by Lisa Sciortino
As a child growing up in Philadelphia, Shannon Reagan Henry struggled with severe eczema.
Also known as atopic dermatitis, the condition caused her skin to become dry, itchy and inflamed. She frequently developed bright red rashes on her face and around her ears where the nose pads and arms of her glasses rested.
“It was embarrassing,” she recalls, “always having to wear long sleeves in the summer.”
Desperate to soothe her daughter’s skin, Reagan Henry’s mother, Maureen Reagan, began researching and experimenting with various herbs and other natural items to create home remedies intended to treat eczema.
“She had every herb book” as well as tomes about essential oils, Reagan Henry, now a resident of Frisco, says of her mother’s tireless efforts. “She would melt shea butter and all kinds of different things. … She was always testing and putting stuff on me.”
Her mother’s concoctions worked to alleviate some of her eczema symptoms and also made Reagan Henry a believer in the effectiveness of all-natural products.
Throughout her college years at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, where she studied food marketing, she frequently made her own skincare products, including body butters, and gifted them to friends.
On a New Path
In 2015 — following a successful career as an executive with companies including Coca-Cola, Sunkist and Mattel — Reagan Henry decided to become an entrepreneur. She founded Glimmer Goddess, an organic skincare line that operates entirely from a specially designed production room inside of the Frisco home she shares with her husband (and product-testing “guinea pig”) Christopher.
“I’ve worked with some really great companies and had positions that were challenging but fun … but I love doing this,” she says.
For the past seven years, she has developed the formulas, sourced the natural ingredients and hand-blended every item in the Glimmer Goddess line, which she says is constantly evolving.
In founding the company, Reagan Henry says, “I tapped into my mom and everything that she had done as a preface for me to get this started.”
The Glimmer Goddess product line includes a variety of hydrating and anti-aging moisturizers and serums as well as skin cleansers and toners, among others.
There are also whipped body butters and salt scrubs, sunscreen, shimmering lotions and self-tanners. Its hair-care products include a caffeine hair-growth shampoo and hair mask.
All of the products are made from natural ingredients (many of them are food-grade quality and nearly all are sourced in the U.S.) and are cruelty free as well as free of chemicals, fragrances and toxins.
The global skin care products market is a nearly $137 billion industry according to the 2022 Skin Care Products Global Market Report.
Reagan Henry says part of what sets Glimmer Goddess’ skincare products apart from others on the market is the quality of its ingredients.
“When you go to a supermarket and you buy” a popular, brand-name skincare product, she says, “it has all kinds of chemicals in it and when you look at the (ingredients list), water is (usually) the first ingredient in there. Most companies just use water as the base and they use lots of chemicals and it comes out this beautifully crafted, creamy product that never degenerates.”
Using all-natural ingredients is, admittedly, not without its challenges. For example, she previously discovered “that my creams would melt because (they’re made of) shea butter and cocoa butter and grapeseed and almond (oils).” To combat the issue, “I swapped out coconut oil for liquid coconut and that makes it more of a thinner cream, more like a lotion than a thicker face cream but perfect for the hotter weather.”
Look Good, Feel Better
Regan Henry says she is “always tweaking” the formulas for Glimmer Goddess’ products. “One thing that keeps me motivated is that people try it and they’re very good at providing feedback so that I can make the products better.” (Upon request, the company will also custom produce small batches of products to accommodate customers’ individual allergies, skincare preferences or needs.)
On occasion, she says, “There are new ingredients that come out. They’ll do a study on, say, the Kakadu plum, which is grown in Australia. That’s a wonder ingredient so … I’ll try a little sample of it and see if it works and if it enhances the product without driving the costs so high, (then) I’ll incorporate it into a new formula or an existing formula.”
She is a big fan of Glimmer Goddess’ Organic Vitamin C Peptide Eye Serum (“It puts a little tingle on your face that is so good”) as well as the Organic Pumpkin & Vitamin E Serum. “You only need a couple of drops and your face feels hydrated the entire day.”
On a recent morning, the dedicated 12-by-12-foot Glimmer Goddess production room at Reagan Henry’s home smelled more like a confectionary shop as she and assistant Sandi Fylling whipped up batches of the Organic Cocoa Mint Face Mask that contains organic cocoa powder, organic agave, ground espresso beans and high-quality essential oil.
Reagan Henry oversees all aspects of the Glimmer Goddess operation, from filling and labeling product bottles and jars to hand-packaging and mailing orders.
She updates and maintains the company’s website, glimmergoddess.com, as well as its presence on other online retail platforms where its products are sold, including Amazon and Etsy. She also answers customers’ phone calls and emails herself.
“I am personally involved in every aspect of this business. I live and breathe it,” she says. “I have a connection with my customers, I’m on a first-name basis with a lot of them … so a lot of my business comes from word of mouth.”
In the end, Reagan Henry says she hopes Glimmer Goddess’ customers “feel better about the way they look” after using its products.
Also, “I hope they realize that (results are not) going to be overnight. … Let’s be honest: It takes 50 years to get these wrinkles. It’s not going to take just one application” to diminish them. “I want the customers to understand that this is a process, it’s longterm and the better you take care of your skin, the better you’re going to look and the better you’re going to feel.”
