060: [FEMININE FLOW] Bethany McDaniel: clean skincare, balancing motherhood, & entrepreneurship

Today, we're diving into some awesome topics – Motherhood, clean skincare, and the journey of building a cult-favorite brand. Our special guest is Bethany McDaniel, the founder of Primally Pure.

We'll chat about every aspect of her business, from the spa they've built to their amazing line of skincare, deodorant, dry shampoo, and more. Plus, they just launched a regenerative farm – talk about taking things full circle!

Bethany's story is incredible. We'll explore how she launched her company, balancing motherhood with being a founder. It turns out, being a mom actually played a positive role in shaping her journey and the success of Primally Pure!

Other topics:

- Balancing motherhood while building a cult-favorite brand
- Finding inspiration and trusting your instincts to take risks
- The lowdown on ingredients and the importance of quality in skincare
- Building something unique that breaks the mold
- Figuring out the "right time" to start a family while growing your brand

+ so much more!

Now, a bit about Bethany – she calls Southern California home, sharing her life with her husband and three kids. Battling acne with harsh prescriptions in her younger days, Bethany's journey led her to discover the wonders of clean, natural ingredients. That revelation inspired her to kickstart Primally Pure with just a $250 order for ingredients and supplies. Apart from dreaming up new products at the PP Workshop and Spa, Bethany is all about clean living, faith, biohacking, and family. She loves sharing her knowledge and, of course, taking regular family getaways to reset and refresh.

 To connect with Bethany:
IG:  bethanyjmcdaniel
IG:  primallypure 

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Transcript

Kasia: 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Other Way, a lifestyle podcast exploring uncommon, unconventional or otherwise alternative approaches to life, business and health. I'm your host, kasia. I'm the founder of Inflow, a woman's wellness brand that designs intentional products to help women reconnect to their unique cyclical rhythm and find a balance between being and doing. This podcast is an extension of my mission within Flow. Here we provide intentional interviews with inspiring humans, trailblazers, researchers, spiritual teachers and more on the journey of doing things the Other Way. Today, I welcome Bethany McDaniel to the podcast.

Kasia: 0:52

Bethany is a mother, farmer's wife and self-proclaimed matcha lover and bath taker, and she's the founder of Cult Favourite Primally Pure, a company she launched in 2015 after trying and failing to find clean, non-toxic, effective skincare with ingredients she could trust. With $250 for ingredients, bethany built this amazing company from the ground up to solve this problem. Primally Pure is truly one of the leaders in clean skincare. If you read their ingredient labels, you can understand every single ingredient. Their products are effective and every formulation has an expiration date, because freshness matters.

Kasia: 1:35

Today, primally Pure has a spa, an incredible line of skincare, deodorant, dry shampoo products and more, and they just launched a regenerative farm, really bringing this full circle. As they start to grow some of their own ingredients. We talk about her incredible path, less traveled, including launching and bootstrapping her company from the ground up to its incredible success, balancing motherhood and being a founder and how being a mother actually helped positively shape her journey as a founder and the success of Primally Pure. We talk about ingredients, her farm and why retinol, which is one of the touted leading anti-aging ingredients out there, maybe doing more harm than good, and so much more. I'm so excited to jump into it and, without further ado, let's go.

Bethany McDaniel: 2:27

Bethany, welcome to the pod. Thank you so much, I'm happy to be here.

Kasia: 2:32

Well, I was raving already, so I'll do it again, but I discovered a podcast of yours years ago before. I found Primally Pure and as a product, and your story actually deeply inspired my own, so, as I was sharing right before we started recording, this is such a full circle moment and I'm so excited you're here.

Bethany McDaniel: 2:52

Oh, that's such an honor. Thanks for sharing that. That's really cool.

Kasia: 2:56

Well, we have a lot to get into, but before we do, I'm going to kick it off with a question that I ask every guest, and that is what are three words that you would use to describe yourself?

Bethany McDaniel: 3:06

Oh yeah, that's a tough one. It's always hard to talk about yourself. But I think I would say that I try to be really intentional in every aspect of life as a mom, as an entrepreneur and really just do things with purpose and not just let things happen. So intentional, I'm pretty scrappy, kind of have to be starting a business from scratch. So I'm pretty scrappy and focused. Like when I set my mind to something I'm very I'll like hone in and kind of make it happen.

