Is Cover Girl friends with Maybelline?

This may be a very unusual topic for many of you. In today's back stabbing, pension robbing, eat or be eaten business world, believe it or not were not all like that!
In the picture to the left is Valerie Reed of Valana Minerals, and me, Lorraine Pierce of L.A. Minerals. Yep, we're both in the same line of work. And nope, we're not enemies. Were the opposite. We're friends who have cheerfully helped each other out for the past 3 years, and continue to do so.
We both started our business' online presence in 2007 and met virtually via a suppliers forum, where we met other women makeup business owners. We are also both Indie Business members, an organization that brings together small business owners, with a slew of services like webinars, insurance, and forums. Within these forums I've met women in various stages of business development and formulation, the conversations and help topics range from "where to get labels" to "how to emulsify this with that", and everything in between. What I really learned was that we all have knowledge, skills and strengths that can help each other. Valerie seems to always have perfect, logical, detailed answers to complicated issues. I tend to pitch in with links and a one line addendum to Valerie's in depth answers!
Besides sharing knowledge, I learned that we could relax and share our ideas and resources, wins and losses, good times and bad, personal and business. We became friends.
Several years ago Valerie helped out another lady in our group, who's products were featured at an Oscar event in Los Angeles. Valerie manned the table, representing a product line that was her competition!
This past month, it was my pleasure to help Valerie out at her Whole Foods in store makeover and spa event. I sat through Val's training class, and proudly donned the Valana Minerals T-shirt the next day, doing makeovers with her products, all whilst supporting a worthy cause, Vitamin Angels. The Vitamin Angels program provides vitamins to children around the world who do not have access to a well balanced diet.
I had a blast doing makeovers. It was great to finally meet Valerie in person. Valerie was gracious and grateful for the help. I am grateful for the experience, as I learned a lot. So perhaps by alleviating some of her nervousness, I have alleviated some of my own if I ever have an in store demo! That's what its all about. Being human. Helping each other. Supporting each other.
After the event, Valerie told the manager and her videographer about me, and how I owned a mineral makeup business. They exclaimed "she's your competition?!" to which Valerie replied "No, she's my friend, and we celebrate each others successes."