EP147. Talking sustainable haircare with Captain Blankenship

The indie beauty sector focuses predominantly on skincare. We know this skincare is easier to make, and people are far more likely to embrace skincare that they haven't heard of before compared to hair care. But there is a slow but steady rise in the number of people starting to buy from indie hair care brands now. At the moment, the global hair care industry is valued at about US$85 billion, of which the natural hair care part forms about 1/10, so so around about the $9 billion mark. And that's understandable for many of the reasons we've discussed here. Previously on the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, people can still be reluctant to make changes to their hair care routines and to the products that they know will work for them. But recently the beauty industry has been rocked by a couple of major recalls and some other hair care scandals. So perhaps now the tide will turn on mainstream hair care. I plan to explore a lot more about hair care on the podcast this year, so I was thrilled to be able to invite Yana Blankenship of Captain Blankenship Hair Care on the podcast to talk all things indie hair care. Stay tuned, settle in and prepare to think about the changes we need to make to make hair care sustainable. Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that challenges you to think about how you buy, use, make or sell your green beauty formulations. In my weekly episodes, I explore the sustainability of the beauty industry and encourage you to join me in changing the beauty industry for the better. I'm your host, Lorraine Dallmayr. I'm a chartered environmentalist, biologist and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. We have thousands and thousands of students in over 180 countries around the world who study with us to become organic beauty formulators and entrepreneurs. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. And if you want to be the first person to know what's happening in green beauty, and I know you do, make sure you subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. So in today's episode I'm joined by Yana Blankenship, founder, CEO and lead formulator of Captain Blankenship and a passionate educator about the power of plants for beauty and well being. Founded back in 2009, Captain Blankenship is a green beauty company based in New York's Hudson River Valley that makes wildly effective clean hair care with organic ingredients and sustainable packaging. Social and environmental responsibilities sit at the very heart of the company, which is a B Corp. Made safe, approved, Leaping Bunny certified and part of 1% for the planet. Captain Blankenship was born out of Yana's desire to create organic beauty products that create a direct link with nature. From its birth in Yana's kitchen, the company has grown into a full product line sold at Credo Beauty, the Detox Market, Grove collaborative, and over 200 stores in the US and internationally. Yana is also the author of 2019 book Wild Beauty, A Holistic primer for green Beauty, Rich in practical wisdom, anecdotes and 45 DIY recipes for natural perfumes, skincare, hair care, body care, teas and tonics. Yana is also the co author of the forthcoming book Seasonal Family Almanac. Hi Yana, how are you doing today?

I'm great Lorraine, and I'm so excited to talk to you today.

Oh, me too. I can't wait for this conversation. I'm thrilled that you're here. So for those of us who haven't heard about you and your lovely brand, can you please introduce yourself and Captain Blankenship to us? What do you make and sell? Yes.

So I am Yana Blankenship and I am the CEO, founder and lead formulator at Captain Blankenship. I'm also a mother of two. I live in the Hudson Valley in New York and I'm an author. And Captain Blankenship is a plant based hair care company that makes hair care for all hair types that works effectively to free your hair and work with its natural texture to make it as wild and beautiful as possible.

I love it. So why did you start Captain Blankenship? Because I know you've been going for a while. Like I remember when I got into natural beauty I was already hearing about your brand. So tell us a little bit about the history and why you got started.

