We recently connected with Jen Goodall and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Clary Collection was born out of the connection we found during the pregnancies and births of our children – two souls who changed everything about how we experience life and see the world.

Our transition into motherhood sparked many changes in us, including a new awareness of the value of clean skincare products for ourselves and our families. Recognizing that the skin is the body’s largest organ and absorbs many toxins, we set out to source clean, effective skincare. However, we continually came up short. The “organic” market is saturated with “natural” claims, but oftentimes “clean” products still contain harmful components and harsh extracts.

At Clary, we are committed to a mission of making safe skincare for everybody.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

The journey Adriel and I started together was rooted in motherhood. The incredible energy it takes to grow, birth, and care for a tiny human is exceptional. While it’s rewarding, it can also feel quite isolating and lonely.

It’s easy to become so absorbed in the responsibility of motherhood that you lose touch with certain parts of yourself and your ambition to create other things. But, as Clary grew, so did we as individuals.

Juggling motherhood and starting a business in a heavily saturated market was challenging but gave us the drive to succeed. We hope we can empower more moms to express their unique creativity and lead the charge to care for the planet and each other.

After a year of research and testing our kitchen-made products on friends, family, babies, and dogs! We decided that by returning to the basics with our handmade products and processes rooted in hundreds of years of tradition rediscovered that was our path. So you can care for your body while caring for the earth with radically clean products.

Clary products are formulated to heal, hydrate and soothe allergic reactions, burns, inflammation, eczema, psoriasis, stretch marks, and sun damage. Our goal was to formulate transparent skincare safe for every body that provides results you can see & feel, unmatched quality, multi-beneficial performance, and multi-use benefits.

We are proud to be women-founded and operated, and we stock over 200 stores worldwide and online. But we are most proud of the thousands of reviews shared with us about how we have helped heal major skin issues from lupus, eczema, and psoriasis down to dry dog noes. Every review we get, we get giddy and inspired all over again to keep pushing this once kitchen-crafted product out to the world.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I moved to what was a sleepy Nashville from NYC in 2013. I invited some friends over for a bbq and to play poker, and in walked Adriel, 8 ½ months pregnant, with a nonalcoholic beer in her hand—proceeding to beat me at poker.

We connected immediately, having lengthy conversations about motherhood and our inability to find nontoxic skincare. Not too long after, I found out I was pregnant and became even more attached to Adriel.

Clary has grown beyond our comprehension. We started experimenting in our kitchens, and It was that one day I turned to Adriel and said, “We’re starting a business,” the next day, we turned around, and Clary was in 200 stores nationwide and a few boutiques in Singapore and Paris. While we spent years perfecting the formula and testing it on friends, neither knew how big Clary would be. Every day we receive beautiful reviews from Clary’s customers, who are the core reason we continue to handcraft each product.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I think the answer to this and so many small businesses would be during the pandemic. We went from a team of 5 to a team of 2. At the time, we ran production in Nashville on my property. Adriel was based in Appleton, overseeing all of our logistics. I was a single Mom home-schooling a 5.5yr old wild little boy, and when I could bribe him to watch a movie and when he slept, I used an old baby monitor to pack orders through the night. We had our biggest quarter in the history of Clary during the beginning of covid; I, for one, was online shopping like an addict out of boredom and the unknown, and I’m guessing so were many others! It was tough to balance a business and become a one-man show in production, but it was humbling, and I knew if we started this way, we could pivot back to the old days. Our tiny team held strong, and we were thankful we could pay our team.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.clarycollection.com
• Instagram: clarycollection
• Facebook: clarycollection
• Linkedin: clarycollection
• Twitter: clarycollection

Image Credits
Claire Foth