Editor's Note: This article is the second in a series spotlighting and supporting various nurse entrepreneurs and their businesses. In partnership with adni, products from each nurse business will be featured in our Nurse 365 monthly giveaways — enter to win here!
When I was working as an RN in the emergency department, I often struggled with the smells that accompany working in healthcare — and I was always looking for a solution.
When it came to neutralizing or masking unpleasant smells, I felt that deodorizing sprays and masks (pre-COVID) sometimes embarrassed the patient, and mentholated salves were messy and inconvenient to carry. Other unusual nursing “hacks” (like nebulizing coffee) were ineffective, and I was never able to land on an ideal solution — one that masked the odors themselves while preserving the dignity of my patients.
So, in 2018, I took matters into my own hands and created what is now known as StinkBalm.
Safeguarding patient dignity
Being a nurse is the inspiration behind my products. When searching for a solution to this issue, I knew what my own needs were as a nurse, and I did the best I could to envision what other nurses might also need.
Nursing taught me how critical it is to maintain patient dignity because when someone isn’t well, the last thing they want to be is embarrassed on top of whatever else is on their minds. Whenever a patient apologizes because of smells, it’s heartbreaking to me. Using sprays or other ineffective solutions just made the matter worse by embarrassing them further. I knew my products had to be discreet above all else.
Once I got serious about trying to make my product a reality, I concentrated on the delivery method first and came up with the idea of using a standard lip balm tube. I knew that designing a product to look just like a lip balm was the perfect way to keep its purpose discreet.
I started spending my days off concocting different “balms” in my kitchen until I found the right combination of ingredients that blocked odors. It wasn’t long before I was testing it at work.
Putting it to the test
After using it successfully in the hospital, I had family and friends give StinkBalm a try. I wanted to be sure I wasn’t the only one who found it helpful, and I also wanted to test the ingredients’ compatibility with other skin types. When I got a lot of positive feedback, I started to hand out extras to coworkers.
After getting a lot of comments like, “You should sell these!” I decided to take the plunge and try to do just that.
Once I made things official, registered the business, and opened a business bank account, things started moving quickly.
I put a listing on Etsy, applied to sell on Amazon, and began reinvesting any profit from sales right back into the business. I built a website and offered free samples. I launched social media profiles for StinkBalm and reached out to influencers to do paid posts. I sent emails to companies I thought would be interested in supplying StinkBalm to their workers or gifting it to their clients. I did everything I could to grow the business.
I started with one scent, now known as Original Scent, but as StinkBalm gained popularity, I began getting requests from other nurses for new scents.
The first variation was Lavender because of its calming, relaxing effects — an obvious benefit for other bedside nurses. Other scents like Banana were also requested by nurses in my unofficial test group.
I began to expand StinkBalm’s offerings with gift sets, which gave me the opportunity to inject some humor and lightheartedness into my products with names like Citrus 911 and Happy Hour, which smell like popular cocktails.
Delayed but not derailed
When I started to consider making a product to deal with this unfortunate side of healthcare, I had a definite fear of failure. And once I began to see some success, that fear turned into imposter syndrome.
This worsened when the pandemic started, I felt I had to put the business on the back burner. I prioritized working as much as possible during that time and felt guilty even thinking about my business.
A longtime friend and I were talking, and her reaction to how I was feeling literally snapped me out of it. Seeing how shocked she was that I felt guilty about doing anything other than nursing made me realize it wasn’t “bad” to work on my business. It was then that I had the courage to pick things back up.
Parting advice
Surrounding myself with like-minded, supportive people like this, who believe in me and what I was doing, has been a huge benefit throughout this whole experience.
Nurses have always had to be innovative. It’s almost an unofficial job requirement. I’m sure there are many more nurses out there with great business ideas that they should not be afraid to execute.
My advice is simple: Just dive in! Do your research, make some calls, and experiment — whatever it takes to kickstart the journey toward your dream. And don’t forget to connect with other nurses along the way.
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