Why Natural Skincare? (Part 1)

In a world where there are skincare and cosmetics brands advertising and popping up left, right, and centre, what made us delve into the complicated and saturated world of skincare? And what made us choose to make it even harder for ourselves by joining the natural skincare niche?

Well, there’s a few reasons for that.

In this three part series, we’re going to take you back in time and give you a bit of background behind why we decided to get into this industry. We’re going to explain our reasons for creating natural cosmetics, and why we believe we’re going against the grain by having affordable natural skincare.

Reason #1: We couldn’t find skincare that was effective and actually did what it said it would.

It all started with deodorant.

For years I struggled to find a deodorant that was reliable. Initially, that search was with conventional, supermarket-available options. I’d heard all the concerns about aluminium in deodorant over the years, but never took too much notice of it. In my early twenties I just needed deodorant to be cheap and effective. And so many options just weren’t.

Anti-perspirants didn’t really stop me from sweating that much. Some didn’t stop me from smelling that much. And others left those annoying white marks on my tops (even the brands that advertised that they wouldn’t). I tried brand after brand, never having that much luck.

Don’t worry, I didn’t spend years of my life smelling terrible. I would just often get to the end of the day, or a workout, and wonder what I was spending my money on. Was I not supposed to smell fresh, thanks to the wonders of deodorant?

Then I started to learn more about the impact that cosmetics could, and did, have on my skin, which led me to take more notice of what I was putting on it, and question whether there were better alternatives out there.

So, somewhere around 2019, while living in England, I went in search of natural deodorants.

But, like the cheap and cheerful deodorant search, I couldn’t find one that did the full job. Some didn’t stop my armpits from smelling. Some did prevent the odour but stained my clothing. And almost all of them were stupidly expensive.

I finally found a product that worked, didn’t stain my clothing, and wasn’t cheap but also didn’t cost the earth. Plus, I could get it on Amazon, so if I ran out I knew I’d have some arrive the next day (even if I did slightly cringe at the price).

So, I got into a routine of enjoying having finally found a deodorant that worked.

Then we moved to New Zealand.

I took a couple of extra pots of this deodorant with me, but once they ran out, and I became realistic about the expense of shipping deodorant to the other side of the world, I was back to square one.

Having tested so many deodorants while in England, I had a confidence going into my NZ search that would soon be dashed. Yet again these natural deodorants either didn’t do the job, or they cost the earth.

It was then that Gareth suggested we try to make our own. But how?

I knew ingredients commonly used in natural deodorants, and had an idea of what they all did and how they contributed to the product, but I wasn’t so confident that I could quickly whip them together and magically have an effective deodorant.

Still, what did I have to lose? With no suitable deodorants on the market here in NZ, and a reluctance to pay over the odds for the one product that I knew that worked, along with shipping to get it halfway around the world, I figured it was worth a try.

What followed was months and months of research, learning, formulating, testing, tweaking, testing again, and so on, we came up with a formulation that was natural, kind to our skin, didn’t leave any marks on our clothing, and wouldn’t give the bank any reason to decline our mortgage application.

That one paragraph doesn’t do justice to how much time and energy we put in to creating the ultimate natural deodorant, but nevertheless, we had done it!

So then we asked ourselves: if we could create a natural deodorant so successfully, what other natural skincare products could we make?

See you next week for Part 2...

- Jordyn