Kasia: 3:39

I love that, I love that and you know what I will say, that those words do kind of come through in the messaging that you put out there with Primally Pure and your own Instagram. So I will say, like it really resonates, I'm not totally surprised by those, but I do really love them. Thanks, thank you. Yeah, I mean a lot of those kind of relate to a bit of your story as well, because, as I was kind of reading up on your bio and background and of course, I do know a little bit of your story, but you're a mother, as you already shared, a farmer's wife, self-proclaimed matcha lover and bath taker, and you are the founder of Colt's favorite, primally Pure. And I absolutely love your story because, as you kind of alluded to, you were very scrappy still are, but definitely at the beginning, because I believe you started Primally Pure in 2015, experimenting in the kitchen, kind of trying to design products that you yourself needed. So could you kind of share a bit of that backstory for my audience?

Bethany McDaniel: 4:43

Yeah, I'd love to. So, growing up in like the 90s and early 2000s, I was definitely a victim to like all of the anti-oil just if your skin's having an issue, see the dermatologists do whatever they say kind of kind of stick. And so I had acne as a teenager and just went the conventional route, but always knew that there had to be something more going on than just like a quick the quick fix of a product and would ask my dermatologist like hey, is there something I could be changing about my diet or my lifestyle? And was just always met with the answer of like no, this is just, it's just your genetics, there's nothing you can do, so you need to just like take these antibiotics and use this cream, and that's really the only thing that's going to help. So that's what I did for several years, and it wasn't until later in life. It started when I worked at Trader Joe's in college. I had a coworker who told me about jojoba oil, just a natural oil, and recommended that to use on my skin as a moisturizer. And to me that sounded so counterintuitive because I had oily, acne prone skin and she was telling me to use oil on my skin. But then I started learning about how you actually don't want to use harsh cleansers on your skin because that can cause your skin to overproduce oil. I didn't know that, and so I used the jojoba oil and I felt like my skin was so much more balanced than it ever was before. And then I kind of just kept digging a little deeper and learned that the antibiotics I was on were really harming my gut and then making the problem worse long term, and it just kind of sparked this journey of learning more about health and just getting to the root cause of things, versus like slapping a bandaid on them, and so I was kind of like slowly learning these things.

Bethany McDaniel: 6:30

And then I met my now husband and he and his brothers were in the process of starting a regenerative farm. So then I started learning about like food and the impact that food has on health overall health as well as skin health and so I made a lot of changes to my diet. There's a big difference in the health of my skin and in how I felt, and so I started getting more serious about all of this and looked at, like all the products I was using and started researching the ingredients and what they do and safety and things like that. And deodorant was something that I was just really alarmed by just how bad conventional deodorant really is, with aluminum and parabens and all of the risks associated with these ingredients. And then this idea of like wanting to prevent sweat and how that's not actually a good thing, because sweating is really important. It's one of the ways that our body gets rid of toxins, and so with conventional deodorant, not only are we putting these toxic ingredients into our body, but we're actually not letting the body. We're actually disrupting like the normal and healthy process of sweating.

Bethany McDaniel: 7:34

And so deodorant was like one of the first things. I was like, okay, if I'm not going to use this conventional deodorant anymore, I'm going to figure out how to make my own replacement. And this was back, I mean, when I started like thinking about this and really playing around with this. This was back in 2012. And there weren't a whole lot of natural deodorants on the market at the time, so really my only option was just to try to do it myself, and so that's what I did.

Bethany McDaniel: 8:00

I did like hundreds of different iterations in my kitchen and and I was sharing these the whole time with, like friends and family, and then I would take their feedback and make revisions, and then eventually started selling my deodorant, as well as a few other products, on my family farms website and from there things just kind of started taking off like nothing crazy. But for me, who was just going into this as like as a having this as a hobby and not really expecting it to turn into a business, I was just really excited and passionate, and so I was surprised that people were as interested as they were and that kind of gave me the, the fuel that I needed to just keep going, and and that was in 2015 when it started. And now, nine years later, I never thought that we would be where we are, but it's been a huge blessing lots of ups and downs, for sure, but it's really cool now to be in a position where we can provide so many people with with really safe, truly clean products and also educate people on clean living.

Kasia: 9:00

Oh my gosh. I mean, you guys were truly kind of at the forefront of this whole movement, like back in 2012,. Nobody was really talking about clean beauty. There are so many other brands on the market, but I don't think any of them like I haven't. You know, maybe there's like a handful out there that truly have ingredients that when you read them you could feel like I could eat this and I'd probably be okay. Not like that, I would, but that they're that clean, that the ingredients are truly recognizable. It's just it's so, so different and effective, which is a really hard combination to make for sure.