Sure. It kind of dates me. I feel like a dinosaur now when I talk about it. But definitely along with friends, we started our companies in 2009 and I guess I'm kind of one of the original pioneers in clean beauty and the brand. Now we sell plant based hair care. Those were actually some of my first formulations for Captain Blankenship. But I've made everything I love to formulate clean beauty from natural perfumes to skincare to hair care to body care. And the brand actually started with my nose. It started with essential oil based perfumes. It was a passion project that started in my kitchen when I was living in Berkeley, California. And I have a sensitivity from childhood to synthetic fragrances that I got from heavily mixing my mom's perfumes together in the 80s and I actually, I have the first perfume I ever made, which is an old Giorgio bottle that in my seven year old handwriting I wrote Sense of Hawaii. And it still smells 35 years later as strongly as Giorgio as it did then. And you bury it and in hundreds of years it would still smell like Giorgio. So I kind of abandoned that mixing and this penchant for alchemy that I had as a child, but was always still in love with the sense of the natural world. And I was living out in Berkeley, California in my 20s and I ended up finding natural perfumer Mandy Aftel diving into the world of natural perfumery with her and never looking back. And I had a whole other career as a contemporary art curator. But this just slowly took over my life and Captain Blankenship was born in my kitchen. And it started with essential oil based perfumes, but then it grew into anything I couldn't find a clean swap for at that moment. And in 2009 the market was very limited. So friends, family, everyone would ask me to make products from sea salt, hairspray and dry shampoo, which are still really anchors of the Captain Blankenship line, to a face oil to a clean deodorant. And so this like rife period of experimentation in the beginning of the company was just so exciting. And I still do all the R and D and product development for the company and that is my happy space whenever I'm working on new products, enthralled. But over the past decade, as the landscape for clean beauty has changed, you know, more than anyone, spin exciting to see how categories like clean skin care and body care, there's so many great options. And while I loved the deodorant that we made for Captain Blankenship, there's so many great options out there. And the brand has always been known for our hair care products, both our shampoo and conditioner, which are really anchors of the line, which are gateways to the brand and I think the best plant based shampoo and conditioner on the market. We've always been known for styling products like dry shampoo, sea salt, hairspray, hair serum. So when we rebranded the company this year, new packaging, new branding, new website, we decided to focus on hair care because it's what we're known for. And in an exciting way, it's kind of a new frontier. There's still so much room for innovation within clean hair care. So it's been a wild ride. We've been all over the place. It's exciting that, you know, the adventure and the path keeps Changing. And, and I'm here for it. I'm here for the challenge.

I love it. Well, let's talk a little bit about that transition that the industry has been through, because you've obviously seen things change quite a lot. I think we've seen lots of people really make that shift to natural, green, plant based, clean, whatever you want to call it. Skincare.

Yeah. So many names.

I know now you're very much focused on hair care. So are you seeing that same shift in the hair care space as well?

Right now we are. And it has been compared to skincare. It's been a very slow process. And I think part of it is that people are expecting the best from their skin care. The cleanest, most transparent ingredients. But when it comes to hair care, I think people still have this feeling like clean hair care can't be effective. It's been. The desire for it has been slower. Whereas with skincare, people are all in and they're ready to pay the right amount of money for a very clean product with organic ingredients. But with hair care, they're less willing to put down $30 for a bottle of shampoo and conditioner. But I think right now it's a really interesting moment because there have been recalls within dry shampoos because of contamination with benzene and hair straighteners are being recalled. So I think a lot of people are waking up to the fact that, oh, you know, I thought even if it wasn't clean, I could put it on my hair and it would be all right. Now they're realizing the repercussions of using conventional hair care products. So I think we're really, there's going to be a revolution within clean hair care and it goes hand in hand with the sophistication in clean hair care because there is that consumer demand and retail demand now. There's a lot of innovation happening within 100% natural functional products or functional ingredients in hair care. So it's just, it feels to have made this decision to go into clean hair care right now just feels very exciting. And I can't wait to innovate and put more products on the market. There's just so much more available to us now to formulate with within clean hair care.

Absolutely. We see the same. I think it's interesting that you're highlighting this massive opportunity out there because we've been talking about this for many years here at Formula Botanica, and yet it's still quite rare to find an indie hair care brand because skincare is still the dominant sector for indie Beauty. So why do you think that is when there is clearly such a big market opportunity there?

I think it's about to change. But I think as I was saying before, it's, you know, the consumer wasn't ready to pay the amount of dollars needed for clean hair care products. And also from, as the formulator, as a CEO, if you're going to formulate with plant based ingredients for us, we also direct source our ingredients from farmers and cooperatives. We approach formulating the hair care the same way you would formulate skin care. And it's really hard to get a good margin on hair care because someone expects a bottle of shampoo and conditioner that maybe they're using daily. You know, they just don't want to spend money on it. But at the cost of the great direct sourced Ugandan shea butter that we work with, you know, it calculates into that cost. So it's been very tricky. But I think part of it, when we rebranded this year, I had always, you know, I always wanted to make the products as affordable as possible. And we kind of realistically looked at our costs and said, you know, this is what we're going to have to do. And I hope that the consumer understands the value of not just the ingredients we're putting in our bottles, but the packaging. And I think that is happening. And a lot of the clean beauty retailers that we've worked with, like Credo in the US have been a great partner to us. But you look at their hair care assortment versus their body and skin care assortment and it's very minimal. But I think that's changing.

