The adventure of creating JuJu Stx®   

 

“Love is the greatest alchemical tonic.”

        JuJu Girl

 

The idea to create JuJu Stx® evolved 4 years ago from a desire to help a best friend quit smoking.  What we discovered along the way is that the intention to help someone is the most powerful tonic on earth.

 

From that heartfelt desire, a passion for entrepreneurial adventure and a great love of toothpicks, we the JuJu Girls (Tracy O’Shaughnessy and Carol Wilke) joined together to pioneer a new category of breath freshener, which would not only freshen breath, but also contains the restorative healing properties of natural essential oils and energizing ingredients to help curb cravings, relieve stress and Energize Your Spirit™.

  

We jumped into the adventure with Tracy leaving a career as a Satellite Systems Specialist and Subject Matter Expert for Lockheed Martin, and Carol carving away time from her own successful meeting and conference planning company to pursue their dream: To create a product that would help over 1 million people quit smoking and chewing tobacco by August 2009, and one day become a household name.

  

Discovery:

 

The intention to create something new and innovative that would actually help people curb cravings and energize the spirit started to evolve and our ideas came to life.  We experimented like our hero Edison, with hundreds, and what seemed like thousands, of different kinds of flavors, essential oils, woods, and ingredients in our search for the ultimate taste and texture that would also impart an energizing and intense flavor sensation.

 

We decided upon the use of bamboo because it is one of the fastest growing renewable resources on the planet and is 16 times harder than maple.  Bamboo’s unique strength and absorption properties were ideal for JuJu Stx® intense taste and hard texture. We went In search of a strong strain of bamboo and traveled to Taiwan, where Tracy, armed with the Taiwan Yellow Pages, called every bamboo manufacturer until she reached someone who could speak English and had the exact bamboo she was seeking.  Finally she found our manufacturer and the adventure had begun.  There was no turning back having gone halfway around the world to start off on the right foot.

 

We started out experimenting in our kitchen, our initial JuJu alchemical laboratory, exploring how to infuse the oils into the bamboo toothpix to make them a great breath freshener, “xtraordinarily” flavorful, energizing and long lasting.  Each JuJu Stx® had to pass a series of tests for flavor, scent, intensity, strength, texture and sweetness as well as stay flavorful for over an hour in order to provide the right mix of energizing qualities that make JuJu Stx® unique.

 

We ordered natural essential oils and flavorings from all over the world and then added secret spices and natural sweeteners to infuse into our Toothpix.  We went in search of a tooth-friendly sweetener and discovered Xylitol, a natural sweetener which has the added benefit of actually helping promote gum health and fight cavities.

 

   

How did we come up with the name JuJu Stx®?

 

Every culture has its own unique embodiment of words which they find fun and fanciful.  In America people have adopted the West African word “JuJu” (which means Sacred Spirit Essence) and associated it as synonymous with “Spirit.”   You hear slang for the word in America as “They have good JuJu.” or “They lost their JuJu.”

 

Our vision all along has been to create products that would “Energize the Spirit.”  Our company essence can be distilled into one word, “Spirit,” and that is why we chose JuJu™ as our brand, and JuJu=Spirit™ as one of our leading trademarks.

 

Our customers have created their own sacred words around our JuJu™ brand that include: I’m JuJuized, It’s JuJufied, That’s JuJu Jammin’ Man, It’s JuJu Time, and Do You JuJu?

 

 

The New JuJu Culture and Community:

 

What started with a desire to help just one person quit smoking quickly grew into a demand from JuJu Stx® enthusiasts.   We have had people from all over the country contact us to let us know how JuJu Stx® have impacted their lives with stopping smoking and chewing tobacco as well as curbing other cravings.

 

The stories they tell about the rituals that they have created using JuJu Stx®: “The JuJu Bridge” - tearing off the carved end of the toothpix and placing it on the table to make a holder for the sharp end to sit on, to “The JuJu Prize” from a math teacher that hands out JuJu Stx® to her students when they get a math problem right in class.

 

A unique language and community has evolved with fans sharing JuJu Stx® success stories with quitting smoking and chewing tobacco.  Friends are helping friends stop smoking by converting smokers to “JuJu Regulars.”  People ranging from stay at home moms to professional baseball managers have given us feedback about how JuJu Stx® help them to relieve stress and curb cravings for binge eating and nervous habits such as biting nails.  JuJu fans in the business world have shared with us how JuJu Stx® energizes them during long meetings.  We have even received endorsements from our customer’s dentists and oral hygienists. The greatest part of the adventure is the following of people from all over the country who have joined us in support of our company mission.

 

 

A Product with a Mission!

 

Company Mission

 

Assist over 1 million people quit smoking and chewing tobacco by August 2009,
as well as provide an entire generation of youth
with a fun and cool alternative to smoking.

 

   

 Divine Paradox:

 

Our journey has led us through an intimate understanding into the nature of Divine Paradox.  Along the way we have discovered…

 What seems large can be really very small,

What seems small can be very large.

 

 

The unfolding of our vision when we fully embraced our intention to help so many people with something as small as a toothpick has proved to be a testament to the power of love in action.  We invested our heart, spirit and soul into the creation of JuJu Stx® and its phenomenal success has demonstrated over and over again that love is the greatest alchemical tonic of all. 

 

JuJu Central, the home of JuJu Stx® is a living alchemical laboratory
 to Energize Your Spirit™ in all that we do, and all that we create.

Come join our mission and visit our web site to explore the home of JuJu Stx®.

The JuJu Girls

Tracy O’Shaughnessy & Carol Wilke

 

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