Put Your Money Behind
the Women Who Built This
9 more female founders with one essential product from each shop
Wake up. Shake yourself. Because I need you to understand something about the nine women in this post before you scroll past even one of them.
These female founders didn't build their businesses with venture capital and a team of advisors. They built them with evenings and weekends, with answered messages at 11pm, with packaging tape and prayer and the relentless belief that what they made was worth someone's time and money. That kind of tenacity doesn't get a TED Talk. But it absolutely deserves your attention — and your business.
Here's what nobody tells you about shopping small: it changes the founder's actual day. Not in an abstract economic ripple-effect way, but literally. When someone orders from a small business, that person sees it happen. They know who bought it. They package it with care. They might even write a little note. You are not a transaction. You are evidence that their leap of faith was worth it.
When we support women-owned small businesses, we're funding childcare and school tuitions and late-night dreams and futures that wouldn't exist without us. And we're also — let's be honest — getting some absolutely extraordinary products out of the deal.
So here we are. Nine more women doing something remarkable. One product from each that I genuinely believe you should own. Let's get into it.
SWAY Headbands
The origin story here is so good. Tanya Flemister was in a workout class when her headband slipped — again — and she thought: someone needs to fix this. So she fixed it herself. What started as a prototype became a patented innovation, and SWAY Headbands is now an international brand made in small-town Colorado. Tanya designed her patented non-slip grip system specifically because she was tired of headbands that failed busy women everywhere — in the gym, the boardroom, the carpool line.
The reviews speak volumes: a dance teacher who has "danced for decades" calling it the headband of her dreams. A customer who wore one on a roller coaster and it didn't budge. Healthcare workers recommending it to every colleague. When a product inspires that kind of testimony, you pay attention.
The Large Satin is SWAY's most versatile and statement-making style — a full, silky headband that can be worn twenty different ways and will not, under any circumstances, move until you move it. The six-clip patented grip system locks into your hair without pinching, without headaches, without the constant adjustment cycle that makes cheaper headbands so maddening. It's silky enough for events and vacation photos, secure enough for the gym, and available in gorgeous prints and colorways that feel genuinely elevated. This is one of those favorite things you'll find yourself buying as gifts for every woman you love.
Shop This Product →Dear Naura
Dear Naura (formerly Earth Melody) is Karen Mok's clean, holistic skincare brand built on the principle that science and nature aren't opposites — they're collaborators. Karen makes small-batch products using organic, earth-friendly ingredients, and her formulations are free from synthetic chemicals, phthalates, sulphates, parabens, and sodium lauryl sulfate. The brand just feels good to be around: honest ingredients, sustainable packaging, real results.
What strikes me about Karen's work is the specificity of her care. She's not slapping "natural" on a label and calling it a day. She's actually formulated products that address real skin concerns — dryness, irritation, hyperpigmentation — with ingredients that have centuries of use behind them.
Natural Deodorant — 24 Hour Odor Control
And honestly? Finding a natural deodorant that actually works is one of the small victories of adult life that nobody warns you will take years of trial and error. Karen's aluminum-free, baking soda-free formula is designed for sensitive skin and delivers genuine all-day odor control without the irritation that derails most clean deodorant attempts. The Sweet Sage scent is one of those subtle, herby, genuinely pleasant options that doesn't compete with your perfume. It's a small business shopping find that will make you slightly smug about your skincare routine in the best possible way.
Shop This Product →Year After Year
Dana Longland sews sustainable kids' clothing by hand in Canada — bamboo-blend rompers, graphic sweatshirts, quilted original jackets, dresses designed to be lived in hard and loved longer. Year After Year is aptly named: these clothes are made to grow with children, pass between siblings, and still look beautiful when they reach the bottom of the keepsake box years from now.
Dana's Quilted Originals are the kind of pieces that make a children's clothing brand genuinely exciting. One-of-a-kind patchwork jackets that look like they belong on a tiny style icon — because they do. Supporting women-owned businesses doesn't get more beautiful than this.
