Hampton Road store opened earlier this month

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Terri-Ann Cormier opened up Naturally for Life, an eco store located at 122 Hampton Rd.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.
The famous Gandhi quote, posted across a wall inside Terri-Ann Cormier’s new retail store, represents the reason the Quispamsis entrepreneur opened her new eco-friendly business.
“The more I watched (the going green trend) the more there were products out there that were claiming they were green when they weren’t,” Cormier said. “You were purchasing something and you thought you were making a difference and in the end the chemicals in it or the way it was made wasn’t green.”
Cormier researched eco-friendly products for more than a year before deciding to open a retail store called Naturally for Life, the Eco Store, at 122 Hampton Rd.
“I’m always thinking of my next big project and I have two kids so I need to do something that benefits them in the end as well but every time I looked in the newspaper, read something in the news or turned on the television it said people are going green,” Cormier said. “Everything was green.”
When narrowing down the product lines she would carry, Cormier said she tested everything herself and tried to imagine what she would want out of an eco store.
“I knew I wanted it to be one-stop shopping,” she said. “You’re going to have the total one-stop shopping here.”
The store carries green cleaning products, books, soaps, skincare products, reusable lunch products, artwork, jewelry and teas. One product, called PooPoo Paper, offers notebooks and journals all made from recycled elephant dung.
The store also has a room for a registered massage therapist.
Cormier said part of her goal is to debunk the myth that going green is too expensive for most families’ budgets.
“Some items are (more expensive) because they’re organic or because of the process they had gone through but the majority of the products here are comparable to products you would buy that are not eco-friendly.”
Cormier said opening the store has been a learning process for her and noted it has helped make her own lifestyle more environmentally-friendly.
“It’s hard to become 100-per-cent green but it’s one of those things where it’s baby steps,” she said. “You start using the cleaning supplies and then you realize what you’re putting on your face should be green skincare products and I’m a tea drinker and now I know how much loose leaf tea can benefit you. I sort of have this vision that it takes one person to start the path and people think ‘Oh, it’s not so bad.’”
Cormier said she wants to change the mindset that only some types of people can go green.
“It takes people’s minds out of thinking you have to be a certain way to be green,” she said. “Being green should be natural to all of us. If it’s just a few simple things you change in your house – simple things start the flow. I think once people get on that wave length it will be normal to be green. I think it’s going to get there. It only makes sense.”
Naturally for Life, the Eco Store, is located at 122 Hampton Rd. and opened earlier this month. Cormier said she plans to have a grand opening celebration after Christmas.