the women’s issue
THE SMALL BUSINESS OWNER
ELISABETH CHADBOURNE FOUNDER AND CEO, LO & BEHOLD NATURALS
Elisabeth was raised in Greensboro. She graduated from
Goucher College with her bachelor’s in peace studies. She moved to Durham seven years ago, right around the time she began thinking about starting her business, which she’s been building for the past five years. She lives in Huckleberry Heights with her boyfriend, Russell Johnson, dog, Vivian, and cat, Sirius.
E
ver since childhood, Lizzie has always loved being outdoors. In high school, she worked on an organic vegetable farm – she actually bartered her work for her family’s CSA – and the farmer was an herbalist. “She would tell me about the plants and show me different tincture, and I started taking them,” Lizzie says. “A lot of herbal medicine really helped me get through college and get through the stress and even helped me with allergies I developed. So, I wanted to start making my own. “This has actually been a lifelong interest that I never really realized would turn into my profession.” But it has, in a major way. Today, Lo & Behold Naturals has nine categories of products – from lip balms and facial masks to body scrubs and beard oil – 48 products total, in 10 stores in Durham, 40 more stores in the state and 10 out of state. “I got my first international wholesale order, so we’re now in Australia,” Lizzie says. You can find their full line at the Durham Co-op Market and Bungalow & Co., as well as smaller selections at Bulldega, Indio, Pine State Flowers and Museum of Life and Science, among others. “[The museum] is one of my favorite places in Durham, and just knowing the kids are wearing our bug spray in the butterfly house,” Lizzie says. … I mean, [I feel like] I’ve succeeded.” A part of that success she credits to the interns she’s hired over the years from Partners for Youth Opportunity, a nonprofit that assists students from eighth grade through college who are affected by immigration, incarceration and poverty. “Everything about PYO
checks all my boxes of the kind of organization I want to support.” She has big goals and would potentially like to double in size, but she doesn’t “want to have some huge warehouse where I’m just managing people,” she says. “I’m hoping I can have that sweet spot where we are a little bigger than we are now. I still want to be rooted in my community. I still want to be making stuff, and I still want to be out meeting people at the markets.” Regardless of what the future ends up looking like, Lizzie maintains one constant, based on advice she received when just starting her business from Slingshot Coffee Co. Founder Jenny Bonchak. “She told me to just make the best product I could, and if I kept focusing on that, everything else would work out,” Lizzie says. “It’s funny, I’ve gotten a lot of good advice, but that’s just the center of everything, you know?” – Amanda MacLaren m ay 2 0 1 9
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