Quilted Originals — One-of-a-Kind Patchwork Jackets
These jackets are legitimately a piece of art in children's clothing form. Dana creates each Quilted Original from carefully chosen fabric combinations that result in something no other child will have — a patchwork jacket that tells a story with every panel. The Flutter Patch Jacket is a perfect example: cottage charm meets modern silhouette, soft sustainable fabrics, a fit designed for actual children who move and climb and roll in leaves. These are heirlooms waiting to happen. If you have a child in your life between 5 and 12, you need to browse Dana's Quilted Originals right now.
Shop This Product →Flirty Pineapple
Madison Riddolls started Flirty Pineapple with one sewing machine — her mother-in-law's 1973 model — because she couldn't find hair accessories that actually held her hair properly. So she learned to sew, spent months testing scrunchies on every hair type she could find, and built a brand that now ships handmade hair accessories across Canada and beyond. She designs, markets, fulfills orders, and handles almost everything herself. That's a one-woman operation running at full capacity, and the quality shows.
Flirty Pineapple has built a customer community that feels genuinely warm — people who discovered that less breakage, better hold, and cuter accessories were possible from one small Canadian shop. That's the kind of loyalty you earn, not buy.
Madison's Satin Scrunchies are the hair accessory upgrade you've been putting off because you think satin scrunchies are just a trend — but they're not, they're a solution. The smooth fabric prevents the friction that causes breakage and split ends, which is genuinely not a marketing claim but a physics fact, and Madison's satin formula is structured enough to hold medium to thick hair through an entire day. They're available in multiple sizes so you can match to your hair type, come in gorgeous colors and prints, and are made in Canada from materials chosen specifically for their hair-protective qualities. Reviews consistently mention less breakage. That's a product that actually does what it says.
Shop This Product →Shade Tree Naturals
Tara Scheel built Shade Tree Naturals around a philosophy of living simply and naturally, and that intention is present in every product she makes. She formulates her small-batch soaps, body butters, and sugar scrubs with only natural ingredients — the finest oils and butters, botanical additives straight from nature — and she makes everything in quality-controlled small batches so you always receive something fresh. No warehouse, no industrial process, no mystery ingredients.
What I love about Tara's approach is her commitment to sustainable packaging. She recycles and reuses wherever possible, which means buying from her is genuinely good for your skin and your conscience simultaneously.
This soap sells out regularly, which tells you everything. Tara built it around a highly superfatted coconut oil base — all that extra oil means incredible moisture and a lather that feels luxurious — and blended in lemon peel, ground walnut shells, and poppy seeds for three separate levels of exfoliation. It's scented with lemon, lavender, and rosemary essential oils, which not only cut through serious dirt but genuinely brighten your mood while you scrub. Gardeners swear by it. So do mechanics, parents, potters, and anyone whose hands take a beating. This is exactly the kind of small business shopping find you send to everyone in your life who works with their hands.
Shop This Product →Apothecuryous
Tatiana Lynn Boland has been educating herself about the healing properties of herbs and food since the early 1990s. She studied Organic Agriculture in 1993, worked as a produce manager at a food co-op for a decade, and started making cold process soap in 2002. By the time she founded Apothecuryous in Omaha in 2015, she had two decades of deep botanical knowledge behind her formulations. This is not a hobby-turned-business. This is a vocation.
The result is a line of herbal face, hair, and body care products that are among the most rigorously formulated you'll find from any women-owned small business. Certified organic ingredients, food-grade formulations, full ingredient transparency. Tatiana wants you to understand exactly what's going on your skin. That's rare and wonderful.
Okay — this is the one that inspires travel writers who sample boutique skincare across the entire country to order a full-size bottle and call it a staple. One reviewer summed it up: combination skin with extremes at both ends, redness, cystic breakouts — and the Seed the Dream Cream smoothed all of it out. It contains organic sesame oil, black cumin seed oil, hemp, jojoba, sunflower infused with green tea, plantain extract, niacinamide — a genuinely extraordinary list of proven botanical actives in a formulation that works. It has a slight vinegar scent that fades instantly and leaves your skin feeling balanced and luminous. This is one of those favorite things you'll tell everyone about.
