Nick Erker: Hey there, and welcome to Get the Scoop with Smirks Podcast, where bulk ingredient conversation happens. We’re sharing our knowledge and expertise as bulk ingredient importers. Tapping into the latest trends we are seeing and commenting on what that means for natural food businesses as they approach ingredient purchasing, product development, and marketing. You’ll hear the latest market reports, ingredient specifications, and product applications from Smirks in-house experts, as well as origin stories from our growers and processors around the world. Listen in for the scoop on what’s happening with bulk ingredients.
Jason Strauch: Hello, and welcome to our Get The Scoop with Smirks Podcast Episode 6. I’m Jason Strauch VP of Sales for Smirks, and my co-host is Garrett McBride, VP of Operation here at Smirks. Some of our listeners may not be aware that Smirks supplies bulk ingredients to the natural and organic soap and cosmetic industry. It’s an area of our business that is growing and we wanted to feature special industry guests today. We’re excited to introduce Fred and Roxy Johnson, co-owners of the Soap Creek company in Utah. Soap Creek is a natural soap producer, and they have been a customer of ours for several years now. Hey, Fred and Roxy. Welcome to our podcast. How’s it going?
Fred Johnson: It’s going great.
Roxy Johnson: Really good. Good morning.
Garrett McBride: Good morning. Fred and Roxy, thanks a ton for joining us today. Now, to start things off, would you mind sharing a little bit about yourselves and your background?
Fred Johnson: Yeah. Sure. I’ll let her start.
Roxy Johnson: My background, that brought me into the where we’re at today with the Soap Creek company is I was into herbology and aroma therapy and studied that quite a bit before I ever entered into the soap world, the formulating world. I was a home mom. Fred and I are husband and wife. So I was at home while raising our kids, studying into the different herbology, and aroma therapy. Well, Fred was working pretty much all over the nation, and he can speak to that. That’s my background before going into the soap world which we can discuss.
Fred Johnson: Yeah. And I spent about 20 years in the construction industry, the electrical industry. And then she started making soap at home, and there just came a time when we decided to jump into that world. It was kind of an overnight decision.
Garrett McBride: So when was that that you actually made the decision to jump in? into the cosmetic side.
Fred Johnson: 2016.
Roxy Johnson: Yeah, at that point, I’ve been just making handmade soaps and lotions, things like that just on the kitchen counter for several years. Selling it to and this kind goes into the next question, but we originally just started giving it away to family and friends. They really liked it. It made a lot of impact on their lives, which was really awesome to us. We started giving it away, and then there was more demand. People asked if they could sell it in their local, you know, stores. And so we began selling our little handmade brand, I guess you could say, locally in local stores. So that’s kind of where we began up to the point where we kind of jumped in with all fours, really. And first exhibited our product, our small brand at a large trade show and got a lot of interest there.
Garrett McBride: That’s very cool. You guys have come a long way in a short period of time.
Fred Johnson: Yeah. We’ve the, really, the kickoff point for us is we got accepted into that natural products Expo West Show in Anaheim and I believe Sparks exhibits there as well. But from there, then we just kind took off in the soap world. There was a lot of interest in our brand, but more importantly, there was big customers that would come through saying it looks like you guys can build really nice product. What would you be willing to make our products? So we have to make some really hard decisions there where we’re gonna stick to our own brand or whether we would consider contract manufacturing where we jumped off on that contract manufacturing, and it’s just taken off from there. We still sell a little bit of the Soap Creek branded stuff, but our main business is contract manufacturing, in which we use a ton of products from Smirks and here we are from 2016 to 2023, and we have making products for nearly every big box retailer across the country.
Garrett McBride: That’s a cool story. I remember the first time I said I saw you and met you was at Expo West. The heck it might have been that 1st year. It was the last day of the show walking by and the visual aspects of your soap caught our eye and myself and a former coworker stopped and, that was where it all started with us, and it was a it was a pretty amazing setup that you had.
Jason Strauch: Not to mention. one of the best-smelling booths at any trade show that you go to. You could always smell when Soap Creek is nearby smells fantastic.
Roxy Johnson: That’s what the locals say too.
Fred Johnson: They smell so good here, and we’re like, we get used to us. We don’t really.
Jason Strauch: Well, I always noticed that.
Fred Johnson: In fact, a funny story. I went into the bank the other day, and the lady’s like, you smell so good. And I’m like, yeah. I don’t know how I’m supposed to take that.
