Skip to main content

Face first

By |
Atlantic Canada's skincare industry is growing and glowing

Atlantic Canada's skincare industry is growing and glowing

Atlantic Canada’s skincare industry is growing and glowing

Let’s talk sea kelp. And Labrador Tea. And even a secret field of roses. They’re all found in Atlantic Canada’s diverse, and growing, locally made skincare and cosmetics industry, where many businesses are emphasizing natural and clean products, some even foraging from the land and sea for pristine, effective natural ingredients.

“Things really are developing here. It’s really great to see,” says Tassi McQuade, sales and marketing manager with Nova Scotia Fisherman, a New Minas-based company that uses nutrient-rich, sustainable sea kelp, wild harvested from Nova Scotia’s Southern Shore and sourced from Yarmouth’s Acadian Seaplants. These products are found in major retailers like Sobeys, Loblaws and Whole Foods and the company has distributors in Canada and Japan.

“There’s a real community sense here with most businesses,” she says. “It’s not necessarily competitive. It’s more collaborative. That’s kind of a neat thing. It’s the East Coast way, working as a team and supporting each other. We’re competitive with them but connected and stay in touch.”

McQuade says while there’s always been a core group of customers who read the labels, there’s been a huge leap in awareness among consumers for what they’re putting on their skin, and the industry has been booming over the last five years, especially during the pandemic when people have been home more, looking at what’s around, and supporting local, be that at the community, provincial, regional, or national level.

That growth comes with some unique challenges for Nova Scotia Fisherman, started about eight years ago when uncle and nephew Perley Beairsto and Les Falconer (McQuade’s father-in-law) started a business producing soy candles (a product they recently reintroduced).

Looking to transition into a more sustainable and consistent venture, Beairsto was speaking with friends Bob MacLeod and Steve Byckiewicz — creators of Kiss My Face, founded in the 1980s in New York and one of the first natural products on the shelf — who mentioned sea kelp research and its skin benefits. Beairsto suggested they make some products here, and the four established the company.

“We’re at a real impasse right now,” says McQuade. “We’re growing so quickly but our brand story is so unique, that we produce at these small levels, we’re hand-making it and it’s artisanal.” The challenge, she adds, is achieving that balance, keeping to their priorities and values while fulfilling large quantities of orders and growing.

Being competitive with the giant international companies isn’t an option, she says. They’ll never be at that level of production.

“When they established the business, what was important to all of them was to provide job opportunities in rural Nova Scotia. As they grew, they wanted to stay true to that,” says McQuade, nothing they use local whenever possible, from print companies to community initiative Plank Industries, which creates the boat displays that house their products in many retailers.

Products are packed with organic sea kelp, which McQuade says is natural, abundant, and harvested from a coastline with the world’s lowest pollution level; seabuckthorn, an abundant local bushberry rich in vitamin C; and bayberry, another Nova Scotia bushberry. Soaps are scented with local ingredients when possible, such as apple cider from nearby Stirling Firms. They don’t use preservatives nor test on animals.

Products are submitted to Health Canada to be verified as a safe product and to Oxford University to conduct bio cosmetic safety reports, a required step to sell outside Canada.

“Rural Nova Scotia is a difficult place to grow a company. We’re not on a main shipping route. There has to be a real reason to stick with our process to stay here,” says McQuade. “We like to support our local community. We see there’s value. That’s really important to the owners. They want to see Nova Scotia succeed.”

HOLISTIC SKINCARE

Helping people with their skincare has been a forever passion for Sharon Quann, owner of P.E.I.-based Quannessence Skincare, which manufactures and sells a complete facial product line that’s used and sold in professional spa settings. More recently, they’ve offered an online shop for their products.

It’s a professional niche brand that offers cosmeceutical products with a holistic approach to skin conditions. “We are proudly 100 per cent locally designed, researched, created, and produced in P.E.I.,” says Quann, an aesthetician and owner of QuannSpa Holistic Beauty Therapies in Summerside, where Quannessence has its R&D section in the same building.

Quann, an industry veteran of nearly 35 years, sought out early in her career the Dr. Hauschka School in Germany, an institute that teaches the importance of a holistic approach to skincare, and started dreaming of creating a skincare line in P.E.I.

