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      My name is Sylva Alana Smyth-Timinskis and I am often asked how we got started making Alana’s Alaskan Lotion Bars so this is our story. About twenty years ago I moved from Miami Beach Florida to Willow Alaska and married my husband Billy Timinskis. Bill was a gold miner, airplane mechanic, loved gardening and taking macro photos of flowers and bugs. I am a watercolor artist and bohemian of sorts. When I first moved here my skin was so dry it hurt, my legs dried out, itched, and my fingers had huge cracks and bleeds. I tried lotions and other local balms, lotion bar products, antibiotic creams, cortisone creams (that burned and did nothing) and even super glue. NOTHING WORKED! I noticed that a lot of the products I tried had lanolin (a by-product of sheep sweat that goes rancid quickly and can cause your skin to peel off), petroleum or just cheap mineral and filler oils in them. I’ve had eczema, celiac and severe allergies all my life. One day two young gals, from up the hill, came by to get a label printed for a lotion bar product they were making. It looked like a bar of soap. My hands were cracked and bleeding from working in the garden so I gave it a try and almost over night they started to heal up. The bar melted with the warmth of my skin and only took a couple of minutes to soak in, no greasy feeling. One night my legs were itching so bad that I couldn't sleep so I grabbed the bar off of my night stand and rubbed it on my shins. THE ITCHING STOPPED IMMEDIATELY! I WAS HOOKED! I started giving some to my friends and selling a few bars in our little summer gallery. While working in the garden, that summer, I had a 6 yr old helper that would run into the gallery and rub the lotion bar onto his legs and arms and then in a minute or two he would let out a sigh and run back out into the garden. When I asked him what he was doing he said "Don't you know “Syl-ba” it stops my mosquito bites from itching, YOU MAKE IT!" The look on his face, while throwing his little arms into the air, was priceless. How foolish could I be? I couldn't believe it all of his welts were gone. I started trying it on swelling from black flies (no see ums) and my patches of eczema and it worked. That same summer two old timers came out to buy more Alana’s Alaskan Lotion Bars and told us it cured their foot rot problems that they have suffered with from as far back as the Korean War. They  tried everything for over 40 years and this stuff worked in less than 2 weeks. One woman drove over 150 miles to pick up some bars for her 83 year old mother. She told us that it was the only thing that gave her 8 hours of relief from psoriasis. At this point I knew our product was healing and relieving all kinds of suffering. We realized we were onto something amazing when men started calling and driving out to our shop to show us how smooth their feet were for the first time in their lives. This is where the LOVE first started to appear in our product. We then started adding a few more scents and selling a few bars here and there. When I would run out people would get so upset I would give them a little slice of mine and beg the girls to make more... The girls told me they no longer wanted to make it. I FREAKED OUT! A week or so later we did a little horse trading  and promised to give the family's lotion bar for life, tweaked it out a little, added some new scents, changed the name to Alana's (my middle name) Alaskan Lotion Bar and started selling it at events. About 12 years ago we sold our product at the Iditarod Restart, in our home town of Willow, and within a few days calls and orders started coming in from all over the  planet. People started telling us they were using it for everything, even pets, and it was the only thing that worked! Bill quit  his job and became our "master-melter" and web designer. We started using our photos and artwork to design the labels and hired locals to wrap and label. Everything is done in house and we use the pass it along method for advertising. Almost  everyday someone will write, e-mail or call to tell us their story of how the product has improved the quality of their life or healed some ailment they've had for years. Check out our testimonials to read more stories or add one of your own...  We have relocated to Ft. Myers Florida to be closer to our granddaughter. Our Hearts (& rocks) will forever remain in Alaska…..Family owned and operated since 1999.

About Us

     All of our products are still made in house

hand mixed, poured & labeled. After years of

designing our labels from photos by Billy T and

Sylva Alana’s watercolors we’ve upgraded our

containers and labels to form a more cohesive

brand honoring our Albino Alaskan Snowshoe

Hare “Kugi”. Link to Kugi story…

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New logo * new labels * same product * same owners