Roxy Johnson: The bank can smell us coming.
Garrett McBride: Yeah. Of all the industries you could have brought, that was probably the best, the best for the neighborhood in terms of what it does from an aroma standpoint.
Jason Strauch: Yeah. And since 2016, you guys have expanded your warehouse space and your production floor. At least once or.
Fred Johnson: We have since 2016. Since 2016, it was just pretty much her and I. We were just trying to market our brand and we’ve grown up to today. We’re over 50 employees now. Next year, it looks like we’re on track to double our sales again. So we’re suiting to have more around the 100, 120 employees mark we feel like that’s a good sign of a company for us. And it really has helped a lot to have vendors like Smirks help us along that journey and help us through that growth and then support us through that. It’s made a huge difference. We’ve had several vendors, including Smirks that have been willing to help us with that incredible growth and incredible journey.
Jason Strauch: Yeah. And that actually brings up our next point. Soap Creek and Smirks first connected back in 2018. And one of your customers, I believe, referred you to us, and it was for Organic Fair Trade, RBD Coconut Oil. Which was, one of the first items that we did. And since that time, I think we’ve had pretty much a standing contract almost the entire time for that Fairtrade RBD, and we’ve expanded out with Sunflower Oil. We’ve done Cocoa Butter, Shea Butter, and Olive Oil. We did some glycerin. We’ve just had a handful of things, but we’ve also gone, like, the whole gamut away from oils, from coconut sugar, to walnuts. So it’s been interesting to see the amount of different items that are actually used in soapmaking. What are some of the things that you look for when you’re sourcing ingredients?
Fred Johnson: I would say availability, and pricing certifications because we are an organic-certified facility. So a lot of the materials that we’re bringing in, we’re limited to finding materials that are certified organic or certified fair trade. And Smirks has helped a lot in that in that sets as well because, you know, you get audited every year for those certifications on having that documentation at your fingertips and ready to pull, and with every product has made it quite a difference here. We have some suppliers that will sell us some certified organic material and then to get the certifications out of those people pass on to our customers has been quite difficult at times. So we really appreciate the Smirks team and what they’ve done for that certification and maybe a little deeper dive into what we’re actually producing here. We produce mostly store-branded items, but we’re producing over 200 different products for different stores. And each one of those 200 products have different ingredients. Like you say, everything from walnuts to coconut oil to glycerin, to coconut sugar, to whatever. So that’s why there’s such a wide range of materials that we’re bringing in is because we make such a wide range of products.
Garrett McBride: What is the scope of that, the product range?
Fred Johnson: Basically anything in the bath and body space.
Garrett McBride: So, I know you do bar soap and body scrubs. What other types of soap and cosmetics? Specific items do you make?
Roxy Johnson: We do a lot of liquids. Yeah. We do a lot of liquids here as well. A big portion of that fair trade organic coconut oil is going into a liquid castile soap kind of like similar that you see in every natural product store. A lot of that coconut goes into that product.
Fred Johnson: Very similar to the Doctor Brothers.
Roxy Johnson: Yeah.
Fred Johnson: It’s just on a store-branded level.
Roxy Johnson: Lots of bar soaps. We do hair products as well, which we used to utilize quite a bit of the organic coconut oil and even hair care products. So pretty broad range. We have the capacity here to pretty much produce anything in that space, the bath and body care space.
Jason Strauch: I think one other thing about the ingredients that you source as we are primarily food ingredient importers, everything that we’ve sold you would technically be food grade. So, I think that also speaks to the quality of it. I know when I was at the soap maker’s guild a few months ago in talking to some of those different people. They didn’t realize that food grade would work perfectly well for the products they were producing. They were really under the impression that, you know, it’s a separate thing, but it’s coconut oil is coconut oil is coconut oil. So as much as you guys are purchasing and having multiple container contracts, we were able to get really sharp on the pricing and and make sure that your bottom line does well because we’re able to offer the pricing that we can.
Fred Johnson: Yeah. I can definitely speak to that. That definitely helps to have those contracts in place. That’s been one of the smoothest supply chains that we’re seeing even through COVID, even through all of the things is those contracted containers from Smirks has really saved our bottom line at the end of the day.