She put dream into motion in 2005, contracting a skincare formulator, and for five years they worked to create a product line, launching Quannessence Skincare, and incorporating BioSpa (Quann) Cosmeceuticals as the manufacturing company in 2010. Since the incorporation of BioSpa, Quannessence has expanded across Canada.

Quann says the company is known for using a holistic approach to skin health. This means they try to dig deeper to determine the causes of an issue. “This deeper understanding helps the client reduce the likelihood of their skin ailment reappearing in the future. The root cause can often be dietary, stress, allergen, and environmental causes. Education is also a key focus point for us to share with our clients and aestheticians using our products on their clients.”

She says they select ingredients sourced from nature’s best, offering professional-grade results, and they incorporate high potency peptides and age softening ingredients. They also layer active ingredients to impact optimal results.

Production process at Quannessence lab. Photo: Submitted

Production process at Quannessence lab. Photo: Submitted

Thora Christensen, Quannessence formulator and head of R&D, says the majority of research into developing new products, such as the gel toner and gel cleanser currently in development, is done in-house and first begins by identifying gaps in their line through customer requests and Quann’s knowledge and experience in the industry.

“We then do extensive research on the active ingredients to deliver optimal results while maintaining our sustainable and ethical values,” Christensen says. “Once the active ingredients have been selected, we incorporate them into the formulation utilizing specialty delivery systems at their optimal concentration based on research and testing.”

Once the products have been formulated, each prototype is tested by staff and by Quann in her practice for client feedback until the desired consistency and results are achieved. Next comes quality testing and packaging, and product registration with Health Canada.

Christensen says about 95 per cent of their ingredients are from North America, and they source local as much as possible if it fits within their specifications and safety. “Our No. 1 priority is creating safe, healthy, ethical, and botanically based skincare that provides results,” she says.

Consumers are knowledgeable on what they want in skincare and are placing more importance on ethical and natural ingredients, they say. Extensive research is available online, and most consumers are deciding to weigh that into purchasing decisions.

“They’re digging a little more, which we think is amazing,” says Christensen, who says Quannessence loves to educate their customers about ingredients, why they’re using them and their benefits.

The company has seen considerable increase in the demand to shop local, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. While reasoning varies from person to person, consumers, they say, are becoming even more educated and aware of the benefits this has to their local economy and the negative environmental impacts their consumer goods have when traveling long distances. “Buying local makes people feel good and have more confidence in their purchases,” Christensen adds.

The pandemic has presented both opportunities and challenges. Among the challenges are supply chain issues, economic impacts, a nonstop roller coaster of health and safety restrictions which have presented huge challenges for spas, as well as small business and spa closures.

Challenges exist too with much competition in the industry, with many large companies that have a lot of resources, as well as record-high shipping costs, diminishing returns on online advertising and a massive increase in the number of channels businesses are selling and advertising on.

As a small company, Quann says businesses such as hers can market themselves to broader audiences using social media and email marketing. Quannessence is also sold through several distribution networks throughout Canada that supply spas and salons with professional products. Its sales and marketing team also markets and sells the brand through in-person appointments and online strategies.

Since it’s a small company, she says nimbleness is an advantage (such as introducing online sales, training, and marketing) and to customize to client needs.

FRESH FROM THE FOREST

“Here in Atlantic Canada, we have a variety of skincare and cosmetic companies, small companies like mine to larger, really diverse companies,” says Cecelia Brooks, owner and formulator at Soul Flower Herbals, a Wabanaki family-owned company in Fredericton, NB producing skincare and wellness products in small batches, foraging in forests and fields for ingredients like sap from white pine bark (used in Brooks’ favorite moisturizer) to rose petals collected in July from a secret spot, a huge field that’s nothing but roses.

“Our products are all unique,” says Brooks, who holds a chemistry degree, and previously worked as a chemist in an environment lab in the U.S.

She says the company doesn’t go outside the region for many of the active compounds in the products, making ingredients hyper-local. Brooks has a small lab, where she extracts ingredients and works on the products, keeping them simple and natural. She also researches peer journals.

