We recently connected with Lauren Schwartz and have shared our conversation below.

Lauren, appreciate you joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

I came up with my skincare brand’s name by combining the two main ingredients names together – Cacao and Tallow = CaCow Co. Beauty. It was an exciting moment when this popped into my head, it came very naturally just as I was making a batch for myself, I had no plans to make it a brand or business and offer it to the public, it was just a for me self care thing, but the name showed up and I was like hmmm.. ☺️

Lauren, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Lauren Schwartz, I’m a Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese/Holistic Medicine, and the creator/owner/founder, CEO of CaCow Co. Beauty, an all-natural non-toxic sustainable & regenerative skincare and personal care product line. My back story began with a major spiritual awakening when I turned 30 years old. As I started to mature, and of course after learning about natural/eastern/holistic health care compared to the Western/Allopathic industry; I became very aware and extremely passionate about the necessity for us as sentient beings to stay true to our innate, inherent, and native nature. In order to age gracefully and optimize as we grow, maintaining integrity on a cellular level can only be done through clean and natural daily habits and practices. As a young American girl, my education and life experience opened my awareness up to the horrors of the industrial marketing complexes I had been subjected to throughout my youth and I saw was continuing into my young adult life. I realized I had fallen victim to the dishonest claims the food, medical, and cosmetic industries had created through mass marketing strategies and agendas; and once you know better, you simply do better. I finally understood that not only America, but the entire world, is filled with more marketing and for-profit agendas than there are honest allies here for us as citizens of the Earth to be able to prosper as we age. Without proper education offered to us, we are slowly guided toward vulnerability to the hundreds of thousands of mal-intended or neglectful companies and their marketing strategies; existing only to make a dollar, without any regard for the consumers well being or longevity.

My mission as a skincare and personal care product provider is to first and foremost educate; in order to foster self reliance, cognizant and wise discernment, and confident decision making in how and WHY you choose to live your life. The products, foods, content, and environments, you choose to consume and be part of, should be a very conscious choice, backed with educational reasoning and intuitive strength, so you know the consequences and the benefits attached to your actions and decisions of the things you ingest, consume, and create every day. Synthetic products have NO place in a healthy lifestyle, and the human body and central nervous system know the difference between a foreign/man made/un-natural ingredient to a natural and real one; and this is the foundation where inflammation comes from. Our bodies are extremely intelligent and resilient machines, built with high functioning innate reactivity complexes, in place to keep us in a homeostatic equilibrium, to not only survive, but more so – to THRIVE. With this, our bodies can take a lot of abuse, and detoxify itself back to point zero for many years upon years, but there is a tipping point, and this is when “chronic” or “age-related” dis-ease shows up. These symptoms that begin to show up are your body’s way of communicating to your conscious self, that there is a culprit, an enemy, of some substance or form, that you have been allowing in. These symptoms are explaining to you that now the body is starting to lose its resilience and basic health because of these foreign invaders constant and continuous presence in you, where it doesn’t belong. For an example, it’s like a car, that runs on gasoline, if you give the car a mixture of gasoline and water, or gasoline and bananas, it may be able to use the gasoline portion and still run and drive and work, but eventually, if you keep giving it things that are not meant to go into that gas tank, the car will start to shut down, the engine will make noises, the break pads will shutter, the A-C won’t turn on, and then finally, the car will completely break down, if you don’t correct the issue, and give it straight, un-cut pure gasoline that it needs to continue operating. I call this process ‘Slow Poison’, I am writing a book on this, this explains how the body can handle certain synthetic and toxic substances and situations for a certain amount of time, but after dealing with the toxicity for a certain amount of years on a consistent basis, the body loses integrity, and dis-ease arises. The symptoms may seem innocent at first, but a body that stays slightly off keel for years, will eventually break down faster, and snow ball into a very destructive state, until it loses it’s resilience completely, and is unable to help itself on the cellular level it once could.

CaCow Co. Beauty products are my contribution to the people of the world who want to do better, once they know better. Once you see, you cannot unsee, and therefore lifestyle choices and habits are chosen to reflect where you stand in controlling your longevity, happiness, and destiny.

Personally, I strive for excellence and continual optimization, in my body, mind, and spirit, not only to feel good, but also look good. Us as humans are influenced by aesthetics, and it’s an important factor to maintain for many reasons. When you look good you feel good, when you feel good you also look good. Health has a glowing effect, and there is no replicating that with any amount of synthetic substance or plastic procedure. Each one of us has a choice, an autonomous decision in how we live and what we want to yield, create, and produce. For every action, there is a reaction, and this equation holds true for each one of us on an individual level, as well as the collective.