Jason Strauch: Yeah. And I remember just a couple months into COVID, we went through what was supposed to be an annual contract in, like, 4 months because everyone was really getting into, like, the higher quality soaps that you guys produce. That was kinda cool to see, granted COVID terrible thing, but at the same time, a lot of people got into different types of soap because of it. So that was an interesting impact.
Roxy Johnson: Sure.
Garrett McBride: Soap was one of those really strange things that you…
Fred Johnson: Yeah. I would definitely say I agree with you on the dark days of COVID, but there were some silver linings there. Through it all, we had because we worked with multiple retailers. Then every one of those retailers were asking for as much soap as possible because people started to realize how important it is that you wash your hands, and that you keep your surfaces clean. And so, through those times, we were producing probably three to four times the amount of soap per month that we usually did, and we did burn through that years’ worth of contract on the coconut oil because as fast as we can mix up, it was thrown out the door.
Jason Strauch: It was, it was an interesting time.
Fred Johnson: So, it was fun to tell our team, you know, we’re actually helping in this cause. You know, we’re making products that are a solution for people and we do some stuff for Kroger and different stores, and they’re like as fast as you can build it. It was it was on their shelves and going off their shelves.
Garrett McBride: That’s amazing.
Fred Johnson: And because there was such a short supply everywhere, I think to Jason’s point, then the people were introduced to a lot different kinds of soap than they were normally used to buying because that was all that was available. And so, you’ve seen you know, increased sales in different areas of the soap categories of products that people wouldn’t have normally tried that they had the opportunity to try during COVID. Because, you know, customers are creatures of habit. We’re building a consumable product. If they buy 1 month, they’re gonna need to buy it the next month. To break that habit is a really difficult thing without good marketing.
Garrett McBride: Yeah. You know, soap is one of those strange things that most people that we know and around here use soap every day, but generally speaking, I don’t think many people really understand where soap comes from. How it’s made. Would you be willing to, you know, without divulging any trade secrets and confidential information? Would you be willing to walk us through what the process is for making soap at eye level?
Roxy Johnson: Yeah. So, we’d actually do a couple of different processes with, specifically, the oils that we’re purchasing with Smirks. The one is a solid bar soap. So, our solid bar soap is a cold process where you mix an alkali with organic oils. It’s blended until it comes to what we call a trace. And then it’s poured out into molds where it sits overnight. And just the mixture of the alkali and the oils together created some reaction to pretty much turn into soap without any heat added. After it’s removed from the molds the next day, it is completely solid and ready to be cut. We cut it on a wire-cutting system. It’s a lot like cheese at that point. It’s kind of a soft cheesy texture. We cut it with something that looks like a cheese cutter, only, you know, on steroids. And then it’s stacked to dry, and it continues to react and cure over the next several days, weeks. We have kind of in that’s what makes Soap Creek somewhat unique with the solid bar soaps is that we have reduced our water and made a few tweaks that aren’t I guess, you could say industry standard where we’re able to get those bars to harden quite a bit quicker than, you know, the norm, I guess you would say, in this process. And so, we’re able to ship that soap quite a bit quicker, and that’s what’s brought us to pretty much what we would call mass market. A product that normally is very time-consuming and handmade. Then the other process that we use to utilize the Smirks’ oils is our liquid soap that I mentioned before, where the reactions, not only from the alkali that’s added, but also we use heat to make that reaction and also liquefy the product. So again, it’s oils and alkali mixed in a heated vessel. The reaction is quite quick, and then water is added to liquify the product. So that’s our liquid form. Is that kind of explain it? I hope that makes sense.
Garrett McBride: Yeah. Absolutely. So then if you need or if a customer needs a specific aroma or color or added texture. Is that something that you’re able to just add on to the end after the soap itself, the reaction has occurred?
Roxy Johnson: Yes. Everything that we make is completely customized by the customer. That’s kind of what makes Soap Creek and our products unique is that we have the ability to develop any product based off of an idea or concept and take it completely through, product development to the manufacturer. So, a customer comes to us and says, can we have a soap that looks like this, smells like this, and we take that from those very beginning concepts cleared through to product development, stability. It’s kind of a very long process, but that’s what makes us unique here at Soap Creek is that we’re able to do all this product development in-house, customize it to the customer’s spec, and then mass manufacture.
Jason Strauch: And I think one point worth mentioning. I think it was, right around the Expo West this year. You guys were churning out was it 30,000 bars of soap per day? You had the one customer in Southern California that just had a truck showing up every day to pick up a whole bunch of bars.
