Palette Pals: Sisters turn face painting passion into growing business - Small Business
Yolanda Bartram (left) and Myrthe Heydenrijk, co-founders of Palette Pals.
Yolanda Bartram and Myrthe Heydenrijk, co-founders of Palette Pals, talk to Tom Raynel about their experience with face and body painting and their plans to take the business global.
Every Monday, we interview a small-business owner. This is now a regular feature of NZME’s editorial campaign On The Up, showcasing uplifting stories of success, inspiration and possibilities.
What is Palette Pals?
Palette Pals is a product that’s all about getting that connection back with your children, and getting creativity within your family through colour and fun. Each of our kits comes packed with a vibrant skin-safe paint palette, brushes, stencils, and simple instructions cards with online tutorials. It’s vegan, cruelty-free, and designed to make creativity easy – even for first-timers.
What inspired you to start the business?
Yolanda: So Mytrhe and I are sisters, and we started doing face painting pretty much at the same time, with our mum dragging us to come and do it at various events. We have been face painting for a very long time.
We have another company called BodyFX, and we’ve been teaching classes and workshops both in New Zealand and internationally. We really wanted to bring face painting to a wider audience and to really bring it in-house.
Myrthe: We had been thinking about it for a long time. I really like the aspect of it being imaginative play for the kids while the parents actually get to do something that’s a little bit more creative and challenging for them as well.
How did you come up with the designs?
Yolanda: After 25 years of face painting, you kind of know what kids want and what they want to get painted as. We also themed them around what most people do for birthday parties, whether that’s fairy tales or garden parties, things like that.
Myrthe: With each of the step-by-step instructions, there’s also a QR code which leads to an online tutorial video. It means parents can choose to either look at the step-by-step guide and paint along with that, or watch it and learn some techniques to get a bit more of an idea of how to do it.
How has your work with BodyFX helped in setting up this business?
Yolanda: So BodyFX has been running for about 24 years now. We started originally in a little shop in Wellington, and then it was around 2010-2011 that we opened it up in Auckland. The shop has become quite the staple for people within the industry. We sell a lot to cosplay artists, film and TV, and professional face painters in New Zealand.
This business has been a way for us to expand out of our core offering, and it’s been a really nice opportunity to use Myrthe’s additional skills. She’s a phenomenal graphic designer, and so putting the vision together of how the boxes will look has been a really cool journey.
What plans do you have for the business?
Yolanda: Our New Zealand business has been very steady and doing very well, but Australia is definitely next. We might be looking at a third party to help with logistics, but that’s definitely going to be our next step. It’s always been one of my goals to have a product that gets sold nationally in a very recognisable store as well, so we’re working on that too.
Myrthe: We’re continuing to work on new designs and add to our offering, and there’s one we can’t wait to launch soon. We’re also working on getting our products into more tourist-adjacent locations, as we think there’s a good opportunity to broaden our sales a bit.
What would be your advice to a budding entrepreneur wanting to start a business?
Yolanda: I think you want to be passionate about what you’re selling, that’s my main thing. Know what you’re selling and be an expert at it. We love what we do, and hopefully that shines through in our products, and I think everybody who has a company should be doing that.
Myrthe: I think just be really aware of your competitors and the industry that you are stepping into, and do research beforehand. We’re very firm believers, even with face painters, that there’s no design or idea that hasn’t been done before, but you can add tweaks and take inspiration from other people and turn it into something else. That’s how businesses thrive.
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.
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