Today we’d like to introduce you to Annie Zielinski and Christian Bowden.
Hi Annie and Christian, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Our business is a labor of love. Greenhaus Deco was founded by Annie Zielinski and Christian Bowden. If you’d told us we would be doing this back when we first met in our college’s art school bookshop, we would have said that’s crazy.
What started almost seven years ago as Annie’s personal quest to find good earth-friendly body care products, and Christian’s exploration of his love of art and design, grew slowly. From zero followers and a small Etsy store selling to friends and family, to going viral on TikTok during Covid, to launching our website, it has grown into the multiplatform business it is today, one that allows us the privilege of sharing our creations with others.
Last August we moved from Bloomington, Indiana, where everything started, to St. Joseph, Michigan, where we’ve been building Greenhaus with a small team and, of course, visiting the Lake Michigan beaches whenever we can.
The most beautiful thing to reflect on is how, through so many different successes and challenges as the business has grown, we’ve gone through them together and grown too.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Growing our business without taking on loans or investors has presented both great challenges and incredible opportunities. We feel lucky to do what we do, but the road hasn’t always been smooth.
This has been a huge learning experience, one that has prompted us to face our limiting beliefs and challenge ourselves not to give up on what we want, together, when difficult things come up. One of the hardest parts, especially in the beginning, was pushing through the uncertainty: doing the work without any guarantee of what would come of it, for long enough to actually feel the growth happening. And of course, there’s the reality of Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
Reflecting on this, we laughed thinking about everything that’s gone wrong, from waking up to news that TikTok, our main social media platform, was going to be banned (this happened every few months for over a year), to maintenance issues surfacing at the worst possible times, to juggling family drama on top of everything else. We try to keep in mind that what feels impossible in the moment usually becomes, in hindsight, just a funny plot point in our story.
Our ethos is to run our business as ethically, sustainably, and equitably as possible, treating everyone we work with, from our customers to our small team, with kindness and empathy. We try to always embody the mindset of proving to yourself that what you want is possible.
We’ve been impressed with Greenhaus Deco., but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Our most popular products are our sugar waxing products. Hair removal is a body care choice that can feel frustrating and overwhelming to navigate.
In 2019 and 2020, Annie was troubleshooting her personal routine after dealing with the trials and tribulations of being a young woman with sensitive skin, and in her search she found sugaring. For the first time, she got smooth skin without irritation, razor burn, or a plethora of ingrown hairs.
But it quickly became clear how inaccessible sugaring was. The nearest sugaring salon was over four hours away. The internet was full of DIY blog articles and videos, but she kept finding conflicting information, and nothing felt completely trustworthy. Similarly, the at-home sugar waxes available at the time always had something to dislike: too low a melting point, making them difficult to handle; essential oils, which she knew would cause irritation; or plastic containers.
All of this led us to formulate a beginner-friendly sugaring collection and a completely free, in-depth sugar waxing guide, complete with animated visuals, the guide Annie wished she’d found when she started.
The beauty industry, hair removal in particular, is designed around a disposable consumer cycle, and it’s incredibly wasteful. We’re talking about billions of disposable plastic razors, single-use wax strips, and chemical creams used once and then left to sit in landfills.
In stark contrast, our sugar paste is completely biodegradable and reef-safe. We offer organic cotton reusable waxing strips and stainless steel applicators built for durability and reuse. We package everything as sustainably as we can, using adhesive-free paper labels, glass jars, metal lids, and recycled post-consumer postal packaging.
We also offer other body care products, like our natural magnesium deodorant cream and our seasonal massage candles. We sell lifestyle goods too, like custom-printed mulberry silk scarves and pillowcases, plus a small rotating collection of marine-inspired vintage jewelry. Our expanding product line is built around the slow, beautiful, connected kind of life we crave. The beach and marine beauty are major inspirations behind our branding, and it’s part of why we love living near the beach in St. Joseph, Michigan.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
We love that our city is on Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes are astounding, and we keep learning new and interesting things about them all the time. We go to our local beaches whenever the weather is nice to soak it all in.
Our least favorite thing about the city so far is the winter. This past year was our first Michigan winter, and while it was beautiful, it was also quite the adjustment.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://greenhausdeco.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greenhausdecoctions
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@greenhausdeco.
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@greenhausdeco
