Meet Dena

We were lucky to catch up with Dena recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dena, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

Overcome? I struggle with it every day. Twenty years ago I started researching and making natural remedies for my daughter’s chronic cystic acne because I was mortified by the ingredients in what her doctors were prescribing. That led me down an equally mortifying but edifying analysis of the ingredients of the most common products people buy to moisturize and replenish their skin. I began studying ancient herbal remedies and started making truly natural skincare treatments for myself and my friends. Despite the overwhelmingly positive feedback, I always harbored doubt as to whether what I was doing was right because it was against conventional wisdom. I started my company anyway and obtained my certification in medicinal herbs from Cornell, which gave me even more confidence. We’ve been in business for five years and our customers love our all natural skincare concentrates. Imposter syndrome is a real thing for anyone who dares to change the status quo. But keep doing what you love. Learn and improve every day. Listen to your customers, understand and be able to address their concerns. The more I do that, the more confidence I gain.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

We are committed to creating truly all natural, effective, healthy skincare and making that available to everyone at an affordable price. We are a female owned, mother/daughter business operating from our family farm in Spokane, Washington. Using practices of Shaolin Monks, we grow our own potent botanicals, carefully selected, cultivated and harvested by hand in the middle of the day at the peak of the flower’s vitality to capture their essential medicinal properties. We dry those botanicals, then infuse them into high quality organic oil using a slow solar infusion process. Those herbally infused oils then become the base for our entire line of artisan skincare concentrates. Unlike most skincare products we use no artificial colors, synthetic fragrances or chemical preservatives, all of which are known endocrine disruptors. We don’t use water as a volumizer or dilutant, so our products have a naturally long shelf life and because we sell them as concentrates, a little goes a long way. We are huge advocates of self-care and natural aging. We encourage and teach our customers to take time every day to take care of their skin because it is the body’s largest organ and our main barrier against environmental pollutants. We don’t promise to reverse aging or any of that nonsense, just bringing you the best, highest quality, most nourishing all natural skincare we can make so that your skin is as healthy and happy as possible. At BBA we proudly say we are “Putting Nature Back In Natural ®”.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

For us it was recognizing and describing a problem, believing there was a better solution and committing to finding that solution even if it took long hours, tons of research, trial and error. Tenacity and consistent focus on the objective were essential and we achieved those skills by structuring our time and energy to maximize our efforts. Also, don’t expect to get everything right and don’t see challenges as a wall to turn away from, but an opportunity to overcome.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

As our business grows, we are scaling to keep pace and as part of that process exploring best practices to increase production while maintaining high quality. Finding people who have successfully navigated those waters to give advice on the dos and donts is our focus for 2025.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.BBAskin.com
• Instagram: botanicalbeeskin
• Facebook: Botanical Bee Apothecary
• Youtube: Botanical Bee Apothecary

Image Credits

Hazel and Pine Photography
The Paper Tiger Photography
Hannah Victoria Photo