Bethany McDaniel: 9:36

Yeah it. There's so many variables with natural ingredients too. Just so many like unforeseen challenges. Not everything is completely uniform, so things can like vary from batch to batch and supplier to supplier, for sure Like you can have the same ingredient from two different suppliers and it's like totally different. So just a lot of work and intention goes into like vetting all the ingredients that we use and formulating the products as well, and making sure that they like not only are we using the best of the best ingredients, but that our formulas are actual, actually effective, because I think that's a big turnoff for a lot of people with natural products is they don't work the same, and so the experience and the efficacy has always been really important to us too. Absolutely.

Kasia: 10:21

Absolutely so I definitely want to dive into the whole area of skincare and all of that.

Kasia: 10:26

But before we do, I want to kind of dive a bit into this business story, because you really did do things, especially for me, based here in the Silicon Valley area, you know, kind of witnessing how a lot of businesses are grown Like it sounds like you bootstrap this from the ground up, if I'm correct, right, yeah, very much so, wow, wow.

Kasia: 10:47

I'm curious did you have a vision for what this could be, especially kind of being in a space where, at the time, not a lot of people were talking about it? You know, as I mentioned, clean beauty and how important that is Like how did you kind of take it from something that you were creating in your kitchen to having it grow to, dare I say, I'm going to call it so it's my words, not yours, but I really do believe this the empire that it's kind of become like empire and community, because there are so many fans and you have a spa, you have an incredible staff, like you've really built this up. So how did you go from products in your kitchen to that level of success and growth?

Bethany McDaniel: 11:28

Yeah, I mean, it definitely wasn't something that was planned. Like I had no business experience and no intention of creating the brand that Primely Pure is today. I was honestly just seeing it as like something. I was just fueled by like passion and excitement for what I was doing and I think along the way I've had to. Very early on I was like, okay, this is, this could turn into something like way bigger than I ever anticipated and like how can I now equip myself to take this thing to where it could go, where I like saw the potential?

Bethany McDaniel: 12:01

It took me like a few years to really see that potential and at that point I just kind of like dove into learning about business and reading books and listening to podcasts and just getting support. I joined, I was in a couple of masterminds at different points and had different business coaches and brought on a CEO. You know, a few years in that has really helped the company to grow. So a lot of different things, but it's been. Yeah, it took me a little while to get to the point where I really understood like, okay, I need to. Like I've had my head down up until now, which has been great because I've been super scrappy and kind of making things happen. But now I need to like zoom out and kind of think a little bit more big picture and more strategically.

Kasia: 12:49

I'm curious what was the turning point for you where you kind of looked at the business and you're like, wow, this could be way bigger than I imagined. And also, what was your reaction to seeing that, like on an emotional level? Because I know that a lot of women I'll speak for myself especially like suffer from imposter syndrome as you kind of like move along and there's this feeling of building the plane while flying. So I'm curious, like what was that turning point and how did you feel to imagine that for that moment?

Bethany McDaniel: 13:18

Yeah, I mean it really took people on the outside like telling me that, more so than me even seeing it. I mean, my husband at one point was like watching me. You know, in our house I was like making deodorant in the kitchen. I was making them in batches of like eight at a time and then I was labeling product in one room and shipping products in another room. And he was like I think you need to hire someone to like help you do this. And I was like what I'm no, I'm good, like I can just keep doing all this myself. And like he had had some business experience.

Bethany McDaniel: 13:49

So, having hearing him say like no, you need to like you need to get help and you need to like think more about what you're doing and not just do everything, and then my brother-in-law as well was kind of saying the same thing. So I had to like hear it from other people. And then, as I kind of had that in mind and then as I saw sales continue to increase it was a gradual process, you know, of coming to that realization but it started to become like I mean, it was always exciting for me, but then it started to become exciting and also kind of scary in a new way of just thinking like, like man, this this really could be something big and this really could have like an actual impact on on the industry and it just it was a different way of looking at the business, but it was super exciting and also also intimidating at the same time because I didn't feel qualified for it.

Kasia: 14:41

But it was a good challenge and something I had to just equip myself for yeah, yeah, and you know you mentioned at the beginning how much your passion kind of fueled the progress like one foot in front of the other, that you really were deeply passionate about that space. I'm curious, when you ran up against some of those kind of fearful moments where there's just like this big looming like next step and you know you do feel, perhaps, or felt back then, a bit of imposter syndrome, what helped you push through it? Was it seeking out some resources kind of in the space? Was it just like taking the leap and trusting? Maybe it was something, even on like a personal level, like what helped you work through some of those emotions. This is going to sound really silly but so I.

