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JoAnn Meche’s fascination with the fine cremes and lotions used by her mother eventually grew into a business that has been in operation for 32 years now.
RiceSilk, a line of 12 products including everything from facial masques to moisturizing cleansers to perfumes, is a successful nationwide business headquartered in Rayne. It is successful primarily for one reason — it works.
The RiceSilk products provide for the three steps Meche says are necessary for good skin care — deep cleansing, exfoliation and hydration.
Every RiceSilk product is made from all natural ingredients. The key to the effectiveness of the products, says Meche, is rice derivatives which contain vitamin-enriched healing properties.
And where did she come up with the formula for her product?
In her bathroom.
“It’s really a funny story,” Meche says as she recalls the start of her business more than three decades ago. “I was sick. I had hepatitis B and was ordered complete rest. Well, you can only watch TV or read so much. I got bored.”
Meche admits that she always pampered herself, probably going back to the fascination with her mother’s creams and such.
“I had the top line of facial masques,” she said. “But they didn’t work and, in my sickened stupor, I thought I could formulate a facial masque that would tighten skin, draw out impurities and remove the dead layers of skin.”
She said she can’t really explain how she knew what ingredients she needed for this masque. “The whole thing was serendipity, and serendipity comes from God.”
She began experimenting with various all-natural ingredients such as aloe, calamine, rice powder and honey — all products she had witnessed her grandmother using.
She went to the library and to the Thompson Registry, then a huge tome listing every company in the country and what they sold. From that registry, she wrote down the names of companies that sold the products she thought she needed for her masque “and started calling 1-800 numbers.”
“Only one company asked what I wanted their product for, so I made up a name — JM French Corporation,” she said, explaining the “JM” was for JoAnn Meche.
When all the ingredients came in, she said she went into the bathroom and started combining them into a facial masque.
“I used a little jiggle here, a little jiggle there and a lot of divine intervention,” she said.
One of her first “guinea pigs” was her mother-in-law.
“She asked me what this cream was going to do and I told her, ‘It’s going to make you look 10 years younger.’
“We all laughed.”
The cream was applied to one side of her mother-in-law’s face and allowed to dry.
“It dried to a chalky, white paste,” Meche remembers. “But when we rinsed it off, the skin on that side of her face was smooth and tight.
“She said, ‘Hurry up and do the other side!’”
It had worked! The only problem was that she only had 4 ounces of the product ... and she hadn’t written down the “recipe.”
“It took me a year to find the right formula again,” Meche said.
And when she did “rediscover” the formula, there were skeptics ... right there in her very home.
“Russell (husband Russell Meche) asked me, ‘Where did you steal that formula?’
“I told him, ‘If I were going to steal a formula for something, I’d steal the one for Coca-Cola!’”
But, though she now had the blueprint for the actual product, there was something missing.
Since the cream consisted of all natural ingredients, a preservative was required to extend the shelf-life.
That accomplished, Meche started pitching her product and was able to get it into the Beall-Ladymon stores in the area.
Not long after that, QVC, the popular home-shopping network, was doing a “50 States in 50 Weeks” promotion and Meche was one of 20 Louisiana vendors to earn a 6-and-a-half minute spot.
“I remember I was number 19,” Meche says. “I had 1,300 units and I pulled out all the stops. I had models to show how well and quickly the product worked.
“About 4 and a half minutes in the QVC girl told me I had sold out, but I misunderstood. I thought she said, ‘Get out.’ I was devastated.”
As she was walking off stage, her daughter Michele (Veillon) was waiting.
“She grabbed me around the neck and was jumping up and down saying, ‘Mom, you did so great!’
“I told her no I hadn’t, that they had just told me to get out. Michele said, ‘No, they said you had sold out ... all 1,300 units and a thousand more!’”
A company was born.
Meche stayed with QVC for four years, selling RiceSilk “in prime time” before ending her association because of “creative differences.” She also had a brief stint at HSN.
“Those programs were a roller-coaster ride, but they got the product out,” Meche said.
“I remember when we reached the 50,000 products sold mark, I couldn’t wrap my head around just how many people that was,” she said. “Then one day I was sitting here with Russell watching a football game and the announcer said there were an estimated 50,000 fans there.
“I yelled at Russell, ‘Each person in the stands represents a RiceSilk product sold!’”
That was a few years back. Since then, RiceSilk has continued to be a thriving business.
To learn more about RiceSilk products, visit www.ricesilkskincare.com.