It's a good place for you to be anyway, that's for sure.

Yes. Yeah. I am, I am grateful to have landed in this place. It wasn't, you know, it was a path, a very circuitous path all over the place. But I mean, it's wild that our bestsellers have always been hair care for the beginning. So it makes a lot of sense for the brand.

Well, let's talk a little bit about that brand because, I mean, you just alluded to the fact that you rebranded in 2022. I'm sure that it was a really big undertaking. I want to know how much of that was driven by your sustainability plans because I know you've been talking about sustainability quite a lot in the. So how did that influence your rebrand?

Sure. I mean, it was the rebrand for us. It was all about sustainability. And part of our mission at Captain Blankenship from the beginning wasn't only about using the Integrity of ingredients inside the bottle, organic plant based ingredients, direct source from farmers and cooperatives, but always about the packaging itself and using what was the most sustainable packaging available at the moment for us. And so from the beginning we used recycled glass bottles, compostable tubes, most recently with our SH poo and conditioner, 98% recycled ocean bound plastic. But in 2020, when we were starting to think about this rebrand, we did an audit with the Rochester Institute of Technology's Pollution Prevention Institute to look at all the packaging options. And we had a feeling that aluminum was going to be the best option for us right now. And it turned out it was because it is infinitely recyclable, it's refillable. For any founders who shipped glass, you know that the challenges of shipping glass and the nice thing about aluminum is it's lightweight, it's much easier to ship. Though there is, I'm the first to admit there's, there's no silver bullet within packaging. Each option comes with pluses and minuses. So a lot of the rebrand was this move to aluminum, which we knew we wanted to do. And then also I think as I was mentioning, there's still so much room for innovation within clean hair care. But there are so many great brands out there and I think for us, our original packaging though I still beloved to me, it all came from my hand. It was scanned drawings and watercolors and we felt like it was really time to elevate the branding and the messaging as going hand in hand with the aluminum bottle was what was inside the product. And it's been part of our mission as we've grown to direct source ingredients from farmers and cooperatives to work on our own proprietary ingredients. So we wanted to communicate that to our customer. And in addition to the new logo, we added a new wordmark which is actually, it's somewhat abstract. People think it looks like seaweed or coral. And it was actually based on a type of seaweed that we find on the coast of Maine called Bladderwrack, which is in all of the products currently, except for our dry shampoo. And we actually have a blend of five organic seaweed extracts that we source from a farm in Maine, our own proprietary blend. And part of the inspiration from the brand was I've spent every summer of my life going up to a little town in northern Maine and just relishing in the ocean and the seaweed and the rituals up there. And that was a huge inspiration for Captain Blankenship. So it's kind of a dream come true to now be partnering with a farm in Maine to source our seaweed. So yes, we just wanted to kind of put that point of differentiation in front of the customer. And we also added QR code on the packaging. One thing that was important to us was less packaging. And so we used to have outer cartons for the packaging. Now we just have the primary packaging, the bottle.

That's a big difference then as well.

It's a big difference. And we're, we're currently working on refill sizes for all the products. It was a big. And as I was talking to before, you know, kind of narrowing our assortment from skincare and body care to just hair care, we went from around 30 products to seven products. So it was a big. This whole rebrand was really about less is more.

That is a very brave thing to do. So I applaud you for that.

Thank you.

But the packaging, I mean, you said you've moved to aluminum or as we say here in the uk, aluminium. How hard was it to find the packaging that you needed?

