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

Alright, Katerina thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

Linen fabric comes from the Flax plant, which is widely used in culinary world (flax seeds in your oatmeal, flax seed oil, etc). When deciding how to name the company, I wanted to make sure that the beauty of this plant is reflected in the name itself to further note the natural aspect of our product line. That’s how we came up with the name Beflax, with a secret message of Be the Flax, Be the Nature and even some people started rhyming it with Beflax-Relax, which is the ultimate goal for our customers in finding the perfect relaxation during their sleep.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Beflax Linen is a 100% Sustainable Linen company from Colorado that helps people sleep better naturally!

A personal need to solve sleeping issues led to the knowledge about the amazing properties of natural linen fabric, which has been used for thousands of years, and has been proven to increase blood circulation throughout the night allowing you to relieve fatigue and wake up more rejuvenated the next day. Ultimately, this led to the strong desire to help others sleep better, share this information with many, and assist in delivering the top quality linen for a healthier living.

After gathering savings and previous career experience, we invested in our first line of linen bed sheets and opened our e-store at the end of 2017. Since then we’ve expanded our linen collection to a color variety of bedding and duvet sets, quilted blankets, bathrobes, and other home textiles that are ethically sourced in France and carefully weaved in Portugal preserving all of the linen’s extraordinary benefits. All of our linen items are naturally softened and certified for the absence of any harmful ingredients, which means even the most sensitive skin feels pleasant waking up after a refreshing night of sleep.

While we heavily rely on online sales, we would love to have a better representation in the local community, such as boutique stores that focus on curating carefully selected home goods, as well as Word of mouth always helps, unless, of course, you don’t want your friend to have a good night of sleep as you are!

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

Finding the best quality linen was certainly a journey for Beflax Linen. We worked with the other 2 factories before we finally found a family-owned one in Portugal that has vast experience and met our high standards. We attempted to eliminate and predict possible flaws, however, unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to test the final product quality and durability through the swatches and samples. Production quantity also impacted the quality of our final product as we learned through the process. Yet again, our current Portuguese partner continues to exceed our expectations and we are very pleased to pass along such high-quality home linen to our customers.

Specificity of growing Flax plant and meeting all (природные условия) weather and soil conditions limits its growth to certain regions in Europe, therefore in order to ideally limit the footprint left behind in transporting it, linen production should be as close as possible to the source. Of course, it also has to make economic sense as well. We source our flax from the best fields in France and Belgium, which is also certified as European Flax (r), and bring it to Portugal region for further weaving and sewing. It’s important for us to comply with fair trade laws, labor conditions, and, of course, the whole eco & sustainability aspect.

We certainly felt that keeping the production within the European region not only complies with US quality standards, but also has to comply with EU standards, as well as allows us to have better control through transparency, and the ability to get each of our finished products OEKO-TEX certified (a world accepted standard of guarantee in absence of any harmful or toxic ingredients, which is crucial for bedding items).

As per the lesson learned throughout the process of picking and choosing a sewing partner, I can certainly adhere to a well-known story of not cutting corners. If the product cost seems to be way too good, aka low, double-check the quality. The best cannot come cheap, and less likely will meet the luxury level of standards, which we are certainly aiming for.

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

One of our biggest challenges to this day is competition with larger, more well-known brands in the bedding industry. While most of them focus on providing bed linen in a variety of fabrics (cotton, linen, bamboo, etc.), Beflax Linen focuses strictly on 100% linen products as we believe that is the only truly sustainable fabric that has tons of natural health benefits.

At the end of last year, we decided to pivot our sales and marketing strategy to gain an advantage over other brands through the main message where we show the additional value of opting into linen bedding choice vs. other fabrics, and in particular into the Beflax Linen brand. As a result, we have completely rebranded Beflax Linen from a soft-spoken blue flower logo bohemian look into a classic black palette logo that represents a strong luxury brand that delivers the experience of getting the best quality bedding on the market, the ‘ I deserve it’ feeling, and of course outshining all the amazing properties linen has.

Don’t get me wrong, we still focus on providing the best natural sleep to our customers, however, now with the rebranding, we show an additional advantage to our customers who choose Beflax Linen, and next month we plan to introduce free-of-charge sleeping tips guide and sleep meditation that comes with every purchase of our linen bed sheet or linen duvet cover set (valued over $150).

Overdelivering on promises to customers is our way of expressing gratitude for choosing Beflax Linen among others.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://beflaxlinen.com/
• Instagram: https://beflaxlinen.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beflaxlinen
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katerinarothman/

Image Credits
Masha Poland @masha_poland_photography