I hold a deep conviction for the truth and awareness that my life and where I end up, is in my hands and always will be. There are no external, invisible, ominous forces that decide how healthy I am or become, there is nothing that will just pop up one day that would have been created without my contribution. It is the small decisions I make everyday; what I eat, the environments where I choose to spend my time, the people I speak to, and the content I consume, that continues to shape my consciousness and therefore my health as I age and grow. I know there will be no surprises at the end, because I continue to stay conscious and educated in what and WHY I do what I do. CaCow Co. Beauty is my contribution to a healthier world, an evolving collective that strives for peace, love, and unity.

Regenerative and sustainable lifestyle choices is an essential component for ourselves individually, and for our environment; as we are one whole collective unit. CaCow Co. Beauty is one of the many soldiers that will continue to fight for our optimal state through offering yummy, holistic, and truly healthy skincare and personal care products for the health conscious soul. Hydrate, illuminate, preserve. One love.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I have had to pivot in business, career, and personal life many times already. I have gone from working in service & hospitality, entertainment, medicine, finance and fitness; and now starting my favorite thing I’ve chosen so far, my skincare brand, CaCow Co. Beauty. Life is about evolution and change, learning and unlearning, pivoting and repositioning. I have struggled with mental health, physical dis-ease, spiritual imbalance, and will-full ignorance. These have all been integral pieces into where I am now, and where I will continue to go. Being faced with challenges that force you to pivot create a stronger person; mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. A major pivot moment for me was when I decided to leave Los Angeles, and stop attempting to insert myself into the Hollywood and music industry there, leaving my first idea of where I thought I was “meant to be”, as a working artist, and re-assess what I wanted to do with my life. I moved back to San Diego, was very low on money, and was faced with a blank slate and challenged to rearrange my life and find a better direction. I took 2 years to see and feel clearly, where I wanted to build a new path. I hit a “rock bottom” moment, it was extremely depressing and confusing, but it was there that I could see the truth about life; that there is no 1 destiny or calling, there are an infinite amount of places we could go, things we could do, it’s all about choice, and belief, and where there’s a will, there absolutely is a way. It’s not about identifying with one thing that you felt close to at one point in your life, and forcing yourself to stay within those limits. The pivot moments are essential for growth, especially as an artist and entrepreneur. It is the toughest time I’ve ever gone through, wanting to stop working toward what looked totally impossible, especially with no one to really be in the work with me, no financial backing, and no one else able to see my potential except me. I felt crazy but 100% confident and correct in what I wanted to create, and that’s the starting line of your dreams; where there’s no way out but through.

The biggest lesson and main take away I have learned so far, is to understand that life is not happening TO you, it is happening FOR you, and every detail is given to you as a hint, a nudge, a call to action. Experiences are ingredients for you to use as fuel for your vehicle to thrive and grow. We always have a choice; to be a victim of situations, believing the delusion that we are not in control; or to be a warrior and overcome challenges through maneuvering our way out of them, and into a better position.

Last note on development in general – I love boxing, and these same lessons you learn through that training. Boxing techniques teach the same lessons you can learn outside of the gym, in real life. There will be punches being thrown at you head on, the choice is in how you defend yourself in order to get back in the offensive mode. How are you blocking, slipping and rolling into a better position so you can throw your punches back. Your success is yours to create, it just takes stamina, endurance, strength, flexibility, confidence, conviction, and integrity to develop. God only gives his toughest battles to his strongest warriors.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I am resilience. My first business as an acupuncturist I let fail, because I was not aligned with that route. Administering acupuncture treatments was not my authentic service to the world, and I was doing it out of fear of owning up to my own truth, out of fear of not being able to hold my unique place in this world, out of fear of not making enough money, out of fear of the belief that doing Acupuncture was the only way to make the time and money spent getting my degrees and license to practice worth while. I struggled trying to maintain my business, it was my very first business after grad school, and at first I was so excited to get started, but immediately after starting, I felt drained and extremely unhappy, and super confused as to why. After years of deep, tough, and honest introspection, sitting with my discomfort, reading books on self development, educating myself on me, and who I was and what life is; I could finally see clearly I was off my path. I was pushing something that was not mine. Doing a thing just for the financial gains, or because the thing is what others may want for you, or persuade you to do, or because you just spent 12 years in school that was supposed to lead to this one thing, is a guaranteed way to failure. Our intuition will always tell us where to go next, but without tapping into our innate knowing, we get lost in our headspace, in our left brains, logical minds, creating a muck and leading ourselves through a maze of circular samsara. We will never find fulfillment, purpose, or true lasting success if we make decisions with our heads alone. It is within our hearts, our gut feelings, our intuition that we must find our resilient selves, and our highest calling. I am resilience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://CaCowCo.com
• Instagram: @CaCowCo
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenschwartz23/?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
• Twitter: @bambuubody
• Youtube: @cacowco
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/iambambuu
• Other: https://bambuu.online