Very tricky. Because this decision to move into aluminum wasn't just, you know, it was a decision that many companies are making across industries from water bottles, water going into aluminum, to personal care and cosmetic companies going into aluminum. So the global demand for aluminum is huge. And compounded with the fact that it was during COVID that supply chain issues. I'm glad that I'm on the other side of the rebrand right now, but it was tricky and I think, you know, as I was adding before, it is there's no silver bullet and like any industry, there's quality issues and it really is about finding the right partner. And I can say we finally found a great partner for aluminum. And I think too it's, everyone is learning from our manufacturer who has a lot of new customers going into aluminum, just kind of learning that language as they had with glass and plastic. It's just, it's a new, especially within this specific industry, it's a new frontier.

Well, let's talk a little bit more about sustainability. I mean, we've talked about your amazing ingredients. I love the sound of the bladder rack. Can't wait to try the products. They are on their way.

Yes, I can't wait for you to try them.

And we've obviously talked about packaging. Now, one topic we've discussed at length here on the Green Beauty Conversations podcast is the topic of press and retailers expecting this so called newness every couple of months. Now you very honestly just said we've gone from 30 products to about seven. Right so how have you dealt with that expectation? Because you've gone the other way. But nonetheless, Captain Blankenship is stocked by several major retailers. So how have you navigated that difficult conversation?

Yeah, well, you know what, I think that we're at a turning point. Just as within fashion, you know, in the past decade there's been so many conversations around circularity. Retailers I think are starting to not expect the same thing and realizing that that was something that was really about conventional beauty, about bigger players. You could spin out products, they're always just spinning out products. And really when it comes to a great clean skin care product, hair care product, body care product, perfume, it takes time. And you're looking to create products that will impact people's lives, that will be with them, that they will love, that will bring joy to them and that, that's not fast, that's not fast skin care, that's not fast fashion. I mean, we're looking for timeless products. And I think too for us, our ethos being less is more. The idea of spinning out five different shampoos and conditioners is not part of who we are, it's not in our DNA. So, and I certainly pandered to that in the past, to that desire for newness. And it ended up with us having 30 products as a small brand that's just not sustainable. Especially when it becomes clear what your best sellers are because they're products that people know and love. And that's what I want to focus on. It's going to be our growth, our new products, it's very intentional and they are tested by everyone we love. Never on animals, only on the people we love and their friends. And it's not sustainable in the end to expect newness in the same way. And I think as these bigger retailers are starting to really clean used to really be just about marketing to them and they would let anything slip into that term. Things that, especially within hair care, that I don't consider clean, like synthetic fragrance. But I think now there's really an awareness from the retailer, from the customer who's demanding it. And I think they're starting to. The gears are starting to change.

Well, that is good news to hear because it certainly needs to change and it's brands like yours that will push that conversation with those bigger retailers as well. So one topic I wanted to explore is around hair types because obviously I know there's been a lot of discussion around so called skin types in the last few years and quite a few people have said, look, they're outdated. We don't all fit into this perfect category of normal, more oily, dry, sensitive skin. Now, in the hair care industry, I know we typically also rely on hair types like straight, wavy, curly, coily. We also use them in our corsets because it helps with a classification system. But if the skin types we're basing our terminology on are outdated, do you think that hair types may need a revisit as well?

I definitely think so. And I think as we were talking about before, clean skin care is definitely steps ahead of clean hair care. And so that's where I think those categories are still stuck there, but they're going very limiting because we don't. None of us fit perfectly into those boxes. And I think it drives the consumer to only look for a certain type of product. And I think perhaps it's a product where there. There isn't, you know, it's niche, there isn't a clean swap for it. And I think with our products, something that was very challenging but exciting is that we sought to create a shampoo and conditioner that generally works for all hair types. And we tested it on far and wide and specifically with the shampoo and conditioner. Something I love to return to is one of my best friends has wavy hair. Her wife has coily hair. This is the only shampoo and conditioner they found that works for both of them. And so, and I think part of it is that while, you know, we treat skin care in a personal way and we have a very emotional response to skincare, that's the same for hair care. And it is really about finding how the products work for you. There isn't just one way to use a shampoo and conditioner, you know, for some people where if their hair gets oily, you know, just use conditioner on the ends of your hair. If you have very dry hair, leave a little conditioner on the ends of your hair, you know, as a leave in. And it's. And I think that's where the future is. It's kind of freeing ourselves. Certainly those. Those hair types can be jumping off points for us, but it really is about finding your personal relationship to the products. And I think that what's happening within hair care too, people are starting to embrace their natural hair. And that's what we're all about. It really is about freeing your hair, embracing your natural texture and products that work with it, that never hide it, that never weigh it down, that really give you kind of your wildest mane possible. So we're really excited to keep moving in that direction. And we're never going to be that brand that has products that are specifically for different hair types, which I think is going to be more common. I think it's going to go in both directions.