“We want to make sure what we’re using is wholesome and effective,” she says.

“We’re an Indigenous family. It’s family-run, which makes it really important for us to get this right. It has our name and reputation on it.”

Brooks, of St. Mary’s First Nation in New Brunswick, has seen change since she returned to Canada in 2006.

When Brooks first started making body care products 31 years ago, she never imagined turning it into a business. Many people were of the mind they could get such products at places like Walmart for less, and the public just didn’t know what was in the product.

This awareness of ingredients led her to make her own products. Pregnant with her oldest son in the late 1980s, she recalls speaking with other mothers about the benefits of baby massage. Brooks wanted to make her own massage oil and started looking for a natural oil.

She turned to the library for research. She started noticing ingredients in soaps and lip balms too and began making natural products for family use.

Moving home, she had a hard time finding work in her field. Her son suggested she sell her body care products.

“Nah, nobody’s going to buy that,” she remembers saying. “He said ‘I’d buy it.’”

She started at Boyce Farmers Market with her organic lip balm. “I was like the Baskin-Robbins of lip balm. I had so many flavours. Each had only about four ingredients. It’s very simple, it’s good on the lips, it really helps.”

They’ve been at the market 16 years now and have built a strong clientele.

“We find the best business we do is direct sales, because people want to talk to us. Half our business is in conversation. People want to know what rosehip oil does to the skin.”

Brooks says listening to customers is how they’ve grown their product line.

Their number-one ask from their faithful following spurred Brooks and son Anthony to launch another business, Wabamaki Tree Spirit, offering medicine walks teaching people about plant uses and their culture as they meander the forest.

GROWING INDUSTRY

“I’d definitely say it’s a growing industry,” says Jenepher Reynolds of About Face in Charlottetown, P.E.I., known for her own cosmetic line, including customized foundations.

The skincare and cosmetic industry is just taking off, she says. “The industry has very much gone from a want to a need.”

Reynolds, who previously worked in Toronto for 10 years, doing makeup for TV commercials to magazine ads, says it’s hard to find good, quality products. But it’s important. Like her clients, she’s concerned and aware of ingredients and she sources a clean, quality cosmetic line not tested on animals, that’s paraffin and mineral-oil free. For her custom-blend foundation, she uses these products to customize to the individual, tailoring the product to each person, be it to help calm redness, increase sunscreen level or enhance hydration.

SMALL BUT GROWING

Lorraine Crowe’s entry into the industry came when she couldn’t find a solution to her own skincare issues. Now a licensed holistic nutrition and health practitioner, with a diploma in natural skincare formulation, a certification in making natural skincare products, and training in aromatherapy and natural hair care diploma, she started Truro, N.S.-based Rain Natural Skincare.

She wanted to use more clean and natural ingredients on her skin, and she wanted to pick the ingredients that made sense for her and eliminate those that didn’t. She couldn’t find something locally, so she started making her own. “In the beginning, it was a lot of trial and error, but I knew I wanted to continue and make my products the best they could be, so I enrolled to get proper education and to learn about the skin, how it works, and what is best for each unique skin type.”

Rain Natural Skincare batch of Green Tea Eye Cream. Photo: Submitted

Rain Natural Skincare batch of Green Tea Eye Cream. Photo: Submitted

She describes Atlantic Canada’s skincare industry as small, but slowly growing. “There are makers out there that are offering alternatives to over-the-counter skincare products. Mother Nature has given us many plants that were used for thousands of years for medicinal reasons, but then it all turned to synthetic and cheaper alternatives. I truly believe more people are seeing the healing and beneficial nutrients that are available in natural options and are choosing to source them out.”

Science is helping us learn more about how our skin and bodies work, and with that comes the understanding that there are ingredients that our skin or bodies aren’t made to absorb, she says. More people want to find healthier alternatives and are tired of things that simply cover up a symptom, rather than find a solution.

Every Saturday, Crowe is at the Truro Farmers Market, and she participates in holiday markets, helping increase visibility for her products handmade fresh in small batches. She posts almost daily on her Facebook and Instagram accounts and promotes her website for online shopping. She also sends out a weekly email newsletter.