Fred Johnson: Mhmm.
Roxy Johnson: Yes. And growing since then.
Fred Johnson: And we actually shipped yesterday, we shipped out 70,000 bars to that same customer. It’s just pretty crazy.
Roxy Johnson: We’re still sending shipments pretty much every day to that customer at those rates.
Jason Strauch: Well, a couple of them ended up at my house on the far side of that. So, I’ve been buying some of those.
Garrett McBride: What’s the strangest request you guys have ever gotten for an ingredient or an aroma? Do you ever get any really off-the-wall, oddball stuff?
Fred Johnson: There’s been several different products that have been a little bit interesting. We had a company here in Utah out of Salt Lake City that was selling a — lotion into Japan. And, you know, lotions were most of our lotions were based with the coconut, olive oil, or something in there. But they were using a product that they supplied to us that was, colloidal gold and silver. So, we made a colloidal gold and silver lotion that was sold in Japan for, like, 300 bucks an ounce for some crazy, some crazy minerals. So, we see lots of different things. You know, we bought those, we’re buying from Smirks some walnuts. So, we’re using dried walnuts that we’ve dried into a powder for an exfoliant in a product that we’re making. And so it’s just full range of just anything out there. Then some of them are just little what we call hero ingredients where you need to, you know, a fun item to add to a product for marketing purposes or whatever. So, everything from apricot shells, tea, you name it, it’s out there.
Jason Strauch: I think Garrett would have an idea for a unique ingredient for you, Baobab.
Garrett McBride: We might incorporate Baobab into a soap formulation.
Roxy Johnson: Baobab. Do you guys have Baobab?
Jason Strauch: No. It’s been his wild goose chase request for decades now.
Garrett McBride: Yeah. Oh. Yeah.
Fred Johnson: So, I think I’ll be next week. I think we actually are ordering some Baobab Protein.
Garrett McBride: Are you really?
Roxy Johnson: Yeah.
Fred Johnson: For one of the products that we make.
Garrett McBride: Oh, that’s very cool.
Roxy Johnson: It’s an up-and-coming ingredient. That’s really good. both the protein and the oil, which is probably what you’re searching for. Really awesome property it is, really skin softening. I guess I’m not aware that people would eat it. Is it food grade?
Garrett McBride: It is, not so much the oils, but the pulp from the dried fruit, it has some amazing properties. Antioxidant, Vitamin C, fiber. I’ve been pushing it for, 10 or 15 years everywhere that I’ve worked, and it’s become something of a joke because that’s my that’s my..
Jason Strauch: Prior to him working at Smirks, I didn’t know that was his wild goose chase question and it’s ended up back to me. I think we were just talking about it one day, and the kid was like, yeah, Baobab used to you always throw that out as an idea. And I was like, that was you. I couldn’t find it anywhere.
Garrett McBride: 1 of these days, I’ll make it stick somewhere, well, before I retire.
Fred Johnson: Where does that come from?
Garrett McBride: There are some in Australia and Africa. The savannahs of Africa have widespread, Baobob growth of gigantic trees. These massive trees that look like they’re growing upside down with the roots in the air. It’s a very, very cool product someday it’ll catch.
Fred Johnson: You know, it’s always interesting to me. We’re making we’re making all these products instead of getting in stores, but when you get looking at an ingredient list, we’ve got coconut oil from the Philippines. You’ve got the French, lavender, organic French lavender essential oils going into that same bar, some sunflower oil from Mexico here. We’re essentially bringing these ingredients from all over the world form with me here at Soap Creek, and then it goes out clear across the country, and then somebody takes that to their house but just the logistics alone to bring all those ingredients together, get them out here to Utah, get them into the same product, and then back up, you know, those things. It’s quite a journey in some of those ingredients from across the world that is to test to where somebody’s using that in their shower and their hair on their skin or whatever. It’s pretty fascinating to me.
Garrett McBride: Yes. Those bars are so tough. It’s been a big journey.
Jason Strauch: Fred and Roxy, what would you say that makes the Soap Creek products unique?
