just wanted to remind everyone who runs their own business how important customer service can be.  Now you don’t have to do cartwheels and bend over backwards, you just need to keep your word and provide the best customer service you possibly can, because it could be the difference of keeping a long time customer, or even future customers.

When it doubt, put yourself in the customers shoes and ask yourself, what would make me happy if I were on the other side of this situation.

. . .

And if you are curious, I found a new place that was more than happy to work with me (aka let me spend my hard earned money at their store).  They even offered to send out free samples for me to check out and make sure they’d work for me and my products.  Now that is good customer service!

This is one of our somewhat newer scents and one of my personal favorites!  It is so sweet and delicious and just simply delectable those around you will just want to gobble you up!  Pink Frosted Cupcake will even appeal to those who aren’t especially keen on wearing food-like scents.

The description of this scent taken from The StarShine Company website is:  This remarkably yummy scent will send you into a calorie-free frenzy with it’s delectable fresh baked Vanilla Cupcakes scent topped with perfectly sweet Pink Frosting.

Click the above image to purchase your 1/3 ounce roll on of Pink Frosted Cupcake today!

Also availabe in our Hand Dipped Incense Sticks and our Hand Dipped Incense Cones!!

I may be slightly biased but even if I didn’t sell perfume oils I still would prefer them over the alternatives such as body mists and alcohol based perfumes.  You might wonder why and the answer is really quite simple, alcohol based perfumes evaporate rather quickly, typically taking the top notes and middles notes with them within a few minutes.

Oil based perfumes on the other hand last much longer because oil doesn’t evaporate the way alcohol does, which means your top and middle notes will last longer.  However, there is one truth for both oil based perfumes and alcohol based perfumes that the more you are around the scent, which let’s face it is the whole time you are wearing it, the more you get used to it.  So you might think with either type, the scent just doesn’t last as long as you’d like, but don’t be fooled, it’s still there… you just don’t notice it as much because that’s just how our noses work!

Another great reason to choose oils over alcohol is because oils are much more gentle on your skin than alcohol which can be very drying.   Why not use a longer lasting scent that keeps the skin fresh, young and hydrated over the alternative?  I used to purchase body mists like crazy before I discovered perfume oils.  I’d spray them all over me and my clothes, coughing the whole time, only to have the scent die out quickly and feeling the need to apply more.  You won’t get that coughing from perfume oils!

Lastly, and probably my favorite reason for choosing perfume oils (and I think you should too) is because of the concentration ratio!  With alcohol based perfumes the end product contains mostly alcohol and or water, with only a little fragrance added.  The concentration in perfume oils can be significantly more, meaning the quantity of your perfume oils will last longer because the scent lasts longer and you won’t need to reapply it as frequently.

Like I said right off the bat, I am biased.  I love, make and sell perfume oils but I know if you haven’t tried them yet, if you do, you will quickly rethink you whole perfume strategy.  Granted, you may not ever be able to completely give up that number one favorite perfume, your signature scent, but who knows give our perfume oils a shot and you might find yourself searching for a new signature scent!

Click the image below to be whisked away to our huge list of available scents for our full size 1/3 ounce Roll Ons:

Perfume Oil samples also available.

I’ve been working on this collection for a very long time hoping to get the perfect colors for those who love dark colors  and for those who love that goth look.  Every color in this line is gorgeous when applied dry but to get those extreme darks, apply them to the eyelid wet or over an eye shadow primer and become that beautiful dark princess!

We recently added two new great colors to our 80’s line…

Pretty In Pink - This is a beautiful pink color, you’ll be dreaming of Andrew McCarthy in no time at all.

Mint Candy - This is a shimmery medium green color that will make your eyes pop, especially when applied wet.

So put up that hair in a side pony, pull on your favorite leggings and blast those 80’s tunes from your boombox while you visit The StarShine Company and browse our Mineral Makeup Eyeshadow 80’s Collection!