Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jacob Bain. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jacob, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My wife and I met almost 22 years ago. In the next year, my wife had a lump removed from one of her breasts. He mom is a breast cancer survivor and her grandmother unfortunately lost her life when my wife was very young from that tragic disease. Likewise, my wife and daughter have eczema and during, Covid we needed to find a way to treat their eczema given the difficulties we had getting into the doctor.

A year after lockdowns subsided, we vacationed to North GA/Southern Tennessee. In McCaysville, Georgia in a wonderful apothecary called The Folk Collaborative, the owner walked me through the benefits of many of the herbs and we created a nice collection that we would eventually use.

In the next year, I researched what other herbs or oils I could use to try and create a working treatment for my wife and daughters issue, as well as my own issues with Rosacea.

Once we figured out how to extract the goodness from these herbs into oil we made many gallons of oil. With this overabundance of product and knowledge, the effectiveness of what we were making evident as my wife was using it, and the growing desire to make a good oil for my beard, I formed my company.

What followed thereafter was the creation of clean and effective deodorant, a powerful eczema, psoriasis, and skin salve, and making rich, healthy, and effective beard and skin products.

Jacob, 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?

I am a former US Marine and a passionate believer of using products that are non-toxic, effective, safe, and have a minimal negative impact on the human body. What I mean by that final point is this: When my wife was using steroid cream for her hands, the negative potential side effects can be severe. Likewise, this treatment only masks the issue she was having, not resolving it or at least treating it effectively long term. Same for the deodorant. Deodorants and antiperspirants often have metals such as aluminum and plasticizers to clog up your pores. As such you don’t sweat but your body accumulates toxins, and for women especially, the lymph nodes become clogged and the natural pathways for your body to detox can become diseased.

When I realized the impact I could have on this process, I dug into the great resources across the internet. Asking our friends who were holistic Dr’s their thoughts on the process of treatment, what they thought was effective, what to avoid, and the potential dangers or not taking action. Coupled with the Apothecary as previously mentioned, there was a wealth of knowledge to pull from.

This wealth of resources allowed me to make sound decisions, provide a broad spectrum of options to put towards the problem, while also allowing me to start helping others in the process.

When I started to form the backbone of the company, my background in IT greatly helped. It provided me the knowledge I would need to utilize social media, use graphic design products and A.I. to design labels and graphics, and to work out packaging.

But the greatest discipline I enjoyed in learning this new craft, beyond all the skills I could apply towards the business side of this work, was the ability I had to talk to people. I have never been shy to walk up to someone and speak to them, to show I care about them in their situation, and to relay information I might have to help them, Because of this, when I approached Detwilers Farmers Market, a popular and growing chain of local grocery stores, I was able to get my products in several of these stores relatively quickly. Likewise, my products were placed in an apothecary in Clermont Florida called Livin’ Boho.

A mission of mine, as previously stated, was getting people to understand that products should be safe and effective to use. Many of the products we use today are toxic to the human body. Creating and perfecting many of these products has been a fun journey. Likewise, I have convinced many people to switch deodorants and to use my skin salve and switch from toxic treatments. The knowledge attained in learning to create these products, helped me even further understand the need for them and gave me the confidence to speak on the importance of switching to a healthy alternative.

This has never been more evident in the bearded community. As my oils have become popular, many can see the reasons why we should care about what we put in or on our body’s. While men in particular tend to be stubborn in getting treatment for various conditions, my beard oil has opened further opportunities to get these men to switch to a healthier deodorant, and to use my skin butters and salve to help some very bad skin conditions. Some, to such success that they are no longer on their prescription topical medicines/creams.

This, to me, is one of the long term reasons for why I decided to do what I do. To be a light to the darkness that is this industry and to give a helpful and hopeful alternative. The other, is my name. As my last name is reflected in the name of the company, I hope to create a long term legacy my own children will embrace, and, an avenue for greater connection with each other as we fill orders, connect with customers, and create new and exciting products that the community will embrace and enjoy.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I decided early on to use the website Shopify. Shopify gives the business owner many resources up front. It is a cost effective platform, with incredible flexibility, ease of use, shipping discounts, and fairly easy to understand web design templates.

There are drawbacks, however, as there were hurdles early on because of my overall lack of web design knowledge, but, thankfully other business owners in the same industry, namely Dan, the owner of Bearded Death, I was able to get the pointers I needed to finally wrap my head around some of the nuances.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

Social media is the greatest friend in this current iteration of small business in e-commerce. Facebook and Instagram allow small business owners to not only promote their business, it also gives us incredible flexibility to track purchases, offer discounts, and keep in touch with customers. Shopify also integrates well with these social media platforms, and this allows me keep track of and more actively meet my customers individual needs.

Soon I will be incorporating Amazon as a sales platform while also doing distributorship and shipping on my own.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bainblends.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bainblends/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bainblends
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BainBlends

Image Credits

These images are all owned by Bain Blends LLC