The Craft Beer Approach

Posted by Jen Reichert on

 

craft beerI liken our manufacturing process to craft beer batching because that's essentially how we work when it comes to Baja Baby production. We came to the conclusion that the only way we can be the best skin & hair care company for babies is by embracing the inevitability of change.

Mass market companies have no choice but to stick with a set formulation for lengthy periods of time because of the sheer volume of units they have to produce.

What can a company do when they have hundreds of thousands of units in the marketplace and all of a sudden, they find out that there's a better version of a foaming booster now available or a safer way to create the conditioning effect in a hair conditioner?

We committed to producing our formulations in smaller batches so that we can always stay ahead of the game. Our company annually revises our ingredient decks, so if a safer and more effective ingredient becomes available - we can make a replacement.

The side effect of this decision is a significant increase in our company's workload. It means that we have to pay to redo labels and subsequent formulations but we believe that it's vital to stay ahead of the game and be our client's advocate. We want to lobby for our clients by staying abreast of the best, safe natural ingredients and using them in our products.

The Nitty Gritty About Some Key Ingredients

To the naked eye, our formulas look chemical in the way that they are written. But the truth is, our products contain zero chemicals. All our ingredients are derived from natural sources and when you see an ingredient that reads like a chemical, it simply means that it has been synthesized or blended to supercharge it. Or to make it even more effective than it would be in its natural base state.

Glacial Water is the base for all Baja Baby products. It's such an important ingredient that I have dedicated an entirely separate page to it. You can read all about the wonderful world of glacial water here. Suffice to say that it's the purest form of water that money can buy, hence why Baja Baby uses it.

ECOCERT 

Many of our ingredients are ECO and/or NPA certified. We source from companies who pride themselves on uber green and clean ingredients. Our ingredients are the top of their industry and they are certified so. The glucosides that we have in our shampoos are blended so as to create a consistent foam in the products. Coco Glucoside is our base and Decyl Glucoside is our foaming booster. It is typical for companies to include one or the other in their decks. By adding both, we supercharge our foam so it feels wonderful and most importantly, it's extremely effective.

My favorite ingredients are the trio of enzymes that we have chosen to use to replace a chemical preservative. As we all know, chemical preservatives are a bone of contention. Luckily in this day and age, technology, combined with wonderful natural resources are available to us, so that we can create amazing preservative properties in a formulation instead of going for the cheap and easy route.


Live EnzymesWe decided to eight times our cost on this blend. We sourced from Switzerland and these live enzymes act as a 'probiotic' for our products as opposed to using a chemical preservative. Yes, eight times more expensive is absolutely ridiculous you might say, but here's the great news. We didn't charge you, the customer. We're paying for it. We're eating the cost. Our retail prices haven't changed since 2014. Yes, they've changed internally, but not for you. Our retail pricing has stood firm at $24.95 USD since 2014.

 

Quality Over Quantity - You Decide

As a consumer, you can go big on savings or you can go big on quality. There doesn't seem to be an "in-between" when it comes to this talking point.

You can go out and buy yourself a bottle of 28-ounce $4 USD shampoo. Go right ahead. That bottle will last for around six months, unless if you've got more than 3 children.

You can certainly feel good about the savings aspect of a purchase like this. But the truth is, it is a cheap and mass-produced, chemical-laden product. This is the type of product that's been infused with enough chemicals to ensure that the bottle can withstand sitting on the stock shelves of a Walmart Supercenter for YEARS. 

Said another way, this is the same as either choosing to eat tinned green beans or organic green beans. 

 

To Scent Or Not To Scent

For our scented products (lavender and citrus), we choose to scent them with organic essential oils.Lavender Essential Oil We don't use fragrances or perfumes. We'd rather go for a more natural approach to an aroma. Our lavender products are designed to induce some level of relaxation for babies and mothers when they're using it, but that's only due to the olfactory benefits from the release of the essential oils. FYI, there's not a high enough concentration of essential oils in our products to have any kind of therapeutic effect - they are simply there to enhance the aroma of the product.

(Disclaimer - if you don't like the smell of REAL lavender - not the cheap stuff that smells 'good' - then you will NOT like our lavender products. Just sayin')

Then there's the other side of the coin which is our unscented line. I don't know about you but I adore the smell of the top of a baby's head. You know the sweet baby smell that only smells like your child? Quite frankly, when I was Mom to a newborn, I didn't really want to smell anything else but that.

When you combine that with the fact that so many children out there have allergy issues and sensitivity in their skin and scalp, it stands to reason that there should be a completely fragrance-free product line available on the market today.

We're so proud that we've been able to achieve that and have had great success with the moms out there who want to go for a totally fragrance-free option.

If you would like to understand more about our natural ingredients, please visit our EWG VERIFIED™ page.

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