kim & mel | founders
A woman-owned business supporting other women-owned businesses.​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
our story!
Thank you for visiting the Bella Blu website! We are the founders of Bella Blu. Kim is a Wyoming native and has lived in Laramie with her husband, three boys, and their handful of dogs for over 25 years. Mel, her husband, and their dog, Luke, moved to Laramie in 2021 for a quieter life from Denver, Colorado, where Mel worked at the Denver Center for Performing Arts for 24 years.
​
Kim and Mel met when Kim, also a REALTOR, sold Mel a house. (Gotta love real estate!) They found they both had a love for interior design and dogs and hit it off instantly. They discovered they each had a desire to have a business where you could get eco-friendly and refillable items.
​
In 2020, Kim visited a store in Denver that was a zero-waste store and fell in love with the concept. She immediately wanted to bring something similar to Laramie that could be beneficial for the community. Being a university town, and hearing ongoing conversations regarding recycling issues, Kim thought this might be something the people of Laramie could get behind. Having come from Denver, and being very familiar with refill stores, Mel was surprised that Laramie didn't have anything like that. When Kim shared with Mel her idea to bring a refill store to Laramie, Mel was excited about the idea and immediately jumped on board to share all of her knowledge regarding refill stores.
Therefore, Bella Blu was born! Kim and Mel chose the name Bella Blu for multiple reasons. Bella, which means "beautiful" in Italian, they felt portrayed their love for all things beautiful, including our homes and our planet. Mel, who has a huge love for the "blues", really wanted her business to represent her love of that style of music, and after getting together with Kim and talking about the concept of the store, they felt that blue also represented water and being clean. They chose the seeded dandelion because they felt it portrays sustainability, renewal, and softness, and the white of the dandelion represents purity like most of their products.
​
our mission!
To help fill the need in Southeast Wyoming for eco-friendly and refillable products such as balsamic and oils, household cleaners, soaps, personal care items, candles, and more. By implementing a refill option for commonly used products instead of purchasing them in new plastic bottles each time, we can help reduce the amount of single-use plastic waste making its way into our waterways and oceans.
the dandelion!
Here are some interesting facts about the dandelion flower:
-
Every part of the dandelion is useful: root, leaves, flower. It can be used for food, medicine and dye for coloring.
-
Up until the 1800s people would pull grass out of their lawns to make room for dandelions and other useful “weeds” like chickweed, malva, and chamomile.
-
Animals such as birds, insects and butterflies consume nectar or seed of dandelion.
-
Dandelion can be used in the production of wine and root beer. Root of dandelion can be used as a substitute for coffee.
-
Dandelions have sunk their roots deep into history. They were well known to ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, and have been used in Chinese traditional medicine for over a thousand years.
-
Dandelion is used in folk medicine to treat infections and liver disorders. Tea made of dandelion act as diuretic.
-
Dandelions are, quite possibly, the most successful plants that exist, masters of survival worldwide.
-
A not so fun fact: Every year countries spend millions on lawn pesticides to have uniform lawns of non-native grasses, and we use 30% of the country’s water supply to keep them green.