Bethany McDaniel: 15:29

I guess one of the big like moments for me was when I was pregnant with my daughter, and this was I was her due date was approaching and this was, I think, maybe a year into the business. Her due date was approaching, I was still doing everything out of my house, but working a lot, and I had one part-time employee. But it was getting to the point where it was like, okay, I'm about to have a baby, do I shut down the business until after my maternity leave and then come back to it, or do I hire someone full-time and train someone on how to do all these things that I'm doing and move the business out of my house and take that financial leap of signing a lease for an office warehouse space? I was really wrestling with what to do, and something that had a big impact on me was actually a video from Steve Harvey, and you can Google it, but it's called Take the Leap, you have to take the, or you have to jump.

Bethany McDaniel: 16:22

I think is, if you Google Steve Harvey, steve Harvey, you have to jump.

Bethany McDaniel: 16:26

It's like one of the talks he gave at Family Feud, with the camera still rolling, but not part of the episode, it just got me so motivated. It just reinforces this idea of you've been trusted with this thing and it's your responsibility to steward it well and just to trust that it'll work out, and to trust in God that it'll work out. I just remember it was a very defining moment of okay, I'm going to jump, I'm going to take the leap and do this. And that's when I hired someone full-time and got a new space for the business so I didn't have to do it out of my home anymore. I was forced into that by having a baby and all that. But I think if I hadn't been in that position, I may have continued to just try to do it all on my own for much longer, versus outsourcing and trusting other people and understanding that you can't do it all on your own and it takes getting help to grow and progress, oh my gosh, and we're so glad you did that.

Kasia: 17:24

so thank you Seriously. And that is such a good segue because one of the things that you put first in your bio, which I absolutely love, is that you are a mother, and your mother to two kids, three kids, three. Yeah, oh my gosh, and this is all in the same span of time, right that you're birthing this business and then you're birthing your kids literally and figuratively, I guess, the business part. I'm curious how has becoming a mother shifted how you behave or you act as also a founder of the business, maybe from a behavioral point of view or even perspective point of view? What shifted when you made that personal change too?

Bethany McDaniel: 18:11

Every time I have with all of my kids, I've had to really sit back and think about okay, what responsibilities do I have, what am I taking on, what can I outsource? And each time I've done that, the business has grown. So I think as an entrepreneur, we think, okay, we can do X, y and Z better than anyone else can, and for certain things that may be true, but for most things it's not. There's always someone that can come in that can do a better job than us at something, and it's hard to give things up. But I think having children has really forced me to do that and forced me to really be strategic in how I think about my workload and what skill sets are needed to help grow the business. So, yeah, I feel like having kids. I don't think, primarily, peer would be where it's at today if I hadn't had kids, because I would probably still be trying to do so many things myself instead of finding qualified people to help me and to help grow the company.

Kasia: 19:15

Wow, it's so powerful to hear because I think for a lot of women out there myself included, and I've had this conversations with so many of my female founders, founder friends there's just this kind of narrative out there and I think it's starting to shift now. I'm seeing online but it's like you kind of have to choose one or the other. You can't have it all, and I think that is truly a myth to have it all. But to hear about how one can kind of positively influence the other. And it is a journey Creating this business was a nine-year journey for you and it's just so amazing to hear how the personal experiences that transform you, transform your family, actually can have such a pivotal impact on your business, because it's like personal and professional growth in the same vein in a way. Totally.

Bethany McDaniel: 20:06

Yeah, I think they can work together and don't get me wrong, it's really hard doing both and I think you're right, it's not. No one can do it perfectly but they can work together as well. They can coexist and be even beneficial. But, yeah, there have been moments where I've noticed that I'm okay, I'm putting way too much focus on my business right now and I can see that my kids are suffering in these areas, and so I'm going to pull back and focus more on my family.

Bethany McDaniel: 20:35

For a season or like, okay, I've been really focused on my family and this last, with my last child, otto, my son, I took an awesome maternity leave, had a true, really restful maternity leave and it was great. But now I'm kind of at a place where I'm ready to really dive back in and he's a little older and I can focus more on the business. So it's like constantly reassessing the season of life that you're in and making adjustments based on that, and I think it's just for anyone that has kids or relationships, whatever it's just really important to constantly assess what's going on in my personal life, what's going on in my work life, where am I putting my energy towards and how can I shift things? How do I need to shift things in this season and then making changes based on that?