Fred Johnson: Our own brand soap is really unique that they got, you know. I can see that in the camera. Just really fancy little things. That’s unique, but really what we’re doing here Soap Creek is contract manufacturing. And so when a customer comes to us with an idea, they want their product unique. So, we try to help them find those hero ingredients. Like, we were talking about those the Baobab or walnuts or apricot shells or those things where they can say theirs is different than everybody else’s. And so that’s the journey that we’re on. We build a lot of stuff for a lot of people. And we’re able to help them through creating their own unique product, where they can tell their story and what they want to present to their customers. So, so we’re kind of in the background of that. More on the, you know, in the in the shadows of making somebody else’s product unique, I would say.
Jason Strauch: Taking their idea and finding a way to bring it to fruition.
Fred Johnson: We’ve got to have some blueberry seeds. You got to find us some blueberry seeds or, you know, whatever it is.
Garrett McBride: Organic fair trade.
Jason Strauch: There you go. What kind of trends are you seeing within and out in the natural organic soap and beauty space?
Roxy Johnson: A lot of solids, really. So, it’s really good time for us here at Soap Creek because we, our foundation was built upon solid soaps. We’ve done a lot of liquids like I mentioned, but what’s trending really, we feel like from our perspective is a lot of water-free, bottle-free, you know, beauty products to where producing solid shampoos, solid conditioners, anything that reduces the footprint materials being moved across the country where it would not include, you know, the extra weight of water. That’s just a dilution. So, we’re seeing a lot of the solids, which is really good for us. And then, you know, the really awesome thing about this is there’s no bottling involved. We’re just using recycled paper boxes, and that’s a huge up-and-coming trend in the both haircare and body care space.
Fred Johnson: There is a huge advantage of this the water-free bottle-free movement. It is that you’re saving so much on the weight of the transportation across the country. You’re saving on the 0 plastic bottles. Most of the products are in a recycled paper marked box versus a bottle on a capital label. And It’s just a trend that 3 or 4 of our customers are doing really, really good, at the store level. So everywhere from Whole Foods to Target, to Kroger, to Ulta Beauty. We’ve got products on the shelves made with Smirks ingredients that, that are doing really, really good. And I think across the board, people are just starting to appreciate that effort that’s being put in to minimize the plastic use and minimize just the number of wastes that’s going into the landfill. We were talking to one of our customers just this week, and they’re on this movement that became, certified zero-waste facility, which is really cool. They’re on the East Coast over there in North Carolina, but we don’t have this out here in Utah, but they have some options over there where the company will come in and take all of their waste, they’ll recycle all of the every all the plastic all the paperboard, anything that they’re using, anything that doesn’t get recycled is incinerated. They take those, ashes, which is quite good for the ground and they turn it into compost and turn it into mulch and any of the metals that are pulled out of that. Then they melt down and do something else with that. So, there’s nothing from their facility that goes into a landfill ever. Every bit of their waste product is taken and turned into something that’s useful. And even the stuff that they incinerate those incinerator power generator and trading electricity for some low-income housing and those types of things. So, it’s it’s really cool to see people start take those initiatives to be more conscious to than what we’re doing across the board.
Jason Strauch: I’ve actually found one of the shampoo bars that you guys make that you had told me about I’ve actually bought a few of those, and I use them specifically in my travel kits. So, I don’t have to worry about only 2 ounces of shampoo or something when I fly because I have my shampoo bar. I love it. I think it’s a fantastic idea, and I do appreciate the idea of not dragging water around the country. So, anything concentrated like that, I think, is fantastic.
Garrett McBride: And that sustainability piece makes for such a good story, and I think it resonates with a lot of consumers at this point. That’s great.
Jason Strauch: So, I guess our last question will be, what do you see in store for Soap Creeks company and products in the future? What are those next things that are coming up that you do you feel are going to be, influential or a large part of the world moving forward?
Fred Johnson: Okay. I touched on before, you know, we want to get to the next level of our company. Our goals on the — moving from the round of 50-employee mark to the 100-employee mark. And we feel like that that’s still considered quite a small company, but we want to keep that culture the same. So, you’re you know, it’s just a fun size of a crew to have as far as the company’s future goes. Really, I think that our future as far as the products that we’re making is going to stay in that water-free bottle-free space. And even the stuff that is in liquids that has to stay in a liquid form, we’re seeing a lot of movement toward aluminum bottles or reusable bottles and those types of things.
Roxy Johnson: So, we’re investing a lot into building out more production for those water-free bottle-free items. We’re over the next several months here, we’re implementing a lot more top tanks and even some automation and robots that are going to really push us to the next level as far as Soap Creek goes with, particularly in this water-free bottle-free space.
