OUR PHILOSOPHY
Why I started making beauty products. A note from our founder:
On a personal level I went through many, MANY different commercially available products with varying levels of success. Mostly I just didn't see consistent results. I would have initial success but after a while it was like my skin adapted to what I was using. I naturally have very oily skin, but where there were blemishes I would have terrible dry spots around the edges. This lead to longer healing times, even with a proper moisturizer. I had to find something new. I stumbled upon oil cleansing. I thought I would try it.
What I came up with was my Island Ash Moisturizing Cleanser.
I have had acne for over 20 years so I know mine will take a long time to heal. A good rule of thumb with homeopathic, herbal and home remedies is that for every month you have had an ailment, you should expect about 1 week of healing time. I probably have close to 3 or 4 more years before I can expect "drastic" results. I know I have seen a great improvement in my skin coloration though. I also notice that I no longer have dry patches, and when I get a new blemish (usually hormones) it is gone extremely quickly.
When I began formulating lip balm I did a lot of research on allergy issues relating to ingredients. That was really what cemented my want for vegan products. I also wanted everything to be edible. While I may not want to sit and eat lip balm, I thought it was especially important that something that will invariably be licked off lips needed to be made of edible ingredients.
In all my products I pay special attention to try to use food-grade ingredients, keeping with the mindset that if we shouldn't eat it, we probably shouldn't put it on our skin. My use of essential oils is of course the exception to that, but I still make sure to use certified organic essential oils so that they are at least held to similar standards as food ingredients.
A lot of beauty and personal care products are heavily tested on animals, not just lab rats either but household pets like cats, dogs and rabbits. I just don't feel good about using something when another creature has had to suffer to enable me to purchase a beauty or personal care product. The reason all my products are vegan is because I want them to be cruelty-free.
I'm also of the mindset that what we put on our skin, gets absorbed into it because it's the largest organ. A lot of these same beauty and personal care products are also very chemical laden, which is why they need to be tested on animals in the first place. Many years ago everyone made all their own products from kitchen and garden supplies. I feel like we need to be mindful of the products we use ON our bodies just as we are mindful of the products that we take INTO our bodies by eating. This is why my products consist of Certified Organic ingredients when possible. Some items, like baking soda in my face cleanser, simply don't exist as a Certified Organic product. I'm always hunting and hoping that ingredients of that nature will be made available in a certified organic form in the future.
I also think that so much in the commercially available Organic Beauty products are very overpriced simply because they are Organic so I try to keep my pricing at a modest level to make products accessible to everyone.