The story is a fairly common one: a woman learns that she’s pregnant, and as she prepares for nine long months of incubating her little one, she vows to clean up her act (quite literally): perhaps she is more intentional about her diet and eating whole nourishing foods, begins taking prenatal vitamins, reconsiders the products she uses to clean her home, and is more conscious about the beauty and personal care products she puts on her skin.
The above was certainly the case for several of us Onda moms. And as we’ve spoken to brand founders over the years, we’ve learned that becoming pregnant was actually the impetus for some of them to even begin their brands in the first place. For others, motherhood more generally inspired the thought and care they put into the products they create. And yet for others, motherhood wasn’t in the cards, but it still inspired them to some extent.
(Incidentally, each of these founder’s respective products happen to make for lovely Mother’s Day gifts. So if you’re in the market…)
Read on for a few of their stories.
Agatha Relota Luczo, founder of Furtuna Skin and curator of our 2023 Mama Box
“Our children inspire me every single day. When I was pregnant with my first daughter, Rosalia, I quickly realized that what you put on your skin can affect your baby. And I had to get rid of almost all of my products…it really hit me hard when I was pregnant that what you put on your skin is so important and everything goes into your bloodstream. Our pediatrician Dr. Alan Greene [was involved in] a study with the Environmental Working Group that took a group of teenage girls, looked in their medicine cabinets, wrote down all the toxic ingredients, drew their blood, and found that those toxic ingredients were in the girls’ bloodstreams. Just what they put on their faces! So it’s so important, what products you use on a daily basis. That really inspired me. When I met my co-founder Kim Walls, who is a master formulator, and she saw all the plants we had on the farm, we quickly bonded and created Furtuna Skin.”
Allie Egan, founder of Veracity
“My journey to motherhood was not the perfect stork and balloon experience I had envisioned. Instead, my path to motherhood was an almost 3 year battle with infertility, filled with stress and uncertainty. I’m beyond grateful that today I am the mother of two beautiful children, Cooper (2.5) and Astor (14 months). I’m also grateful that my painful experience led me to create something else: Veracity.
When I was in graduate school at Harvard, I broke out in eczema on my face, but it was brushed aside by a dermatologist as irritation. I dealt with my bad skin for years, always chalking it up to stress. It wasn’t until my infertility journey led to getting my hormones tested that my root cause, a hormone imbalance, was illuminated. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, a form of hypothyroidism that affects millions of women. The same imbalance causing my infertility was causing my skin to be dry and weak. I was heartbroken to realize that I could have potentially saved myself from a horrific infertility experience, not to mention resolved my skin issue, had I only known my root cause earlier.
That’s why I founded Veracity: to give women the tools I didn’t have and the knowledge all women should have. A solution that uncovers root causes of issues, and offers products that are free of all hormone disruptors. So you can care for your skin and body in harmony and be your most radiant, healthy self.”
April Gargiulo, founder of Vintner’s Daughter
As a new mom, I had so little time, and the idea of an extensive beauty routine was not in the cards, but my acne-prone, dark spotted skin needed a lot of support. With Vintner’s Daughter I created products that are able to deliver all of the results I needed in fewer steps, through a total commitment to the finest-quality raw ingredients and meticulous craftsmanship. It takes three weeks to produce our proprietary Phyto Radiance Infusion which sits at the heart of every formulation and it is what drives our award-winning performance. This kind of simple, but incredibly effective routine is what I was looking for my entire life, but developed as a new mom.
Tricia Marlow, founder of French Farmacie
As someone who wasn’t able to experience the traditional meaning of motherhood, I know how difficult Mother’s Day can be for many. French Farmacie was born from my pain-to-purpose journey with infertility and the realization that when we take the time to consciously develop the beauty within ourselves, we can create a beautiful impact on the world. I think it’s important to recognize the different forms of motherhood so that we can continue to value the presence of every woman and celebrate all of the inspirational motherly figures that support us every day.
Emma Lewisham, founder of Emma Lewisham
“Emma Lewisham and my journey of motherhood have been inextricably intertwined from day one. The very first seeds for what would become Emma Lewisham were planted when my doctor advised me that an ingredient in my daily skincare routine should be avoided while pregnant and breastfeeding. At this time, I was hoping to become pregnant, so this discovery is what initially put me on the path to natural skincare. I became passionate about proving that nature could unlock the most intelligent skincare in the world, so people wouldn’t need to compromise. I wanted to create natural skincare that was luxurious, efficacious and that I could feel confident using throughout my pregnancy and into motherhood. During the three year research and development of Emma Lewisham, I was fortunate to become pregnant with my daughter, Milla, and when we launched to market in 2019, Milla was just 3 months old. From the inception of my business, to all the decisions I have made along the way, and continue to make each day, motherhood infuses each and every one. Motherhood to me, means looking at the world and seeing all the ways that I could make it better for my daughter. It feels like more than a sense of responsibility–more like a sense of purpose."