The challenges against big brand stores are convenience, she says. People like to have a one-stop shop. “There are some people who realize that’s not always the best alternative, and others who don’t want to bother going elsewhere,” she says. “It’s important to make sure that your customers know where you are, how to purchase from you, and to educate them on your business and your products on a regular basis.”

She says today’s customers want to support and to be supported. They want a connection. That’s an opportunity for small businesses. “Make an effort to get to know your customers and do the best you can to make their shopping experience positive and easy for them,” she advises. “There is so much we can do to connect with our customers and make meaningful connections, which big brands just can’t do.”

HEALING BEAUTY

Lisa Walsh, founder and formulator of Indigena Skincare in Conception Bay South, N.L., draws from the province’s land and sea, using a blend of pure ingredients distilled from sea botanicals and indigenous northern boreal extracts.

Walsh says everything Indigena makes is good for the skin (“healing beauty powered by nature”) and she takes pride in creating a brand Canadian-made from local, hand-foraged ingredients, created based on science that took six years of research and development. “There are no shortcuts in quality, creativity or innovation. It takes time to build a business, you have to be in it for the long haul.”

She started Indigena in 2009 after selling her shares in another skincare company. She was an award-winning hair designer, spa and salon owner and instructor. She loved making people feel good through beauty. Then she got sick.

“I was 36 when I had to quit my beloved career,” she says. “I was devastated. It took me a few years to recover and during that time I did a lot of research on ingredients used in formulas and spent a lot of time outside in nature healing. I wanted to create products that were beautiful, efficacious, science-backed and healthy.”

She says the botanical garden at Memorial University of Newfoundland was a big help, as was a government grant. “I completed some science projects through Memorial University through Research and Development Corporation,” she says. “Being a teacher myself I wanted to see the evidence of what we could create. We forage from the Avalon Peninsula, and it is here that plants are challenged daily with fluctuating temperatures. These plants have the highest antioxidants of their kind on the planet.”

She says the locally made skincare/cosmetic industry started much like the cottage industries in craft you see throughout the Atlantic.

In the lab with Lisa Walsh, from Indigena Skincare. Photo: Submitted

In the lab with Lisa Walsh, from Indigena Skincare. Photo: Submitted

“It is primarily female-based with women who are motivated to make a difference in their communities,” she says. “For me, it came down to creating a professional lifestyle I enjoy with a strong social purpose of giving back to my community, province and region.”

The global trends of minimalism, local purchasing, foraging, traceability of ingredients, zero waste, science based, eco-friendly, cruelty-free and vegan are what consumers want here, like everywhere these are the top trends in the natural space globally, she says.

Consumers, she says, are becoming more aware of what they’re putting on their skin. “There is a global clean beauty and wellness movement that is well beyond what industry insiders thought was a trend. Natural, clean beauty is here to stay. This industry is evolving daily.”

Still, there’s education needed for people to realize the difference between natural/clean and chemical-based product, she says. “Fragrance and preservatives wreak havoc on sensitive skin. Many products are made with water, parabens, mineral oil (petroleum jelly) and fragrance that have hormone disrupting phthalates. Consumers look for better formulas when there is a problem they need to fix, whether that is a skin condition or a disease like cancer.”

Walsh says challenges abound in this business. Cosmetic companies are creating a cosmetic ecosystem in Atlantic, but it’s a new evolving industry, and generally she says people don’t take the industry seriously—perhaps looking at the magnitude of what they’re up against in the global market. She says if governments and Fortune 500 companies bought 30 per cent from local companies across the board, businesses would be booming, and able to contribute even more to their communities.

As for opportunities? They always exist with innovating new products the customer is looking for, she says. Be willing to take risks too. “Sometimes they work, sometimes you learn what not to do next time. The opportunities are endless if you keep moving forward.”

She believes all companies need to be offering social goodness, and in the marketing toolkit, treating customers with excellent service is most important. “All our customers are the heart and soul of the brand. Recognizing our customers is the most important thing we do consistently.”

Shelley Cameron-McCarron

East Coast Living