Shop This Product →Jenna Bricher Swim
Jenna Bricher built her swimwear brand for the woman who has spent her whole life surrendering in fitting rooms — shoulders slumped, arms full of bikini tops that didn't fit, didn't hold, didn't do what they promised. She knows this story because she lived it. So she created Brichi Bikinis: luxury full-bust swimwear handmade in Los Angeles from recycled Italian fabric, with top sizes ranging from C through I.
The attention to detail here is extraordinary. Two layers of premium fabric for structure and support. A lace-up back option for full customization. Premium recycled nylon that feels silky soft and holds its shape through every season. This is what it looks like when a female founder solves a real problem by building something that actually works.
The Gigi is a balconette-style top with a secure under-bust band and a lace-up back — which means your fit is genuinely customizable to your body, not to a size chart that was never designed with full busts in mind. Two layers of Jenna's signature silky-soft recycled Italian fabric give it structure without stiffness. Reviewers — including customers who call it their favorite bikini top ever — describe feeling stylish and supported simultaneously, with no pinching at the neck and no halter-top headache. This is what small business shopping can get you: a product designed by a woman who understood the problem and refused to accept that it was unsolvable.
Shop This Product →Willow Field Soap
Terri Allen Knudsen started making soap because she moved to Arizona and her skin rebelled against the dryness in ways that nothing on the store shelf could fix. So she started experimenting, and what she discovered changed everything: her skin had never been better. Friends and family got bars as gifts. Then they started asking to buy them. Willow Field Soap was born from a personal solution that turned out to be everyone's solution.
Terri's soaps are loaded with Tussah Silk for incredible slip, avocado oil, cocoa butter, shea butter, and other genuinely skin-loving ingredients. Her son sniff-tests every batch. Her husband helps package. This is a real family operation, and you feel it in every bar.
The Wishes Soap is a jasmine-scented beauty that Terri's customers have described as leaving their skin feeling better after one shower than any store-bought bar ever has. It's made with her signature skin-loving base — that silk inclusion that makes the bar glide, the butters that cushion and moisturize, the carefully chosen essential oil blend that lingers in the best way. One reviewer said they could smell the box from the post office boxes nearby. That's Terri's work: unmistakably beautiful, made with the kind of care that travels ahead of it. This is the bar you keep for yourself while you give the gift sets away.
Shop This Product →b.e.happe designs
Brooke Happe is a former Doctor of Physical Therapy who set down her medical career to stay home with three kids under four and, during that season, taught herself to crochet. She made her first hat because she needed a beanie that would make her feel human again on school-drop-off mornings — something she could grab in seconds and look put-together without trying. She called it the Simple Slouch. It was perfect. And then, because Brooke is the kind of person she is, she donated hats to a children's hospital while she perfected her craft.
After a lengthy PICU stay with her middle child at Blank Children's Hospital in Des Moines, Brooke redirected her giving to Child Life Services — and has continued donating a portion of every sale ever since. Then she sold her house, loaded her family of five into an RV, and traveled the country building b.e.happe. If that's not a female founder story worth supporting, I don't know what is.
The Simple Slouch is where b.e.happe began and still where most first-time customers end up, because it solves the exact problem Brooke built it to solve. Hand-crocheted from premium 80% acrylic and 20% wool blend yarn, it's the beanie you grab in literally three seconds and look completely pulled together. No effort. No fuss. It works for every hair situation — down, ponytail, messy bun, unwashed, whatever — and it holds its shape through actual daily wear. A purchase of every Simple Slouch supports Child Life Services at children's hospitals. This is one of those gifts from women-owned businesses that gives twice.
Shop This Product →The World Gets Better When Women Get Supported
Eighteen businesses across two posts. Eighteen women who decided their ideas were worth fighting for. And here you are, reading about them — which means you already care. That's not nothing. That's actually the beginning of everything.
The most powerful thing about supporting women-owned businesses isn't just the products, as extraordinary as they are. It's the message it sends: we see you, we believe in you, and we are going to put our money where our values are. That message reaches every female founder who hasn't taken her leap yet and whispers: it might actually work.
Share this post with someone who needs a shopping list and a reminder of what their dollars can do. Leave a comment below — tell me which of these nine incredible female founders you're shopping first. And if you missed Part 1, there are ten more brilliant women-owned small businesses waiting for you there.
← Back to Part 1