Kasia: 21:26

I love that terminology of seasonality because I think, as a society, there's this narrative of expecting every single day, every single week, to look exactly the same and just acknowledging that there will be seasons that look like this and seasons that look a bit differently, and that nothing is fully static. I think that is just such a valuable, valuable perspective. Hi everyone, I wanted to pause this episode to tell you a bit about today's sponsor, my company Inflow. Ladies, if you suffer from PMS and feel like your monthly cycle is brutal, I feel you. As someone who suffers from endometriosis, I understand what debilitating pain and fatigue around your cycle feel like, and after years of fighting against my body and my symptoms, burnout inspired me to see things and guess it the other way. I found myself wanting to align my schedule with my body instead of against it, and this is why I designed Inflow, the first of its kind planner and journal in one, where you can merge goal setting with over a hundred daily diet, movement and mindfulness tips for living in harmony with your cycle. Our planner is personalized and it is designed in collaboration with an OBGYN to merge science with wellness. If this interests you, you can head over to infloplanorcom to check it out and if you want to make a purchase, please use code podcast10 for 10% off.

Kasia: 23:01

All right, now back to the episode. I'm curious. This is literally stemming from so many conversations that I've had with kind of other founder friends and even audience members. From the podcast there's this narrative, I think, around oh, I think it'll be the right time to have kids when X happens in my business. I'm curious, how did you navigate that? Was that kind of the vibe that you had going into it, especially maybe with your first kid or your second or third? That timing was kind of of the essence, because I think in a way that might be an illusion, but I'm curious to get your thoughts, considering you've kind of had both business and kids in the same time period.

Bethany McDaniel: 23:47

Yeah, yeah, the great thing about pregnancy is you have nine months to kind of reorient your life and your schedule, and so, no matter what season you're in, if you think now is the perfect time, it's like, well, what about nine months from now? You don't know what's going to shift during that time or whatnot. And so when I found out, I was pregnant with my first daughter and it was a surprise to me at the time, and at the time I was like, whoa, okay, how am I going to do this? I feel like I have so much going on. And so for me, it was never this thing of like okay, now's the right time, let's do this. And it just all kind of happened and I had to restructure on the fly and it worked out great.

Kasia: 24:36

I don't know, I think I would have waited much longer to have kids if I was like waiting for that perfect time, because I don't think it ever would have really come to fruition Such a good reflection and looking at your life today, kind of as a founder, in the role of managing things and managing the business, those energetics are very different than like perhaps and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, maybe you don't see it this way but very different. Those energetics seem to be very different than that of, like, a nurturing mother, and I'm curious how do you toggle between the two? Are you switching one on and then the other one off? What does that practically look like? I mean, if I ever think about having like a very emotional, deep conversation with, like, a friend or my partner and then like switching into a work meeting like those just feel like such opposite sides of the coin I mean the same coin, but just very far apart. So what is that looking like for you? Are you switching one on and off? Are you merging the two together?

Bethany McDaniel: 25:37

Yeah, yeah, no, you're right, it is different. I mean there are different parts of me, but so it's still like it's all coming from the same place, but it's, you're right, it's like different kind of modes that you have to go into for each thing. And I think being aware of that is huge and kind of like having some sort of transition between, like, instead of just, you know, coming home from busy work day, maybe taking a call on my way home, and then just going right into the house to be with my family. I tried to avoid situations like that and instead maybe if I have a really busy work day, like I'll just sit in silence on the drive home and kind of think about like okay, how, what kind of energy do I want to bring into my house when I see my kids again and just put more forethought into that, rather than just kind of like going from thing to thing to thing without really taking time to get into a head, different headspace in between things.

Bethany McDaniel: 26:34

And I'm really like a stickler on just planning out my week. So, like, at the beginning of the week I look at my calendar. I see everything that I have coming up For me. That just helps for me to know what to expect and to know all the different situations that I'm going to go into.