Jason Strauch: Very cool. Garrett, do you have any other questions that you might want to add in for Soap Creek?
Garrett McBride: I’m just curious. Where can I find the Soap Creek branded items? Where can I go buy the Soap Creek branded soap?
Roxy Johnson: So we build a lot of brands, and so some of them are under, you know, their proprietary that we’re building them, but you can go to our website for our branded products, soapcreek.com.
Garrett McBride: Okay.
Roxy Johnson: And get our beautiful soaps there.
Garrett McBride: I love it. They’re beautiful. They really are.
Jason Strauch: Last one I got was the sandalwood one, so I appreciate that.
Roxy Johnson: It’s a great soap.
Fred Johnson: So just one more real quick story before we jump off here, but where we got the name Soap Creek, it comes from a real place. I grew up in Northern Arizona on the Arizona Strip right there by the Grand Canyon, and there’s a little canyon just north of the Grand Canyon that’s called Soap Creek Canyon that you can hike down into the Colorado River. It’s just beautiful there through those really red rocks, and we used to go there when I was little. So, when we started the soap company, we were looking for it the name, then the Soap Creek, and so that where the Soap Creek name comes from. But the interesting story of why it was named Soap Creek is the water is really alkaline there. Which was really how the soap was made. The little stream that runs down in Soap Creek Canyon is alkaline, we can’t even just stop there. When the pioneers were first coming through that area, they camped there, and all they had to eat was this badger. So, they got the water out of the stream. They cooked this badger in pot. And the next morning, they woke up, and there’s soap on the top of the pot because the oil off the badger created that. Mixed with the alkaline water and then boiled and soaked through the night, and so it was inedible, and they couldn’t eat it. So that’s where the name Soap Creek came from is. They can actually make soap right out of the water, out of that little stream. So, Soap Creek Canyon in Northern Arizona, a little tiny place out of nowhere.
Garrett McBride: That’s a great story.
Jason Strauch: Well, it’s been fantastic hosting Fred and Roxy from Soap Creek on a podcast today. We’ve learned a lot about your company and the natural soap product industry. Fred and Roxy, it’s been a pleasure having you on our podcast, and we’d like to thank you for your time today. It’s always a pleasure working with you. If our audience has any questions about Soap Creek or their products, we would invite you to visit soapcreek.com. It has a really interesting story about Fred and Roxy and the story specifically about the Soap Creek in Northern Arizona. And you can look through some of their products and get yourself some really, really nice bars of soap that are definitely very pretty. So, thank you again. That’s our feature segment about Soap Creek. Up next is our product feature all about the wide range of bulk ingredients used in the natural soap and cosmetics industry. Fred and Roxy, again, thank you very much and we appreciate your business and the opportunity to work with you.
Fred Johnson: Yeah. Thank you. Always enjoy the Smirks Team.
Jason Strauch: Well, I always tell you you’re one of my favorites.
Fred Johnson: Yeah. Thank you.
Garrett McBride: I’ve heard him say it.
Fred Johnson: Likewise. I do mean, that.
Roxy Johnson: Thanks.
Fred Johnson: Thanks, guys and we’ll see you!
Garrett McBride: Good to connect with you guys. Thank you very much.
Jason Strauch: Thank you, Fred and Roxy.
Bulk Ingredients for Soap and Cosmetics Product Feature
Garrett McBride: Hello, and welcome to our Get The Scoop with Smirks Episode 6 Product Feature. Today, we’re highlighting organic and non-GMO conventional ingredients utilized in the soap and cosmetics industry. We’ll be talking about some of the trends in the industry, and then we’ll dive into some of the ingredients that Smirks offers and how they are utilized in cosmetics products.
The global natural cosmetics market is expected to hit $48.4B by the end of 2023. The US makes up 82.3% of that market demand. It’s driven by demand from consumers who are looking for more natural and organic products not just to incorporate into their diet, but also into their personal care products. It’s good for you to be aware that the FDA considers skin moisturizers, perfumes, lipsticks, fingernail polishes, makeup, shampoos, hair colors, toothpaste, and deodorants to be cosmetics. As a side note, Smirks always recommends following regulatory guidelines when developing your packaging labels. For example, the FDA has not defined the term natural for cosmetics. For our purposes, we refer to natural cosmetics as products that contain ingredients that are derived from plant or minerals and are minimally processed. Additionally, please know that the USDA regulates organically certified cosmetics, but they must also follow FDA guidelines.
