Max Green Alchemy

The following is a Nature of Beauty interview with Wil Baker, one of the founders of Max Green Alchemy.

 

How did MGA come to be?

We started at the end of 2004. Dave and I had worked in the natural products field for several years, working together on separate little projects, and eventually decided to launch a great brand in the U.S., bringing great natural products to this market. We had friends that worked in the industry who we would give advice to [in our former roles], and they introduced us to industry and gave us the exposure we needed.

 

The knowledge we had built up was geared toward skin and hair care products. That for us was an easy starting point. So we familiarized ourselves with ingredients, read research papers, what different academics were saying about them, we were able to build up a database of ingredients we thought we could work with, and those we wouldn’t. We wanted control of the products, we didn’t want to just outsource to manufacturers, so we turned David’s kitchen into a mini-lab, acquired samples of ingredients, and really just played with ingredients.

 

Once we came up with products we were happy with, we then sent to manufacturer the ingredient list and processes, and one of us has been present for each step of the manufacturing process. We source our own ingredients, so there’s no risk involved, no hidden ingredients or preservatives.

 

What is your mission?

It boils down to producing products that are natural, clean as possible, effective, and as good as mainstream products. People seemed prepared to sacrifice quality for natural, but we wanted our products to have the right smell, the right texture, while not compromising on integrity.

 

How does one go about creating the perfect formula for hair products, body products, etc?

We do two types of testing. The first is to make sure they are safe. Manufacturers test our products to make sure the ph is correct, and that [they fight bacteria]. And then we test their performance by asking people, every time we’ve come up with a sample, we’ll ask people to try it and tell us what they think about it. Current customers, friends, family, as many opinions as you can get. Sometimes we’ve given out samples people love right away, but the shampoo was the longest to get to market – about 12 months just to get to market. It’s a complex product to manufacture. You have a trade-off with shampoos. You want mild detergents to stop the scalp from drying out, but people are fixated on foaming, even though foaming is not a big part of the washing process. People don’t think their hair has been cleaned if it’s not foaming.

 

Because natural ingredients are becoming more in demand, prices are beginning to increase. Products are potentially going to have a high inflation rate due to increase in demand, but right now it’s a minor worry.

 

The other challenge is to get your brand name out there, especially when you’re a small business without a parent company. We’ve been very careful to do very targeted marketing, and no expensive ad campaigns. We’ve relied a lot on word of mouth. There’s nothing more powerful than your customers recommending products to others. And then, from a retailer perspective, we have resellers of our product, and they can be slow to change, especially when your product don’t have brand recognition. But then you get to the point where you have a certain number of resellers, and it doesn’t get to be such a big issue.

 

For us, walking straight into one of the Whole Food regions and having them carry our products. It gives you exposure and credence elsewhere in the market. It’s the customer that tends to make the most difference. It certainly helps us out.

 

The other thing was having 3 years where we were bringing new products every 2-3 months. We gave people things to talk about, widen the breadth of things we had to offer. We’re now at the point where we are going to start re-developing products. We’ve also received the PETA award.

 

Our departure from the way others formulate is not in the various scents or aromas. For us, it’s important that every single ingredient has a purpose. So when you smell our products, each of the essential oils that creates the aroma has a therapeutic purpose. For example, tea tree and lemon tree are extremely anti-fungal, and fungus is thought to cause dandruff. Rosemary is thought to keep hair color intact. Lamodil is very healing, and gives hair a very healing boost. Geranium, which is a great essential oil for the hair, has anti-fungal properties and acts as an astringent. So people with oily scalps will get some relief.

 

We are going to stick with what we know best, which is bringing out great products, with a little bit of a focus on facial regime. We are also looking at other territories, maybe opening an office here in London. We don’t want to concentrate on Japan or Asia or some other territory that will take our eye off the ball. We want to grow and expand our lines. We’re going to extend our hair care line, like hair spray, which is difficult to do naturally. We’ve launched a new line [of facial care] called Elemini, based on some great ingredients. We’ve brought out oils, and are now working on toners, cleansers, and exfoliators. It’s a fabulous line, and we already know in our heads which formulations will extend the lines.

 

As you know, preservatives are a constant point of contention in this industry. What is your approach to preservatives?

Our commitment is to use naturally sourced ingredients only, so synthetics will not sit as an option for us. We definitely check our products to check for microbial content. We also put bacteria into products to see if the ingredients kill them off. That way we test to make sure our preservatives are effective. And we check them 6-12 months later to make sure they’re still killed off. We find our products have a shelf life of 3 years. All preservatives lose their life over time. The main we use is anisic acid, a derivative of anus seed. And then we use other ingredients that have preservative functions, but need the anisic acid to make them effective.

 

We worked with lawyers familiar with FDA regulations, and wanted to make sure we were 100% honest with our ingredients. There are some companies that list certain ingredients, saying they are coconut based but give no specifics, and yet some versions of these ingredients are really bad for you. The consumer should be able to know what specifically they are using. Like sodium laureth sulfate can be made with coconut, but it can be so abrasive on the scalp, can cause breaking of the scalp. Unfortunately, the FDA, from my experience, monitors the borders, but if you’re manufacturing in the U.S., the FDA isn’t likely to ever visit your doors.

 

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