Bethany McDaniel: 26:48

So at the beginning of each week and then at the beginning of each day, I can see what I have and just kind of mentally like work through it, almost like mentally, go into each place before I actually go in, go there physically, kind of think about, like okay, I have this meeting, what kind of headspace do I want to be in for this meeting? And like, how do I get into that headspace? So, whether that's I'm going to take a 10 minute walk before that I'm going to, you know, sit and like enjoy a cup of coffee and then go into that. And then, you know, not just packing my schedule with so many different things, to where I'm just exhausted and like what even just happened, you know, at the end of the day, but really paying attention to like, how can I, how can I take these little mini breaks throughout the day where I can transition into like and have, like, the wherewithal to be who I need to be in each moment?

Kasia: 27:37

Oh, so, good, Very intentional of you. Like your keyword.

Bethany McDaniel: 27:42

Very aligned with that. I don't always. It's not always like a total success, but it's like a constant work in progress.

Kasia: 27:49

Yeah, I'm kind of getting an image come to mind of almost like filling up a plate like a well balanced meal, where you know you kind of have like that macro view of you know what's what's happening on the plate and you can kind of shift things around to make sure that you have capacity and it's like well balanced, well nutritious, you know nutritious, as nutritious as can be, and of course that's not going to be perfect for every single meal, but just having that general rhythm. It feels like such an incredible habit to bring into your life to balance all that.

Bethany McDaniel: 28:23

Yeah, absolutely I used to. We'll still do sometimes. But for a while I was just dove into like the personal growth space and like listen to Brendan Burchard a lot and he's really big on like these like five minute breaks every hour. So like not working, not focusing on one task for more than I think he says, even 50 minutes at a time before, like you need to just do something for five, 10 minutes in between to just clear your head and so you're not just completely exhausted at the end of the day. So I have a rebounder, a little trampoline, in my office. I'll like just bounce on that and stare out the window in between tasks sometimes. Sometimes I'll go on a walk in between things or just kind of like sit and pray. Sometimes I'll go outside and just like feel the sun, you know, on my face for a little while. Just things like that.

Kasia: 29:15

I love that. I love that and there's so much research coming out now about the benefits of micro movement as opposed to just like packing it all in, you know, in like a single workout class. So I think that can be such an opportunity to like unplug for a moment, rebound a bit, walk or just sit and drink tea and pray and whatever like resonates with you, as opposed to trying.

Bethany McDaniel: 29:39

Like, yeah, the movement thing, that is really helpful yeah.

Kasia: 29:43

Yeah, I love that. I'm really hopeful that well, first of all, I'm trying to implement that in my life, which is just so helpful, but I'm really happy that there's just more awareness to how important that is, because we're just not meant to be like sitting all day long, so you kind of get like the mind benefit and the body benefit too, absolutely. Yeah, well, I mean, I think it also might be helpful, and I don't know if your office is like co-located with your new farm, but I just want to call out that you did just kind of expand to build a regenerative farm for Primally Pure. Is that true?

Bethany McDaniel: 30:15

Yeah, so it's all kind of coming full circle with the farm that my husband and his brother started, that I started Primally Pure, kind of like. I started selling my products on their website and at farm tours and everything, and then moved everything over to my own website when I was really getting serious about it. But their farm is close to our headquarters, about a mile away, and so they had some extra land there and so Primally Pure is now growing some of our ingredients on their farm. So, yeah, it's kind of like it's all coming full circle, wow.

Kasia: 30:51

Yeah, oh my gosh, that is amazing. And was that always the kind of did you always have that vision there? Or was there something that sparked like the impetus to actually do this? Because, you know, frankly, I feel like this and you can correct me if I'm wrong but the economics would almost lean towards, you know, yeah, like kind of wholesale product choices, but it definitely seems aligned with Primally Pure's values to do something like this, but this isn't quite the norm. So what sparked this? Was this always the end goal?

Bethany McDaniel: 31:22

No, it wasn't. It just kind of came about Like we, they had this extra land that they didn't really know what to do with and it just kind of came up in conversation and first it was kind of like yeah, I don't know, maybe someday. And then it just started to feel more right and make more sense. And, like you mentioned you mentioned the retail thing like we have thought about that on and off throughout the years but it's just never felt like the right thing for us.

Bethany McDaniel: 31:50

We love maintaining the personal connection with our customers so that we can educate about our products and just lifestyle stuff as well, and we didn't want to lose that connection.

Bethany McDaniel: 32:00

And also we make everything in house and like freshness is just a big deal to us and so we love like having control over that aspect as well. And you know, keeping like we don't keep things on our shelf for a long time. We ship everything as well, so our products aren't like sitting on sitting in a warehouse for months and then shipped out to the customer. And, in that same vein, like we didn't want our products to be sitting on a store shelf for, you know, a long time and not being the freshest that they could be and potentially like dealing with rancidity issues and things like that, and so that never felt right. And so thinking about like where do we want to be the next several years and just different ways to expand and grow the brand without like going into big box stores, it just felt like kind of a cool next step for us to take and just to even have more control and like transparency with our ingredients and supply chain.

