Six years ago, Jennifer Jaqua was a photographer, her sister Sara was a writer and their other sister, Alison was a graphic designer. Now they are the owners of Jaqua, a beauty company with products that smell good enough to eat. We were so inspired by their rise to fame that we wanted to find out exactly how they did it — and to get their recommendations on which products they love the most.
How did you come up with the idea for Jaqua? Sara: We are three sisters who all wanted to work together. We'd already been giving parties where we got our girlfriends together for manicures, pedicures, and spa treatments, so one day while hiking together, we realized that we could actually put those parties into a kit and create a girl-gathering kit. Jennifer: When we came up with the idea, we would just tell everybody to bring their favorite beauty treatments to the party. It was a great way for us to try products that we'd never used before. Then when we started the business, we actually created our own skin care line to go in the products.
How did you start making your own products? Sara: We would whip things up using raw pumpkin and papaya and putting raw honey on our faces and hands. We researched at the library and we had fun just kind of seeing what worked. Jennifer: I had been in Bali and had some treatments done on me where they ground up fresh fruit and nuts and drizzled honey. That was our inspiration — we were making up our own recipes for facials and for body scrubs. We did real coffee grinds and things like that! Sara: We took the recipes we had developed, sent them to a chemist in a lab and said, Make this work so it stays fresh, or give it a clay base, or add some vitamins and put in some natural antioxidants. The formulas would go back and forth a few times before we'd finally approve the one that we liked.
And how did you come up with the idea of using paint cans as packaging? Sara: Jennifer actually found those. It worked because we wanted something that caught your eye, but was very inexpensive. We didn't want to make the consumer pay for a lot of expensive packaging. We don't want a really amazing bottle that they have to pay for, we'd rather all the cost went on the product inside.
How easy has it been to all work together? Do you have those unspoken moments where you're all thinking the same thing? Jennifer: There are those times for sure, especially when we hit on an amazing product or an idea for a kit. We don't have to explain it to each other — we just get it. Sara: Starting the business together has helped us to really work through some of the differences and issues we've had in our past, that we probably never would have addressed in our lifetime. So we've actually been able to grow a lot closer as sisters through the process of having the business.
How has the company grown? Sara: The first kit we ever did was called the Beauty Parlor Night Kit. It was named after our get-togethers with our friends. Jennifer: The next year we added another kit and then another kit and then we started adding new kits each season. Now we've developed the Jaqua Girls brand — we started moving away from the paint cans and into cake boxes, cocoa tins, and tea tins. Now that every collection has its own unique packaging, we decided to create the two brands. Jaqua is the flagship range and includes the Bakery Range, Jaqua To Go, and the new Caf&#eacute; Collection, It will be available at Nordstrom, Sephora, Bloomingdale's, Lord & Taylor, Bendels and Fred Segal in California. Then there's Jaqua Girls, which are the original beauty kits, now packaged in clear gallon paint cans and sold at Target.
How do you feel about Jaqua Girls being sold in Target? Jennifer: We feel so honored. We felt like Target was the perfect place for Jaqua Girls to find a home. Also, we love Target. We shop there! For us, Target is that place where you go to find really cool stuff, and you can buy lots of it because it's all really affordable.
What's the best beauty parlor night that you've thrown? Sara: Each year we go to juvenile hall in Los Angeles, usually around Christmas time. We take a ton of Jaqua products and do beauty treatments on the teenage girls there. Many of them have never had a pedicure or manicure before in their lives, and they're really reluctant to do it because they've maybe been pretty hardened and they don't really know how to access that softer or whimsical side of themselves. But everyone jumps in after a while because they can see the others having so much fun. They get girlie and laugh — it's just so amazing to see this bonding experience even in an institution like that where they have their guard up. It just proves how empowering that kind of primping and pampering is to enliven your spirit. Jennifer: When we first started doing girl gatherings with our friends, we talked about how the process breaks down barriers, whatever they are. Going to juvenile hall takes that concept to a totally different level. There are girls who are part of different gangs, who wouldn't even be in the same room together under normal circumstances and they're painting each other's toenails.
Click here to see Jennifer and Sara's favorite Jaqua products.
