Andy Hnilo formulates all his skincare products with eight chemists across the US. He pitched eleven co-packers before finding Jose at Botanic Beauty Products in Las Vegas, who refused to reverse-engineer his clay mask formula. His lead chemist, Elgin, is the son of legal advocate Susan Raffi, who has fought against brands using toxic ingredients.
I formulate all the products myself. We have 8 different chemists all around the country. I remember I met with 11 different co-packers trying to get people to duplicate my clay mask, right? Because I was making this out of my apartment, small batch, was renting this mud mixer, hand-packing it. We have a very specific, potent formula that can easily get undercut if you have a little bit of lack of trust, which is rampant in the co-packer industry. Boom, I met Jose out at Botanic Beauty Products in Las Vegas, Nevada. He had had someone who had visited him that had tried to reverse engineer my formula. The fact that he wouldn't do it because he heard about my story or whatever, like, I really appreciated that. Sitting down hearing that is frightening. That's all they make boards, just like clay masks. But Susan Raffi out in Santa Ana, she's done depositions against brands, you know, with toxic formulas, and she's just very passionate about what I'm passionate about— clean, organic. Nobody goes that route. Her son Elgin is our lead chemist, so it's a motherfucking situation. It really is personal to me. We get to create our dream.
☀️ A quick message from Andy: One of our biggest sales of the year is happening NOW!
