I am looking forward to start a natural base cosmetic business in the DC/VA/MD area, but I don't know where to start. Can anyone guide me on where to find a concise book, or information that will help me get proper funding, suppliers of raw materials, packaging materials and type of distributors, etc...
thank you!

I don't have a book to recommend to you, but I can give you a little info. I make several bath and body products for my online business. I spent months searching the Internet to find suppliers, so I hesitate to just give you links to all my resources. But if you simply do a search on the Web for things like "wholesale beauty supply" or "wholesale soap supply" etc you should get tons of results. You can do the same for jars and bottles: "wholesale bottles" etc. This is how I found all of my resources. Then I just compared prices to make sure I ordered from the cheapest ones. Be sure to also compare shipping prices, as often times the products may be cheaper on one site, but by the time you add shipping it actually costs more than another site who has lower shipping. I will give you the names of 2 places you can start with, just to get you going. SKS Bottle and Specialty Bottle are great for bottles and jars. Again though, do the web searches as I suggested and you will get many, many results. Many of these companies will require a reseller's license # to sell to you, and most have minimum purchase requirements, so be sure to check on all that.

Also be sure to check into federal labeling guildelines for your comsetics. There are strict and specific requirements for labeling any products meant to be used on human skin. Make sure you also check on liability insurance, as this is a must for this type of business.

At some point you will run across some online communities that have members who make their own beauty and skin care products too. This will be a great source of information for you. I ran across one at some point and have it bookmarked at home, but not here at work or else I would give you that link. I'll try to remember to check back at some point and see if I can post them for you.

Hope this helps a bit.
Good luck.
Tina