Jason Strauch: Let’s talk about some of the key attributes that consumers are looking for when it comes to natural cosmetics. Consumers have a desire for simpler ingredients. In other words, ingredients they know as opposed to synthetic products or chemicals that they are unfamiliar with or may not even be able to pronounce. Sustainable ingredients and packaging is another big one. Consumers want to know the products they use on a daily basis. They’re not harmful to the environment, and they are mindful of their consumption of packaging materials. So, for example, the trend towards solid bar shampoos and conditioners that do not require plastic packaging speaks to consumers’ interest in eco-friendly cosmetic packaging. Consumers are looking for certain attributes, including organic. That USDA organic symbol provides a level of verification and transparency that is comforting. And those in the know realize that USDA organic means that the product is made from food-grade organic ingredients. Some consumers patronize specific local, regional, and national retail chains to purchase their soap, cosmetic, and beauty products. There’s a level of comfort in knowing the products on the shelf have been vetted by the retailer and are free from certain ingredients or chemicals that are not in line with natural products.
Garrett McBride: While Smirks is widely known for our bulk ingredients for the food and beverage industries, we also supply a range of conventional and organic bulk ingredients that are used in the cosmetics industry. Let’s start with the largest category of products, oils. We offer coconut, avocado, grape seed, sunflower, and olive oil, just to name a few. Each oil may be selected for its own unique properties. RBD coconut oil, for example, is one of the most popular items that Smirks sells to the cosmetics industry. Incidentally, if you want to learn more about coconut products, be sure and check out our Episode number 4 on National Coconut Day. RBD stands for refined bleached and deodorized. And in addition to being used for making soap, shampoos, conditioners, body moisturizers, it is also an ingredient used to make candles. Avocado oil is made by pressing the pulp that surrounds the avocado pit. It is often selected for cosmetics since it’s considered an emollient which is known to increase moisture levels when used on the skin. Avocado oils lathering and cleansing properties also make it a great option. Grape seed oil is an ideal choice when you’re looking for a neutral oil because it doesn’t have any scent or color. And if you want to create a creamy and conditioning lather, you may want to try using sunflower oil. Sunflower oil is also known to be good for most any skin type. Ideally, a cold pressed organic sunflower oil may be selected for use in skin care products. Olive oil, such as grade A or pomace olive oil, is often used in soap recipes, particularly when it is a product for sensitive skin or for conditioning bar. Cocoa butter is another item used widely in the natural cosmetic industry. History tells us that cocoa has been consumed as a food and even a medicine for over 3000 years dating back to Mayan and Aztec civilizations. You can find cocoa butter used as a moisturizing and soothing ingredient in lip balms, body creams, lotions, and sugar scrubs. Smirks is one of the largest importers of organic and conventional and gluten-free coconut sugar. An alternative to cane sugar is coconut sugar, which also used to make sugar scrubs. Pink Himalayan salt is a popular functional ingredient used in bath products. Mineral salts can help break down the buildup of lactic acid, which can be a root cause of muscle pain. If you need a good thickening agent for your cosmetic line, consider using arrow root powder or arrow root starch. It’s also known to absorb moisture and odors so it can be used to produce natural deodorants. If you’re looking for an ingredient to add a nice fragrance to your line, consider vanilla extract. Vanilla extract is used to provide a sweet and warm set for cosmetic products. It is also added to provide a pleasing scent to natural candles.
Jason Strauch: Along with offering a wide range of bulk conventional and organic ingredients, Smirks offers warehousing services and delivery. We’re able to contract ingredients over a period of time that help the customer avoid higher spot prices on the market or risk running low on supply. Our Smirks QA team vets all of our natural and food grade organic ingredients for food safety and quality. We provide documents to our customers as needed, as well as samples for R and D projects. We are always interested in helping with a new project or quoting you on existing business. Please reach out to Smirks at whatsnew@smirks.com. Please let us know if you have any questions or comments about our podcast. Thank you for listening.
Smirk’s August 2023 Monthly Market Report
Donny Edson: Here’s our Get the Scoop with Smirks Podcast Monthly Market Report for August 2023.
