Nadine Artemis is author of Renegade Beauty: Reveal and Revive Your Natural Radiance and Holistic Dental Care: The Complete Guide to Healthy Teeth and Gums, a frequent commentator on health and beauty for media outlets, and her products have received rave reviews in the New York Times, the National Post, and the Hollywood Reporter. Described by Alanis Morissette as “a true-sense visionary,” Nadine has formulated a stunning collection of rare and special botanical compounds. Her healing creations, along with her concept of Renegade Beauty, encourages effortlessness and inspires people to rethink conventional notions of beauty and wellness. Website Facebook Twitter Instagram Podcast Click Here to Tweet to Nadine & Nicole Nadine Artemis’ of Living Libations Entrepreneurial Journey Through Setbacks and Challenges From the time she was a teen Nadine Artemis of Living Libations has known the typical 9-5 was not for her. She had a love of handmade beauty products, being given her mother and sister’s left over bath products to experiment with, and began mixing up her own concoctions to give to friends in high school and college. It was only a matter of time before it became a fully fledged business. Living Libations has now been in operation for many years, and Nadine the author of several books including Renegade Beauty and Holistic Dental Care. Here she shares her inspiring entrepreneurial journey through triumphs, setbacks and devastating losses, as well as tips and strategies for the budding entrepreneur.   The road to entrepreneurship When did you know you wanted to turn this into a business? When I was 18 years old, through understanding what I was eating and what I didn't want to eat and reading labels at the supermarket, quickly led to me going ‘Oh my god, and all my body care is just total BS.’ And I did a science fair project with essential oils. Then I get to university and I discovered this whole thing kind of about food and body care. So from that moment forward, I never ate processed food again. I always eat organic and I was always making my own skincare. Then I started making it for friends and family and also at the same time I was sourcing the world for the purest ingredients. From reading books from the 1800s and modern books, and reading about materials like ancient Egyptian recipes, I was like, ‘I need these things.’ Just really recently in the last hundred years or since the 19th century, synthetics didn't even exist, and before that what we applied to our body was pressed from petals and sluice from SAP and had such a life quality to it. And so that's what I was really interested in. When I understood the BS in beauty care, that's when my relationship to beauty and health got really renegade, and I've started to care for myself in a whole other way. So I'd make all these formulas and then friends and family loved it all. I knew when I was going to graduate that I was going to do something else, I was going to start a store because I felt like there was no place that had that purity. I was making blends and concoctions and people were buying it. It was really fun and it grew and grew, so I had that going for me while I was in university. I made my own little pamphlets and I called it Artemis Essentials.   I had my lip balms I would put in little recycled film canisters of all kinds. People really wanted my stuff . . . so yeah, there was that moment I knew. Then I took an aromatherapy course just to kind of ground it all in. I can't remember the exact moment a store thought came in, but I was like, I'm going to do a store. Entrepreneur challenges  What challenges have you faced as an entrepreneur?  In my last year [of university] I was getting a lot of the stuff ready for when I was free from school to then open the store. I got a student loan, I had to go the bank, I made a business plan. I wore like a little suit and then they would match if I had $7,