Tell us about YOU!! (Who are you & What do you do?) My name is Nicole De Pena. I live in Newburyport and I have three beautiful daughters, ages 9, 6 and 5. I am a change maker and an educator. I teach people to ditch the toxins from their personal care and home care products. My company, Pure Haven, offers the only full line of personal care and home care products that are 100% toxic free. No Compromises! I have been with pure haven for 4 years and I currently manage a team of consultants.
What makes you different/stand out in your industry? My experience and Pure Haven’s strict standards and Pure Protect Technology are what makes me different and my company stand out as the industry leader in non toxic products. My background is in corporate finance. I graduated from St. Michael’s College with a B.S. in Business Administration and a minor in Economics. Upon graduating I became a licensed stock broker. I worked for Charles Schwab advising individuals on how to invest and save for their future. From Schwab, I moved to the institutional side of the business and went to work for Thomas Weisel Partners, an Investment Bank. Here, I had the wonderful experience of participating in IPO’s and sitting on an equity sales desk where we sold stock research to portfolio managers and hedge funds. It was at this job that I learned how to differentiate between a good company from a not so good company by looking at their financials, corporate structure, and their corporate ethos.
I left the financial markets to stay home with my children and during this time I lost a dear friend to breast cancer and was introduced to Pure Haven’s non toxic deodorant. Before Pure Haven, I was aware of the toxic chemical issue in personal care and home care products and thought I was making all the right product choices for me and my family but I quickly learned that I wasn’t. Pure Haven helped educate me about green washing. This is a tactic many companies use in order to make us believe their products are safe with fancy packaging and trendy words like “natural”, “clean”, “paraben free”, and even “organic.” Pure Haven was the only brand I could trust because of their strict 6 steps to peace of mind. This is Pure Haven’s process for delivering safe, effective products straight to your door.
I initially joined Pure Haven for their 30% consultant discount so I could stock my home with the safest products on the market. Once I started using pure haven products I fell in love! They worked great, they were safe, and they smelled amazing! I started sharing with my family and friends and my business was born. I went from joining for the discount to keep my family safe and save money, to having an amazing business!
Pure haven makes our products in our very own USDA Certified Organic Manufacturing facility in Johnston, RI using our proprietary Pure Protect Technology. We are extremely transparent and actually allow people to tour our manufacturing facility so you can see how we intake and store ingredients, how we purify water, to how we package and ship products to our customers. Pure haven is the real deal! We have a solid balance sheet, we are a 100% cash business with zero debt. And we make the highest quality personal care and home care products on the market with the strictest ingredient sourcing and quality control processes in the the world! Strong financials and quality products make good companies. What makes Pure Haven a great company is our corporate ethos. Customers and Consultants always come first. The company stands by it’s products and it’s consultants with our 60 day empty bottle money back guarantee. At pure haven we say: We do well by doing good!
What do your clients love about you? My customers love that I help them to look younger with our revolutionary anti-aging/reverse aging pre+probiotics skincare line. We released our new Refresh Skin Care line with our Pure Protect Technology in August and the results are incredible! Many seeing results within five minutes! My clients also love that I provide them with education so they are empowered to make the best choices for their families. Learning about this issue can be alarming and very upsetting, so I help my customers start their non toxic journey at their own pace. I just love helping people live toxic free!
What is the best advice you can share with others? The best advice I can give others is to read your personal care and home care product ingredient labels. Some companies, like a very big laundry detergent brand, get tricky and only put their real ingredients on their website buried under heavy marketing. Other companies list their ingredients on their product patent. It is important to find a brand that is transparent and discloses all their ingredients on their packaging. That way you can make informed decisions on what to purchase. I offer a pocket guide to 20 harmful chemicals you want to avoid in your personal care and home care products. Please reach out if you would like me to send you a copy.
Lastly, Fragrance is the new second hand smoke and should be avoided at all costs. This means in your cleaning products too! Fragrance in personal care and home care products doesn’t always mean smell. Companies don’t have to disclose what chemicals they add to a product and can hide those ingredient under the word fragrance on the packaging label. For example, the product can say that it is “paraben free” but endocrine disrupting chemical ingredients could be hidden in the word Fragrance on the product label.
How has Women’s Business League helped you? Women’s Business League has given me a platform to share my company’s mission and message with so many women. At pure haven we are in the business of saving lives. Women’s Business League has helped me reach so many more women and families than I would have had the opportunity to do on my own. In six months, I have gained 55 new customers from my connections at Women’s Business League. I have also gained valuable business knowledge and cutting edge technology training through our lunch and learn and speaker series. Women’s Business League has helped me to grow both professionally and personally. But what I am most inspired by are the friendships that I have made and the sense of belonging to something greater than myself!
