Freida Polihronis is a woman driven by passion. A passion to make the best natural skin care around and it’s that attitude that found her in Toronto taping for CBC’s hit show the Dragon’s Den.
“They picked me because they liked my spunk” she says with a laugh, adding that “when your confident in yourself, you love what you do and your good at what you do it goes a really long way and I think I got that across to those dragons.”
Polihronis’ Zoe Anti Aging Skin Spa & Boutique is located in downtown St. Catharines on St. Paul Street and features a wide variety of esthetic services but it is her skin care line created from scratch that put her on the map.
She brought her “best sellers” to the shoot which included her body butter and anti-aging skincare line.
The Dragon’s loved the creams and the presenter but declined to invest because of the fickle and overloaded beauty industry. No worries for Polihronis, though, as the publicity worked in her favour.
“I’ve got amazing responses since the show from all over Canada. Men and women! I got more sales because of the show and had it not been for Dragon’s Den the people all across Canada would not have known about me. This gave them the opportunity to see me and have the opportunity to try my products. The big seller was the body butter. I know it works and now I am just waiting to hear people’s feedback that have ordered it.”
Part of the allure of the line is that it is not generic and off the shelf.
“I like to personalize the products to accommodate my client’s skin type when I make them. My products are truly all natural meaning the ingredients are the best available and there are no fillers, no preservatives and it is not watered down. There are only 5 or 6 ingredients in each of them.”
She repeats her code of ethics several times about good skincare.
”If you cannot eat it you cannot put it on your skin.” When asked about all the other products out on the market she has a strong opinion.
“Ninety percent of the women using these products are not happy with their skin. It’s still dry, it’s still not exfoliated. So what they are doing is compacting their dead skin cells with products full of wax and Parabens and the result is that their skin looks dull. They will tell you that themselves. When you are using a product that is good for you your skin should glow.”
Her journey to skin care guru was not on purpose though. It started off as trying to find something to work at that would not take away from caring for her kids.
After doing tons of research on ingredients like essential oils she started mixing things together and came up with some great products that people started requesting for themselves.
“I never set out to retail the products but then you get hungry and you’re not just happy with making the one product. That’s when the craziness starts. I couldn’t control myself because I got so crazy about the products and I am still like that now and it’s a good thing because as a result I have come up with some incredible formulas.”
Frieda’s journey to the top in the beauty market seems inevitable because not only do her products work as shown on her before and after documentation, but she has the ambition to get them out there to the youth obsessed public.
Says Polihronis: “When you are fuelled by passion you are unstoppable.”
ANNIE SILVESTER, Bullet News Niagara