Know Your Neighbor: Debbie Frishman, Independent Skin Care Consultant, Mt. Kisco

Debbie Frishman had voluntarily given up her career as a special education teacher when she had her two children and has happily helped her husband’s veterinary practice.

She wasn’t necessarily looking for a new career when she reconnected last year with a friend whom she hadn’t seen since her high school days in Dix Hills, L.I. The friend was selling skin care products for Rodan + Fields, a company launched by two California dermatologists, and asked if Frishman was interested in joining her team.

That chance meeting through social media has given rise to a new and very much unexpected opportunity for Frishman. For the past six months, she has been an independent consultant for Rodan + Fields, selling the company’s line of skin products to a slowly but steadily expanding list of customers.

“It really wasn’t something I thought I would get involved in,” said Frishman, a Mount Kisco resident who previously moved with her family to the village from Somers. “It’s really something outside the box for me and it’s really working out very well.”

Before committing to take the plunge last November, Frishman decided to test the products, which range from sunscreen to anti-aging creams to treatments for acne or sensitive and irritated skin, on herself for about eight weeks.

“There’s something for everyone,” Frishman said. “The products are for men, women, anyone with skin, really, and the focus is really the anti-aging, which is a huge market.”

After her self-imposed trial period, she loved what she saw in the mirror.

“What’s amazing to me is I feel like I can see such a difference in my skin that if I walk out of the house now and I’m rushing with my kids and I don’t have makeup on, I’m not self-conscious like I used to be,” Frishman said.

Frishman still helps her husband four days a week, but in between helping him out and tending to her kids, now five and seven years old, she tends to her new business. The best part is that she can put in as few or as many hours as she wants depending on her and her family’s schedule.

Thus far, she has compiled about 30 customers, almost entirely by connecting through social media. For all products that she sells, Frishman is paid a commission by the company.

For someone who didn’t have the time or inclination to spend dozens of hours networking at various functions, it was a perfect fit for Frishman.

“My first thing was I don’t want to be doing parties, I’m not stocking inventory and I don’t want my friends and family to feel like they had to buy things from me,” she said.

In many ways, her career has come full circle. Frishman was an art major at C.W. Post, then earned a double master’s from Touro College for elementary and special education. Her first job out of college was for Clinique, before eventually teaching for five years at the Graham School in Hastings.

But she relinquished her tenure because after paying for day care it wasn’t worth

going to work and missing out on her children’s formative years.

“I really just wanted to be home with my kids as much as possible,” said Frishman, who enjoys sculpting and playing tennis. “I was a teacher (and) I left my teaching job to be at home with my kids, and then helping my husband with the business and being involved with that, I really didn’t think I could take on any more.”

It’s also helped that in the first six months, the venture has provided supplemental income for the family. After a short amount of time, it helped Frishman and her husband, Andrew, to close on a summer cottage on the eastern end of Long Island.

Frishman said the consultants are mostly women, which has is empowering. It also doesn’t hurt that the products are awfully good, too, she said, and that it doesn’t require her to be in any particular location. When sales are made, the company ships the products directly to the customer.

Now that both of Frishman’s children are in school fulltime, she can devote more time to the products if she chooses.

“It feels like it brought me back to life,” she said. “It’s brought me back out and other consultants that are working with me really feel the same way. It’s so much fun, it doesn’t feel like work.”

For more information or to contact Frishman, visit www.dfrishman.myrandf.com. or email dlfrishman@yahoo.com.