Start with, we’re going to talk a little bit about ocean freight. We continue to see minimal changes on the pricing of ocean freight. As of today, there’s really no concerns about any laden decide for watching the backups in the Panama Canal. We continue to see pricing from South America get better, and pricing from Europe has continued to improve. Overall, we have no concerns with ocean freight at this time. At the moment, the ports are flowing normal. We do see an occasional 1 to 2-week delay on containers as they’re arriving, but we don’t see any of the backups or issues that we were seeing during COVID. One of the big things that everybody’s still talking about and watching is interest rates. Certainly, the environment for money is one of the bigger issues this year. Customers are asking for longer terms and suppliers are asking to be paid earlier. With no idea of what increases or decreases will be coming with the interest in the next few months, we’ve pretty much adapted that this is an environment that everyone’s gonna have to live with for a long time. So the cost of money is something that will continue to put pressure on the prices of the commodities.
The first commodity we’ll talk about is sunflowers. When Russia began bombing grain storage infrastructure in Ukraine a few weeks ago, that led many people pulling back from the market to see how things would play out. Both EU and US suppliers began offering higher prices as many other commodities suddenly increased. However, this fear has subsided and the markets are right back in line with where they were before this happened. The US crop is still looking pretty solid, and the crop in the EU looks good as well. At the moment, we do not anticipate the market to move much in either direction.
Pumpkin seed harvest is beginning to happen in China right now. The conventional prices have already started to soften as packers are working to get more demand for pumpkins. Overall, the demand globally has been soft. Traditionally, the second half of August is an ideal time to start booking pumpkins. The organic crop still needs a couple of weeks to have a clear picture of how the new crop pricing will be. On snow white pumpkin, the suppliers are indicating the crop to be the same size as last year’s crops. So, we do not anticipate much happening with this, and it should remain stable.
Cashews. At the end of July, whole grades, especially 240 count started to move. This led to less stock available for whole grades, especially the 240 count. Most packers are not going out past September shipment at this moment. Broken grades seem very stable with prices moving at most 5¢ a pound in either direction. Organic demand has not been as strong as conventional, but still following along with conventional pricing. The EU buyers have been less active on organic cashews, which has helped to keep prices stable.
In South America where you’re deep in the harvest of Chia, Paraguay headed their early harvest and sold most of the product right away, and that quickly drove up prices from the lows that we saw in June and July. Now we’re waiting to see how much product is left and is being harvested to see how the market responds. Many large buyers have signed contracts and are covered for the new crop already. Also, Argentina is still waiting to harvest, so once we see how much product they have, this can help to see how the market responds. You may remember last year was very similar, and the lowest prices we saw were in June and July, and the prices started to rise through Q3, and they never stopped. This year feels very similar to last year, and our recommendation is to get coverage if you haven’t yet.
With coconut sugar, Indonesia is still behind considerably on shipments, and the market is still very tight in the USA. Depending on the area that the processors are in, they’re facing different issues at origin. Near Purwokerto in the mountains they’re facing too much rain or just getting done with too much rain. And in Yogyakarta, they’re deep in the dry season right now, and it is very dry there. Overall, as soon as we think we will catch up on inventory, immense demand comes in and takes all the stock that we have on the water. And we now think that it’ll be October until we have decent volumes to offer in the USA, and it’s highly recommended to get your coverage from October through at least March on the books.
On coconut, Sri Lanka is entering their dry season, and we expect pricing to begin to increase from this origin. The entire global coconut market feels that the market is at the bottom and that the market will start to increase as soon as the effects of El Niño really get going on the crop. Most suppliers are booking through the end of 2023 and they feel that in Q1 of 2024 will begin to see price increases. Smirks is poking coconut contracts through June 2024 right now, and several people are taking advantage of this. Overall, in the market, things are very stable with El Niño being on everyone’s mind. We’re advising customers to start to get coverage on anything they’re buying through Q1 or Q2 of 2024 to capture the great prices we’re seeing on commodities.
Nick Erker: So that’s it for this episode of Get the Scoop with Smirks Podcast, where we bring you the latest market reports, insights into bulk ingredients and their origins, as well as in-depth product information. So, if you have any questions, or feedback, or just want a sample to taste for yourself, visit the smirks.com website or email us at whatsnew@smirks.com. Never miss a future episode. Be sure to hit the subscribe button wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks so much for tuning in.