Tales from home shopping...

One early Sunday afternoon, as I lay in bed trying to recuperate from a crazzzy Bachelorette party that had occurred the evening before, I was flipping through the tv channels trying to find something good to fall asleep to. “Sleep timer” is a beautiful thing. Usually Sunday afternoons are rife with good, old movies and sitcoms from the 90’s and 80’s that you’d completely forgotten about. (For example, “Overboard” and “3rd Rock From the Sun” are two favorite newly rediscovered oldies but goodies.) However, this particular Sunday-- there was nothin’.

I thought maybe my timing was off, and if I just waited a few minutes and flipped through again, some of the channels that had previously been playing commercials would miraculously be back to the real, awesome programming? "Clueless" or "Bring It On," per chance?

So, I hopefully mustered up the strength to do a second channel run-through, but I wasn’t having any better luck...

Until…I got side-tracked by a smiling model having her shiny model hair fluffed and styled by a funny little man as she sat all resplendent-like in a salon chair. He was spraying stuff, scrunching stuff, and explaining stuff as he went along—and, her hair actually looked really good! Then they flashed her “before” picture, and the flat straight “before” hair was no competition for the glorious, voluminous coif she was sporting now. As this man worked his way down a line of model’s heads (that sounds so pervy), he transformed all of their average mall-do’s into locks worthy of Jennifer Aniston. I was completely and utterly hooked.

Seriously. I was so into the awesome hair makeovers that I was watching, that I was mildly shocked the next time I glanced at my clock and realized my designated napping time had long passed. Foiled! And by the unlikeliest of foes… well played QVC. Well played, indeed.

It turned out that this man, Denis Simioni, has been dubbed the Indiana Jones of beauty products, due to the unusual way he discovered and created his magnificent, Earth friendly Ojon line.

After getting wind that there was a certain, rare type of tree that grew deep in the rain forests, that was capable of producing an incredibly rich form of moisturizing oil, Denis chartered a small plane to fly him over the suspected area to see if he could aerially locate the source. Upon landing the plane, and hiking through the forests for hours, he stumbled into the villages of the Tawira, a tribe of South American Indians that have lived deep in the rain forests for at least five centuries. A friendly people, they were happy to show him their native Ojon tree, and share with him the methods for extracting the oil from it’s nuts.

Loaded with ideas, Denis spent the next three years developing and perfecting his line of hair, skin, and beauty products. First things first, he established an exclusive arrangement with the Tawira, so that his company was the only one allowed to profit from the Ojon trees. Then, he set up methods to extract the oil, in the least harmful way possible. For example, he brought in ovens to heat up the mixtures, so that trees wouldn’t have to be destroyed for fires. Ojon also limits the size of the annual harvests in order to protect the natural resources, and to ensure that authentic Ojon continues to be harvested and extracted by hand in the traditional way as a guarantee of purity and effectiveness.

The Tawira tribes are consulted on all aspects of the business — from product development to marketing. (Also smart from a marketing stand-point: limited supply = increased demand.) In cooperation with the Tawira, he developed a corporate partnership involving thousands of Tawira families. A portion of all profits from the sale of Ojon products goes directly to the Tawira Indian tribes, and the money is used to help preserve their traditional lifestyle and the region's rain forests, while setting up medical and educational facilities for the villagers. Ojon is not just taking from the land, but giving back as much as they considerately take.

I feel like this is the ultimate testament to the selling power of QVC and Ojon combined: after watching Ojon in action, and hearing the spiel, I actually went out to Sephora and bought the line. This is noteworthy because there are a lot of products I think sound cool, but only a small fraction of which that are actually purchased.

And, I was a completely happy and satisfied customer. The Ojon products smell soo good (as anyone around me can attest-- not because the perfume is that strong, but because I shove my hair in their face and say, “doesn’t my hair smell amazing!?” The smell is subtle—I however am not.) My hair seems to air dry nicer, blow-dry easier, and it feels so silky and soft.

So, if TV does rot your brain, at the very least the stuff growing out of mine is being well-nourished…