Creating New Products

It's a rainy day here in Los Angeles, and rainy days always inspire me to play with my herbs.  While I am doing that, I thought I'd share with you all my process of creating new products.

The inspiration for a new product is typically initiated from either a personal need or at the request of a friend.  Currently I am working on a daytime moisturizer and a wrinkle serum, so stayed tuned for those additions to the shop!

My first step is to research ingredients.  For instance, for the daytime moisturizer, I need ingredients that feel light on the skin, and work well with makeup.  When researching the wrinkle serum, I am looking for ingredients that contain a lot of vitamins, nutrients and fatty acids.  I also research costs. For instance, will I be able to create a product that maintains a comparable cost in the marketplace?  I survey what's on the shelves in the shops and determine if I can beat that, and survey my friends for what they costs they would expect to pay. I might research and evaluate the idea of a product for months before I even make the first batch!

Once I have a list of ingredients I'd like to play with, I plan what type of product would be the most effective and efficient means of application: liquid spray, oil, salve, cream, etc.  At this point I create a first draft formula and test it on myself for a few weeks during which time I journal and photograph changes to my skin to see if it yields the results for which I was looking.

At this point I either hate it (or just know it can be better) and go back to revising my formula, or I send it out to friends for testing.  I ask them to use it for a few weeks and let me know what they think about the effectiveness, color, smell, etc.  Based on their observations, I might (and usually do) go back to revising my formula and start testing all over again.

Sometimes I like a formula right off the bat and receive positive feedback, so I can add it to the store fairly quickly.  Other times, I might not love the formula until the 15th revision or so.  Before I started SkIndulgence, I spent years creating the formulas for the initial six products; my night cream went through nearly two dozen trials before I found the formula I absolutely love.

When I do find the perfect formula, the rest is rather simple.  I just create the packaging, have a photographer shoot it, and then add it to the store!

So there you have it, from conception to sale, my process.  If you are interested in becoming one of my testers, definitely send me an email!