We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ashley Duverneau. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ashley below.

Ashley, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My parents did everything right when it came to instilling drive, purpose, and passion into everything I do. Growing up with two Haitian parents who met in America and created their own American dream taught me more than the average kid I went to school with. There was so much intention in their actions, their sacrifices, their planning for a better life, a future they only seen as dreams.

My parents reminded me of their lack of opportunities afforded them due to circumstances out of their control. But they never complained about them, they simply highlighted the importance of an education, pride in who you are, and family. These things have never left me, it was always important for me to honor them with these principles. Hence why I was such a diligent students getting all A’s & B’s in high school, aspirations continued to college to pursue my undergraduate degree in Biology and French with a pre-med track. With hopes of becoming the first in my family with a doctor degree, I studied and completed everything with oraffices of making my family proud. Coming from a lineage where both my grandmothers are illiterate, I have never taken an education for granted and I will forever be grateful for my many opportunities to continue to learn freely.

Another lesson I learned from them is that even when things are hard, they are not impossible. To be patient with myself and figure it out, learn from the past and improve in the future. This literally can be applied to anything, for example one time in grade school I was assigned a homework to draw a duck. Immediately, I told myself and my father I could not draw a duck. He was not having any of that, and took a pencil drew three strokes and showed me how to draw a duck. Keep in mind my dad is no artist, he is just an encouraging dad who refused to let me be defeated in the little things. Since that day I have loved drawing and can draw things far more complex than a 3 lined duck. It just shows how my parents took core lessons and turned them into positive life lessons and memories that could of changed the way I see myself and “impossible” tasks overall.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

A beauty company that specializes in handcrafted products for sensitive skin, Krèm au Krèm was crafted as a response to frustration with green-washing in the beauty industry and its very real mental, physical and financial impact. I suffered from severe dry skin & eczema all my life and found myself frustrated by the number of ineffective products in the market, that were thick in texture and lacked the fun and inviting scents. This essential left me with dry skin, empty pockets and less-than-stellar product experience.

With a background in biology and product manufacturing, I realized after a chance encounter that I had everything within me to create a product that’s effective and would leave me feeling confident about my skin health. My original intent did not include selling, however word started to spread about my handmade body butter and the rest is history.

A nod to my Haitian heritage, Krém au Krém is Kreyol pun on the idiom “best of the best”, which symbolizes what we believe in – high performing products that are made from the planet’s finest resources (additional note: Krém in Haitian Kreyol directly translates to cream) . All bodies are beautiful in their uniqueness and we seek to enhance what exists and provide those with sensitive skin a safe multi-sensory beauty experience one jar at a time.

By using zero water and preservatives in our products we take pride in leaving nothing to mystery. Everything we create is made with 100% intention of being safe for sensitive skin types, simple to use, and made with love and purpose. Krem au Krem was always bigger than myself, and itself, it has always been our mission to serve the underserved and be a safe space for those who need a little bit more TLC.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

We get this question all the time, especially at trade shows and markets when our full catalog is on display. Yes, I handcraft, fill, package, and ship out every item in our shop. After working in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry for over 7 years as both a sterile technician and a quality assurance consultant, As long as I remain owner, Krem au Krem will never move to a 3rd party manufacturing facility also known as a CMO. Being the owner of not only my business, but its formulas and processes means we have full control and autonomy of our final finished product, the waste produced, and the overhead costs involved for production. Many times when outsourcing manufacturing and fulfillment to scale operations there is a noticeable loss in quality, product prices increase, and most sustainability practices go out the window due to conflicting internal SOPs or labor costs.

There have been so many lessons learned throughout the years, especially when it comes to scaling production for higher lot yields. Often when trying a new recipe or formula, you are making small singular samples to test until you finalize the recipe to minimize waste. But once satisfied with a final formula, it is time to research and invest in new equipment with the intent to increase batch yield, inturn reducing the cost per unit produced = larger profit margin. This was something I had to learn over time, as I was moving more units, but manufacturing at an unsustainable rate. This caused me to burn out and often hate my original joy of creating with my hands. Once I learned the importance of scalable production, boy did my world of working smarter open up!

Now the idea of creating a new product is not so burdensome, I just have to find creative ways to scale production. having this mindset makes it feel more like a puzzle versus an impossible challenge.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn that my family is not my clientele. Growing up as a 1st generation American from an immigrant home I had learned how to be frugal with finances, not waste, and to be humble always. So naturally I learned to do the same in my business, but I had to unlearn that my family principals may not be my target audiences’ values.

As a Haitian American I used to struggle with pricing our products competitively, turning a profit, and knowing how to effectively market to our audience. At first I had wanted to advertise and push how much more affordable our products were in comparison to other brands. But low and behold to me I was losing money with every jar sold. I was selling products at a wholesale value instead of the retail value meaning that I was not properly charging for labor, materials, shipping cost, and adding a profit margin.

After rebranding our logo in 2022, we had to redo our pricing, packaging, labels, and update/migrate our ecommerce platform to Shopify from GoDaddy. By hiring a branding strategist, I was held accountable for the changes I wanted to see, I was mentored through the process of unlearning and communicating the changes to come to my current audience, and we didn’t lose a beat. Our audience loved the rebrand, the new website, and all the upgrades (including the prices) made throughout the transition. For me I learned that communication and transparency are key to brand trust, and that our audience will never question our value no matter if that needle moves up or down.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kremaukrem.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/kremaukrem
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/kremaukrem
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/kremaukrem
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/kremaukrem
• Other: @kremaukrem on all social media platforms

Image Credits

Bryanna Goode