Lisa Sciortino is managing editor of Frisco STYLE Magazine.
by Lisa Sciortino
As a child growing up in Philadelphia, Shannon Reagan Henry struggled with severe eczema.
Also known as atopic dermatitis, the condition caused her skin to become dry, itchy and inflamed. She frequently developed bright red rashes on her face and around her ears where the nose pads and arms of her glasses rested.
“It was embarrassing,” she recalls, “always having to wear long sleeves in the summer.”
Desperate to soothe her daughter’s skin, Reagan Henry’s mother, Maureen Reagan, began researching and experimenting with various herbs and other natural items to create home remedies intended to treat eczema.
“She had every herb book” as well as tomes about essential oils, Reagan Henry, now a resident of Frisco, says of her mother’s tireless efforts. “She would melt shea butter and all kinds of different things. … She was always testing and putting stuff on me.”
Her mother’s concoctions worked to alleviate some of her eczema symptoms and also made Reagan Henry a believer in the effectiveness of all-natural products.
Throughout her college years at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, where she studied food marketing, she frequently made her own skincare products, including body butters, and gifted them to friends.
On a New Path
In 2015 — following a successful career as an executive with companies including Coca-Cola, Sunkist and Mattel — Reagan Henry decided to become an entrepreneur. She founded Glimmer Goddess, an organic skincare line that operates entirely from a specially designed production room inside of the Frisco home she shares with her husband (and product-testing “guinea pig”) Christopher.
“I’ve worked with some really great companies and had positions that were challenging but fun … but I love doing this,” she says.
For the past seven years, she has developed the formulas, sourced the natural ingredients and hand-blended every item in the Glimmer Goddess line, which she says is constantly evolving.
In founding the company, Reagan Henry says, “I tapped into my mom and everything that she had done as a preface for me to get this started.”
The Glimmer Goddess product line includes a variety of hydrating and anti-aging moisturizers and serums as well as skin cleansers and toners, among others.
There are also whipped body butters and salt scrubs, sunscreen, shimmering lotions and self-tanners. Its hair-care products include a caffeine hair-growth shampoo and hair mask.
All of the products are made from natural ingredients (many of them are food-grade quality and nearly all are sourced in the U.S.) and are cruelty free as well as free of chemicals, fragrances and toxins.
The global skin care products market is a nearly $137 billion industry according to the 2022 Skin Care Products Global Market Report.
Reagan Henry says part of what sets Glimmer Goddess’ skincare products apart from others on the market is the quality of its ingredients.
“When you go to a supermarket and you buy” a popular, brand-name skincare product, she says, “it has all kinds of chemicals in it and when you look at the (ingredients list), water is (usually) the first ingredient in there. Most companies just use water as the base and they use lots of chemicals and it comes out this beautifully crafted, creamy product that never degenerates.”
Using all-natural ingredients is, admittedly, not without its challenges. For example, she previously discovered “that my creams would melt because (they’re made of) shea butter and cocoa butter and grapeseed and almond (oils).” To combat the issue, “I swapped out coconut oil for liquid coconut and that makes it more of a thinner cream, more like a lotion than a thicker face cream but perfect for the hotter weather.”
Look Good, Feel Better
Regan Henry says she is “always tweaking” the formulas for Glimmer Goddess’ products. “One thing that keeps me motivated is that people try it and they’re very good at providing feedback so that I can make the products better.” (Upon request, the company will also custom produce small batches of products to accommodate customers’ individual allergies, skincare preferences or needs.)
On occasion, she says, “There are new ingredients that come out. They’ll do a study on, say, the Kakadu plum, which is grown in Australia. That’s a wonder ingredient so … I’ll try a little sample of it and see if it works and if it enhances the product without driving the costs so high, (then) I’ll incorporate it into a new formula or an existing formula.”
She is a big fan of Glimmer Goddess’ Organic Vitamin C Peptide Eye Serum (“It puts a little tingle on your face that is so good”) as well as the Organic Pumpkin & Vitamin E Serum. “You only need a couple of drops and your face feels hydrated the entire day.”
On a recent morning, the dedicated 12-by-12-foot Glimmer Goddess production room at Reagan Henry’s home smelled more like a confectionary shop as she and assistant Sandi Fylling whipped up batches of the Organic Cocoa Mint Face Mask that contains organic cocoa powder, organic agave, ground espresso beans and high-quality essential oil.
Reagan Henry oversees all aspects of the Glimmer Goddess operation, from filling and labeling product bottles and jars to hand-packaging and mailing orders.
She updates and maintains the company’s website, glimmergoddess.com, as well as its presence on other online retail platforms where its products are sold, including Amazon and Etsy. She also answers customers’ phone calls and emails herself.
“I am personally involved in every aspect of this business. I live and breathe it,” she says. “I have a connection with my customers, I’m on a first-name basis with a lot of them … so a lot of my business comes from word of mouth.”
In the end, Reagan Henry says she hopes Glimmer Goddess’ customers “feel better about the way they look” after using its products.
Also, “I hope they realize that (results are not) going to be overnight. … Let’s be honest: It takes 50 years to get these wrinkles. It’s not going to take just one application” to diminish them. “I want the customers to understand that this is a process, it’s longterm and the better you take care of your skin, the better you’re going to look and the better you’re going to feel.”
Lisa Sciortino is managing editor of Frisco STYLE Magazine.
