'Success Through Wellness'

Take Good Care is a wellness lifestyle brand that provides a varied selection of vegan skincare and sustainable products which include fashion accessories and mindful, eco-friendly gifts.  When her successful diversity training business closed due to lockdown, Barbara Rowe started to weave self-care into her life, but found that many self-care websites were targeting specific groups and she felt there was a gap in the market for a more inclusive platform with access to uncomplicated, high-quality products and information and with that, Take Good Care was born!

But the business is not just about environmentally friendly products, corporate social responsibility is at the heart of everything they do.  The company partners with One Tree Planted and since start-up has planted in excess of 120 trees and Barbara has recently launched the Take Good Care Awards, recognising unsung heroes in her local community.

takegoodcare Products

Barbara started the business in a small outlet in Lewes, but quickly discovered that she needed more space and a more professional environment to grow her business.  It was important for Barbara to have an East Sussex based location close to home, avoiding heavy traffic and high parking costs.

Newhaven Enterprise Centre was the perfect solution, with good public transport links, free on-site parking, 24/7 access and good accessibility and facilities for those with limited mobility.  For Barbara, as an on-line business, close proximity to a Post and Sorting Office was also important.

“Moving to Newhaven Enterprise Centre was the best move I made last year. It isn’t just the facilities, but also the staff – who always have time to provide a listening ear as well as signposting for business advice and services”

- Barbara Rowe, Take Good Care

One of the services accessed was Locate East Sussex, with Barbara receiving support to start-up and re-locate her business from Business Manager, Emily Wright.  Barbara says ‘it was great to have Emily as a sounding board who was not connected to the business, so objective.  Her encouragement to make myself visible as the founder of my brand and take ownership has had a huge effect on sales’

takegoodcare Awardees

Moving to the Newhaven Enterprise Centre has made a real difference to the business. Being settled in a location with a flexible licence has made it possible for Barbara to move to a larger unit within the Centre, improving efficiency and providing space to re-launch her diversity training business without compromising Take Good Care sales. It has also given her access to a diverse range of businesses within the Centre which has ‘added to the richness of my own work life and development, giving me the opportunity to extend my working family and meet other local entrepreneurs, utilising the NEC team and businesses around me’.

So what’s next for Take Good Care?  One thing that the pandemic taught Barbara was that you never know what’s around the corner and to concentrate on short-term goals that support her ethos of providing an ethical and sustainable service that truly makes a difference, whether that’s through expanding the Take Good Care Awards which acknowledges people in the community and the good that they do, obtaining Leaping Bunny Status or launching her new Equality & Diversity business.

Barbara now has the confidence to make some huge decisions and have self-belief in her own abilities – ‘I would love takegoodcare to become a global household name and this is my starting point’.