Kasia: 32:57

I just I absolutely love this. I mean, first of all, that's like my dream to have a farm, frankly, Like I have it on my vision board. You know the garden I'm like a community garden right now. I want to have chickens, Like that is the dream and to have that just be like part of you know, your business and your core values in a way to like really be living and breathing your values. I mean that is just so powerful. You don't meet a lot of founders that do that like at this scale. It's been nine years and to see you grow further into your values in this way is truly, truly inspiring, because it is a choice Like you don't just fall into that, you kind of have to intentionally do that, you know, yeah.

Bethany McDaniel: 33:43

Yeah, for sure, and it's just, it's it felt right Like I don't ever want to do things just to like grow the company and sell a bunch of products, Like it has to be fun, it has to be meaningful, so it just kind of made sense.

Kasia: 33:57

I love it. So let's talk about ingredients, because you kind of alluded to the power of obviously controlling more of your supply chain. You've already been super intentional with Primally Pure about your ingredients. I noticed that the products expire, which is just so rare. You never really hear about that and for folks listening to this podcast, I had Jenna Hua from Million Marker on last year and she really kind of dug way into kind of some of the toxins that are present in products and she talked about how skincare was actually one of the major culprits out there of, like, hidden ingredients. Can you share with our audience, especially from the perspective of a skincare brand? Why do ingredients matter, like why are you putting such an emphasis on this? And I know this has been a passion of yours for a while.

Bethany McDaniel: 34:47

Yeah, I mean I think people at least I assumed for most of my life that anything that was sold on a store shelf was tested for safety, proven to be safe, and the reality is there's tens of thousands of ingredients on the market today and very few, a very small percentage of them have ever been tested for safety. And we not only have they like not been proven to be safe, but there are so many ingredients that are in products that have actually like proven to be harmful. So, like I was talking about aluminum earlier that's been linked to Alzheimer's disease. Parabens have been found in one study in 99% of breast cancer tumors that were sampled in that study.

Bethany McDaniel: 35:29

And you know, looking at the term fragrance, like that is a blanket term protected by the FDA as a trade secret, and fragrance isn't just one ingredient it can contain. You know there's 3000 different ingredients that can be blanketed under the term fragrance. So that's just another way that companies can put really harmful ingredients in their products and not even disclose to the consumer what is actually in there. And the EPA did a study on like what's actually in fragrance, and they found that 74% of ingredients that are listed under the term fragrance are actually endocrine disrupting personogenic chemicals. So there's just very little regulation, very little, very little has been like tested in our in the ingredients that are in most products that people are using and, yeah, there's just a lot of unknowns, and so our focus has always been like on using ingredients that you can pretty much look at them and know what they are and know that they're going to be safe and good for you.

Kasia: 36:31

A lot of our ingredients are things that people probably have in their kitchens and, yeah, we've just we've always just tried to go that route instead of like ingredients that you have to do a bunch of research on and Google and figure out whether or not they're safe A hundred percent, and I always found it pretty fascinating that the second you get pregnant, there's like this list of things that you cannot consume, especially around like skincare products, and Retinol is one of them because it is like one of the more popular anti-aging products out there, and I know that the EU recently set a maximum on Retinol and facial products because of some potential like toxicity concerns, which is just like nuts, because Retinol is everywhere in every single anti-aging product, and you're one of the only brands out there that I've seen talking about this like openly.

Kasia: 37:22

I know you have a highlight focused on Retinol and a couple of other anti-aging treatments. Can you talk a bit about you know what are some of the concerns with Retinol and also what can people think about using instead, because I think having alternatives is just so powerful.

Bethany McDaniel: 37:37

Yeah, retinol is. I mean, it's a really it's really strong. It's a synthetic form of vitamin A and so vitamin A toxicity can be an issue. If you are using high concentrations of Retinol, especially if you're also taking vitamin A internally, like that can become a really you can build up a toxic level of vitamin A and that can lead to liver toxicity and other issues. It's also just really harsh on the skin, so you're really like burning away the outer layers of your skin so that, like, your skin can regenerate. But when you do that over and over and over, like your skin may respond really well in the beginning, but then long term you're kind of using up your skin's like regeneration stores too rapidly and it also makes you sensitive to the sun.

