“I ship to every state and around the world,” said owner Venita Allen, who has been in business for 17 years with the first 15 also operating out of downtown Cincinnati’s Findlay Market.
The former Butler County Sheriff Deputy and Hamilton native said she is thrilled with her new retail space, sharing a shopping center with some national chains like Target, Best Buy and Penney’s.
The center, which is just off the Ohio 129 and Ohio 4 interchange in Fairfield Twp., is more accessible than her previous downtown Hamilton location and parking is free and plentiful, Allen said.
“A lot of my people are coming from this area and I pull in a lot of people from the West Chester, Mason, Fairfield and Cincinnati areas. I love my hometown but sometimes you out grow it,” she said.
Allen’s shop specializes in homemade artisan soap, body wash, lotion, lip balm, bath bombs, bubble cakes, beauty bars, body butter and face masks, as well as jewelry and clothing.
The name lahVdah is a play off the “la-dee-da” reaction Allen said she expressed when faced with someone who told her she wouldn’t get far in life. Personalizing the phrase, she replaced the middle of the word with a “V,” which stands for Venita and victory.
Last year during the coronavirus pandemic, Allen grabbed headlines for shifting the focus of her business from skin care and personal hygiene products to creating hand sanitizer, soap sheets and other anti-bacterial products.
lahVdah provided them for free to front line medical, grocery, sanitation and delivery workers, plus the city’s police and fire departments, area homeless and those in desperate need because of illness.
“It’s just fun. This is three times the space and I still have the Hamilton zip code and so we’re still considered Hamilton,” Allen said.
“Bridewater Falls are phenomenal landlords and I love that they really do care about their tenants,” she said.
About the Author
