We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Charles Mayfield a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Charles, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry?

Corporate Skincare gets everything wrong–perhaps with the exception of marketing. They are absolute marvels at marketing and convincing consumers to pay top dollar for highly ineffective (and in some cases poisonous) products.

There is a tremendous amount of hypocrisy and putting profits over consumer health. We were recently turned down by Leaping Bunny for their accreditation. If you don’t know, Leaping Bunny’s goal is to STOP animal testing of cosmetics products. We don’t test any of our products on animals–because we make natural products without chemicals and preservatives. Sounds like a perfect fit, right.

Leaping Bunny denied our application on the grounds that approving our products (made with animal bi-products…fat) would likely damage their brand. However, on their website, they espouse the fact that the skincare industry now uses the eyeballs of dead cows from the meat industry to test eye products to see if they are hazardous. See the hypocrisy? OK to kill animals and use their eyes to test products–NOT OK to kill animals for food and repurpose their fat for products that are so clean the don’t require animal testing.

Skin health is at an all time low (based on reported conditions and ubiquity of products). Proper lifestyle strategies are not communicated and the gated institutions of dermatology are all captured by big pharma.

Charles, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Farrow Skincare is an animal-based skincare company founded in 2022. We were founded to give consumers a chemical and preservative free skincare line that utilizing the most efficacious fat on the planet–Lard.

Skincare in America today is so absurdly toxic, it’s hard fully explain. There are only 11 chemicals prohibited from use in skincare by the FDA. There are over 1300 chemicals prohibited from use in Europe.

Our products are hand-crafted and made from the highest quality SmartLard. Farrow is available on our website and we are proud to tout the hundreds of client testimonials telling us that Farrow has provided much needed healing and relief for a variety of skin ailments. A short list of skin problems that we have resolved with our products:
– Sun Burn, Razor Burn, Wind Burn, Diaper rash
– Eczema, Psoriasis, Rosacea
– Removal of fine lines, dark spots, wrinkles and crow’s feet
– Accelerated wound healing from surgery and lacerations
– Reversal of pre-cancerous blotches on skin and scalp
– Hair thickening and regrowth

Due to the nature of skincare regulations–we cannot make any claims about the viability or effectiveness of our products. There are no trials or placebos for us to lean into…just the constant feedback and testimonials from our beloved customers.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

We oversee 90% of our manufacturing. Two of our products are co-packed by another entity…but we manufacture the raw ingredients that make the product and ship those to the co-packer for filling.

Our company launched in my kitchen. We remain there today, but are exploring opportunities to expand our manufacturing capacity. There were early trials with several co-packers to fill our primary products. Due to the integrity of our ingredients, our products didn’t fit into the filling systems of most cosmetic co-packers. Also, most co-packers have MOQs in the thousands. Presently, we ship somewhere between 150-250 orders a month. Spending the money to outsource manufacturing and packing to someone requiring 2500 (or more) units doesn’t make sense at our scale.

Presently, we are in discussions with a co-packer in Arizona to handle the build-out and scaling of emulsified products. The current product line, due to purity of ingredients, doesn’t warehouse well and has a short shelf life (6 months). These newer products will hold up in heat and can sit on shelves for a few years.

Still learning lessons. Scale time before you scale equipment. Be patient with learning your MFG system and allow yourself to become more efficient before you make changes.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

We utilize the KEAP customer retention system. There is a series of emails that go out over the months during a customer’s first purchase and we have a series of client nurture emails to communicate what’s going on with the brand.

Presently, we are developing out other communication strategies for our affiliates and making sure that we are driving those that purchase to eventually subscribe to our products.

We also use our Social Media channels to connect with customers and bring them along for the ride.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://farrow.life/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/farrowskin/
• Twitter: https://x.com/farrowskin

Image Credits

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