Bethany McDaniel: 38:23

I had a really bad experience with Retinol using that in high school when I was on the swim team and in the sun all the time, and then also like that in combination with chlorine, and so these are things that like we just don't think about when we start using products like how is this going to react with chlorine in a swimming pool or the sun or other products I'm using, when we're using, like, all of these ingredients on our skin in combination with one another.

Bethany McDaniel: 38:46

That alone they haven't been tested for safety, but then in combination with other ingredients. Like how is all that going to react? There's just there's so many unknowns out there, and so there's a natural ingredient called Bacucial, and that has been proved. There's a lot of studies that have been done on that ingredient and that it is just as effective as Retinol, and so I also love anti-aging treatments like facial acupuncture, guasha cupping. We have a holistic esthetician at our spa who offers all of these. We actually we have two estheticians now at our spa that offer all of these treatments, and they're super powerful and, like you don't have to incur damage to your body in order to have like youthful, glowing skin. There are ways to support your skin and support your skin function that will help your skin long-term and also create like whole body health long-term, instead of taking away from it.

Kasia: 39:41

I love that, and I love that you really talked about not damaging your skin in order to have those results, because it's always been really fascinating to me as somebody who struggles with eczema, and my eczema would clear up in the sun, right, and UVB treatments were really effective. I stayed away from steroids after like a steroid withdrawal period in my early 20s that just like really rooted me into not using them because I have like a rebound effect. But I just find it so fascinating that I mean, finally, now there's more coming out about this. First of all, you have, like your skin has a microbiome. There is like a balance there, right, and that destroying that barrier has effects, like if we're using these chemicals and these products that are like destructive to that. You know what I mean.

Bethany McDaniel: 40:32

Yeah, no, I think for anyone that is interested in improving their skin health, improving their skin barrier, skin microbiome, like, we really need to think about the long-term implications of every decision we're making, and there are so many treatment options out there now.

Bethany McDaniel: 40:49

There's so many different products and, yes, some of them will give you short-term results, but is that at the risk of incurring long-term damage to your skin or using up your skin's nutrient or collagen stores? Like these are things that we need to think about for ourselves, because the companies that are selling these products and these treatments that are out there, like the people behind all of that, aren't necessarily thinking that through for us. So we just really need to be our own advocate and be mindful of everything that we're doing and really weigh out like, is this going to support skin health long-term? Is this going to, like harm my body in any way long-term? And if the answer is like, if it is going to be harmful long-term, like is that really something that we want to do? And yeah, I think we just need to be aware of that and not just assume that everything out there is okay just because it's on a shelf or at like a dermatologist's office 100%, bethany.

Kasia: 41:54

I can keep chatting for hours, but we're actually running up on time, so I would love for you to share with our audience. Where can people find you? How can they find Primally Pure? And if you want to give a shout out to anything cool you have going on, any kind of awesome things you want to share with our audience, please go ahead and do that, and I'm going to hyperlink everything below as well.

Bethany McDaniel: 42:14

Okay, awesome. Yeah, our website is primallypurecom. On Instagram, we're just at Primally Pure. Our blog is a great resource and you can find that through our website or you can go to purelifeblogcom to check that out. We have a lot of great resources on there. And then we have a spa at our headquarters here in Marietta, california. We have the farm that we talked about a lot, that we're going to offer some community events at going forward starting this year, which I'm really excited about, and then several really cool product launches coming up that I think people are going to really love too.

Kasia: 42:50

Oh, I love that. Oh my gosh, I think I might even head down from Northern California.

Bethany McDaniel: 42:54

Yeah.

Kasia: 42:55

Let me know if you're ever in the area. Oh, 100%, I'm coming to the spa and I'm going to come for a community event. I mean, that just sounds so perfect. Love it, amazing, amazing, bethany, thank you so, so much for joining us today.

Kasia: 43:10

Of course, thanks so much for having me on. This was great. Thanks everyone for tuning in and see you next week. Bye, thank you so much for tuning into the Other Way. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a five star review. It really helps the podcast grow and I'm ever so grateful. If you want to stay connected, you can find information on how in our show notes. And finally, if you're curious about in flow and want free resources around cyclical living or moon cycles, check out infloplanercom. And, of course, for all my listeners, you can use the code podcast 10 and that's all lower case podcast 10 for 10% off any purchase. All right, that's all for today. See you next time.