Skincare products you'll go batty for
"The best way to stand out is by being a little creepy."
That's the motto that Amanda, owner of Dreadful Bats, relayed to me when I asked about the process behind creating her brand of handmade beauty products. The brand is inspired in equal part by Amanda's lifelong love of horror – and specifically bats – and what started as an attempt to make skincare products for her own personal use.
"Ever since I was younger I’ve always loved being arts and crafty from baking to sewing to drawing. Ive also been very into skin care as well so naturally I wanted to try my hand at making some for myself," she explained. "After many failed attempts and changing out ingredients I finally had a few products I really liked and used regularly. I had developed a passion for it by then so I kept researching ingredients and their benefits to skin like essential oils, carrier oils, exfoliants and it really went from there to what it is today."
In order to open her online shop, Amanda enlisted the help of her sister Evelyn, a skilled photographer and editor, to design labels for, and photograph, her products.
Since opening Dreadful Bats, Amanda has continued working to grow her brand, including taking part in an online festival called The Festival Of Ghouls.
"I partook in sponsoring a 3 day online streaming festival for entertainers, musicians and Etsy shop owners affected by the pandemic in October of last year," she told me. "It was definitely a fun way to spend Halloween seeing awesome bands play, checking out the giveaways and also occasionally seeing my logo and name listed as sponsor wasn’t such a bad thing to see either."
However, the shop is still a labour of love for Amanda, who maintains a full time job outside of Dreadful Bats. "I definitely want to see Dreadful Bats grow bigger as an online retailer and have fun doing it," she said. "I'd love to do just that at some point."
While Dreadful Bats offers a variety of products, Amanda has a particular soft spot for creating the facial toners, or "elixirs", as she calls them. "I make all the floral waters (rose water, lavender water, ect.) at home with dried herbs and flowers so making them is pretty fun." she told me.
Those facial toners, along with the rest of Amanda's products, are available through the Dreadful Bats Etsy shop. You can also follow Amanda (as well as Evelyn) on Instagram.