Making It

An enterprising mother finds shea butter Makes dry skin disappear, and money appear

After her kids are asleep, Kalle Diarra can be found in the basement of her Gaithersburg home, in a kitchenette-turned-laboratory, sterilizing equipment, measuring shea butter, and mixing in water and emulsifiers.

"Making lotion is like cooking," she says. "And I'm a good cook."

Three years ago, Kalle, who has a degree in communications and an MBA in finance, turned a home remedy for treating her twin sons' eczema into a home-based business.

A doctor recommended steroids when Kalle's sons were diagnosed with severe eczema shortly after their birth in 2002. But after quitting her job for a K Street nonprofit a year later, Kalle began looking for a more natural treatment. She discovered that pure, unrefined butter from the African shea nut "took away the babies' problem in three days," she says, though it has taken regular use to keep the eczema away.

Washington dermatologist Cheryl Burgess said regular use of a good emollient, such as shea butter, can keep eczema totally at bay in some patients. "It creates a shield so the patient isn't losing a lot of moisture," Burgess said. But she said shea butter could cause problems for people with nut allergies.

Kalle knew shea butter from her childhood. Her mother had treated her children's stuffy noses by rubbing their faces with shea butter and menthol, a common remedy in Mali, where her mother was raised. Since then, shea butter has become widely used for its intense moisturizing and healing properties.

Kalle enlisted her friend Laure Morsli, a former marketing executive, in promoting her shea butter concoction. The women believe that Kalle's products have an edge over much of the competition, because Kalle's use unrefined shea butter, as opposed to refined shea butter, which they say is less effective.

"Within a couple of days, we had everything -- the company name, a prototype of what it would look like, the logo design," Kalle recalls. She followed up with months of research and testing.

In 2004, the friends started selling Arbre de Vie ("Tree of Life") body lotion to family and friends and at Eastern Market and Kentlands Market, generating a few hundred dollars here and there. They added lip balm and hair products using other natural oils and fragrances.

Kalle, 38, jokes that she started the business because she can't sit still, but her husband Michael's job as a CPA enables her to keep it going. So far, all profit, about 10 percent, has been plunged back into building the business.

Last year, Arbre de Vie's monthly sales reached $1,000 or more. The products are sold mainly from the company's Web site and at crafts shows, though Kalle makes plenty of sales at the playground and in the parking lot of Bethesda's French International School, which her twins and 7-year-old daughter attend.

Laure has decided to drop out of the venture because she is about to have her third child. But Kalle is moving forward, unveiling a new line of products this spring that contain another healing oil from Africa, she says. December was her biggest month ever, with just over $10,000 in sales. It's all going into the new line.

"You have to always pick yourself up and keep going," she says. "It's just very exciting."

Did you turn a solution to a problem into a profit-making business? E-mail presslerm@washpost.com.