Once in a while, you’ll find a gem in the cavalcade of the skin care market and from that moment you know, you want it all for yourself. This is how we felt when young beauty entrepreneur Ahlam Abbas introduced us her Ohio based skin care line, The Dirty Lamb. But then we couldn’t resist sharing it with you all.
It is always interesting to hear the story of how people start their career in the world of beauty. What is yours?
I became a registered nurse in 2014 and about two months ago I quit my job as a NICU nurse to pursue my skin care business full time.
Why did you choose to start your own skin care line?
I wanted to create something specifically for me because all the products I had tried weren’t working for me. I took my passion I had for cooking and aimed it towards skincare using what I found in my kitchen. Being from an entrepreneur household I turned it into a business after seeing that it didn’t just work for me, but my friends & family as well.
How difficult was to set up your own brand and deal single-handedly with everything that comes with it?
I was in the perfect position to start my own business. I had plenty of money saved and no loans. I didn’t have to start it alone, I had my family supporting me, plus my brother Rafat has a warehouse out of Akron that ships out all of my orders and he let me set up my office there. Everything started falling into place and I just felt that this was the right move for me.
However, I still tackle obstacles and I don’t think that’s something that’s going to stop. I started receiving wholesale orders and had to figure out how I was going to maintain the quality and integrity of my product while making large batches. There is so much that goes into a business and you don’t realize it until you start putting in everything you got into it.
Beyond your skin-loving products we were intrigued by the brand name. Where does it come from?
Originally Dirty Lamb was just a play on words with my name. I soon realized that having my name be a part of my brand gave me more passion for what I was creating. The word “dirty” was a way of describing me as imperfect. It’s about being comfortable with your imperfections and making the best out of them. I wanted those who felt like a black sheep to know they are powerful and to use it as an advantage in life. Dirty Lamb accepts everyone, we don’t gear our products towards one group of people.
This January we feature your vegan Turkish Coffee Mask. What inspired you to create this amazing product?
My culture definitely inspired a lot of my products. Turkish coffee is something that we serve at family parties and I knew it was good to consume, but I started to wonder about how it could be beneficial for the skin? I started researching and testing, and the Turkish Coffee Mask was created and shortly became my best-seller goodie.
Using raw, premium components in your products means you must be constantly looking for ways to ensure the quality of your ingredients.
“We don’t hide our ingredients so you won’t hide your skin.”
Dirty Lamb is unique due to the fact that we don’t hide the ingredients we use, we promote them. We use the best ingredients to make affordable products that are going to give real results to both women & men. Some of my main ingredients are organic Arabic coffee beans (Colombia), Turkish coffee (Turkey), fresh mint (homegrown), turmeric (India), organic coconut oil (Philippines), unrefined organic shea butter (local farmers market). I really take pride in finding the highest quality ingredients for each product I produce. I wanted to create a brand that looked chic & fun, but most importantly, delivered real results to the customer.
Nourish Beauty Box January features the Turkish Coffee Mask by The Dirty Lamb. Click here to find out how you can get 4 cruelty-free, vegan and paraben-free beauty products every month.