The Founder
Think about the last time you put on bug spray.
The way it smelled. The way it dried out your skin and never really absorbed. The way it was still on you when you got into bed.
Are you over it yet? I was.
So I avoided bug spray at all costs.
I went inside while everyone stayed out.
I kept my hands in my pockets.
Half my mind was always on how much skin I had showing.
Then I went to Portugal and...
I got 20 mosquito bites in one day. Not a typo.
Last year I went on vacation. I’d been looking forward to it for months and I’d bought all these new bikinis I was so excited to wear.
I spent the week covered in red welts down my legs and arms, itching constantly. Not the trip I’d pictured.
And I knew better! I’ve always known I get bitten more than everyone around me. I still hadn’t put repellent on, because I hate wearing it that much.
I’d recently discovered shimmer body oils and I was obsessed. My skin looked incredible, it felt soft and hydrated, and it smelled delicious. Then I caved and put bug spray over all of it, and it took every bit of that away in a second. Dry and sticky at the same time, somehow. And it smelled like chemicals.
You know exactly what I mean.
I sat by the pool and started looking for something better. Something that actually worked and that I’d actually want to wear. It wasn’t out there.
Making a product was never on the list. It was not a dream of mine and it was not something even remotely related to what I went to school for. It just mattered to me that much, and I couldn’t let the idea go.
So I decided to make it myself.
More than one person told me to skip the picaridin.
I said no every single time.
The advice was always the same.
Drop the part that actually repels mosquitoes, forget the EPA, and launch something pretty in a few months.
I understood the math. A prettier bottle that doesn’t work already exists. That’s what I was stepping away from.
I wanted both. Something that actually protects you, and something made with the care you’d expect from anything else you put on your skin.
So yeah, it’s the longer journey. It costs more than the version I was recommended to make. I don’t mind. It’s worth it.
The formula is finished. The paperwork is not. I find out how much I still don’t know roughly every other day. Highly recommend.
Let me explain the EPA
Years, not months.
Anything that claims to repel mosquitoes has to be registered with the EPA first. That review is why this takes years, and it’s why you’ll be able to trust what the bottle says.
Why can’t we have better repellent? And why shouldn’t it be me who makes it?
When it gets really hard, I come back to who this is for.
where you’re getting eaten alive and the only option is the sticky bottle under the sink.
where you don’t want to smell like a citronella candle.
where you want them leaning in because you smell incredible, not backing off because you smell like bug spray.
It’s for the version of me sitting by that pool in Portugal. And it’s for you. You deserve a repellent you actually want to put on.
One more thing
If you’ve made it this far, there’s one more thing I want you to know about me. I was a painfully shy kid. I barely talked. I even joined the mime club in high school specifically so I wouldn’t have to. If you’d told that girl she’d start a company on her own and take on a federal registration process, she would not have believed you. Some days I still don’t.
I’m doing it for her. And if any of this sounds like you, I want you to hear it. That shy kid decided she didn’t have anything worth saying.
She was wrong.
I wish she could see this.
I can’t tell her, so I’m telling you.
Laura 💗