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One day over coffee, two women let their imaginations run loose.

What if they started a business together, stepped out of the rat race and did something they loved? “Just Imagine...” wrote Lisa Wilkinson on a notepad, and she and her friend Martha Saenz began writing down ideas.

Seven months later, Wilkinson and Saenz’ handmade bath and body care product line Just Imagine is on the shelves at six Naples and Marco Island retail stores, and the business partners are developing new products and looking toward future growth. On a recent weekday, Wilkinson bustled around the kitchen of her Golden Gate Estates home measuring, mixing and pouring — but it wasn’t food in her four-cup, glass Pyrex. It was a melted soap mixture called Camomile Neroli.

These times are Wilkinson’s “zen time,” she said, crunching chamomile flowers in her gloved hands and sprinkling them into the soap. Soap-making utensils lay on one end of the U-shaped kitchen counter, next to a row of essential and fragrance oils. On the other end, molds waited for the hot, scented liquid.

Nearly every day, beauty products take over Wilkinson’s kitchen when she works to create Just Imagine’s products in between working part-time at her husband’s company and caring for their three children, ages 8, 13 and 17.

Meanwhile, back in Naples, Saenz was at work; she works full-time and also cares for three children ages 13, 15 and 17, but finds free moments during lunch and late at night to do the business accounting, go on sales calls and make labels and packages.

Often, Saenz takes an order, makes the labels and delivers stacks of packages to Wilkinson, who mixes up the products, seals the packages and returns them to Saenz. Then, Saenz delivers the products to the customer.

“It’s a well-choreographed ballet,” said Wilkinson, with a laugh.

The business partners met about 1 1⁄2 years ago, when they both took ballroom dance lessons. They went out to lunch and “bonded about being moms, about being women, about having dreams and about how the work force deals with extraordinary people,” Wilkinson said.

They jumped into the beauty product business and “dug in with both feet,” Wilkinson said, and Saenz agreed. They started mixing up batches of soap and later moved into lotion, body butter, scrubs, body mist and more.

Just Imagine’s herbal scents include Lavender & Herb, Amber & Sandalwood and Grapefruit Ginger Lime, as well as other categories such as wine scents, including Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon and seasonal lines. Just recently, they’ve begun developing a Feng Shui line of scents and a group named after mixed drinks called Tropical Pleasures.

Once a week, the partners meet over coffee to talk about the business, and on Saturdays they wake up early to travel to retail stores with a display basket, making sales calls.

Just Imagine’s soaps usually retail between $5 and $6.50 for 4 ounces; lotions are about $12 for 8 ounces, body butter about $12 for 8 ounces and dead sea salts about $15 for 16 ounces. All of the products are developed and mixed by Wilkinson and Saenz.

When Saenz stepped into Wilkinson’s kitchen on a recent afternoon, Wilkinson had one batch of Camomile Neroli soap setting in molds and had already begun a batch of Pomegranate & Blackberry soap.

Saenz put on gloves and the two women switched on and off; Saenz added blackberry seeds and Wilkinson measured out pomegranate fragrance oil.

“Our goal is to eventually have a store, to continue expanding our product lines,” Saenz said. “We really live for the day when we have a place that’s entirely our own.”

“We want to have a place where someone walks in and they can dream, they can feel beautiful,” Wilkinson said.

“We want to create that magic,” Saenz said.

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Where to buy

-- Decor ‘n Gifts, Naples

-- Holiday House, Marco Island

-- The Marco Wine Seller, Marco Island

-- Scentchips and More, Naples

-- The Wine Merchant, Naples

-- Wynn’s Market, Naples