But, no, that's fascinating to hear and I suppose wrapping up everything you've said already, and I know you've touched on a few things to do with this question already, but what changes do you then feel that we need to make in the beauty industry to make things more sustainable? It's obviously a huge part of your mission, is a huge part of your brand. What does the beauty industry as a whole need to start doing?

Luckily, as I was mentioning, a lot of. I tend to be a pretty optimistic person, but I think that. And obviously this is going to take time. It's going to be a process, but I think a lot of these gears are already starting to move. We are part of an initiative called the Pact Collective that reclaims pumps, fine mist sprayers, any plastic packaging that can't easily be recycled in all packaging. I mean, you could send anything back to Pact so our customers, they can download a shipping label from our website and send all of the pumps, all of the sprayers, and then drop in any lipstick tubes, anything. Pact will recycle it. Sephora is partnering with Pact right now. And so I think things are starting to change. And because the consumer is waking up, is asking for it, we're going to see that. But I think, as we were mentioning before, with the demand for newness, all of these things changing, and also I think the retailers are starting to highlight clean beauty, which I think, and consumers are waking up to it. They're not demanding the same routine. I think that the more is more is more. I think now it's the focus on quality, even from the big players that, you know, you never. Five years ago, that was a very different landscape. It was just marketing, and now it's becoming part of their DNA.

Amazing. Lots of changes ahead. But it's nice to hear the optimism around the fact that things are starting to move in the right direction.

I believe they are. And I also think with refills, everything is moving. We're starting to catch up to the demand.

Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about the future, then. What's the plan for Captain Blankenship moving forward?

Yes, well, you know, really slow and intentional growth, which after being in a lot of big players like Target and Whole Foods and Sephora, it's really exciting now to kind of slowly map out our path forward. And since sustainability has always been a key point in our mission. It really is. We are working on introducing refill sizes, really partnering with retailers that understand our ethos and the mission of the brand and the value of the brand. So we have a lot of and within clean hair care, I think we're not just known for, you know, the functional, the shampoo and conditioner, but also the styling products. So I have a lot of really fun products in R and D right now, as I was mentioning, made with direct sourced ingredients. And one thing I mentioned it before, but seaweed being a hero ingredient across the products. We're a B corp and we're part of 1% for the planet. And at least 1% of our profits annually go to supporting environmental nonprofits that clean up the ocean and waterways. And one of the nonprofits that we support, Green Wave, is a vertically integrated ocean farming technology. And we're starting to source seaweed from farmers. Seaweed as a hero ingredient, not just incredibly beneficial for hair, skin and scalp, but also as a blue carbon ingredient that helps sequester carbon so that we're all about seaweed. So there's going to be a lot of seaweed in our future, which I'm, you know, couldn't be more excited about because it really from the inception of the brand that's been one of the ingredients that is, that's been a hero.

I love it. So slow and intentional growth. I actually wrote it down because I love that term and more seaweed. So if people want to buy your products, if they want to learn more about you, they want to come and buy your books. Where can they do that?

Yeah, so captainblankenship.com is our website where you can buy all of our products. And my book, we work with great clean beauty retailers like Credo and the Detox Market and Grove Collaborative. And then also in talking about my books, my book Wild Beauty came out in 2019 and it's kind of a love song to the natural world and plant based beauty with 45 DIY recipes from natural perfumes to skincare to hair care, body care, teas and tonics. And I have a new book called Seasonal Family Almanac that's coming out in April of 2023 and it's a collaboration with my friend Emma Frisch who is a chef. And it's, it is a really encyclopedic book that combines culinary recipes that Emma contributed, personal care and herbal recipes that I contributed and then nature based crafts and activities for the whole family. So it's a very fun book.

Amazing. Well, congratulations. That sounds exciting. Thank you. I know that our listeners will be heading over to their nearest bookstore now to come and purchase your book as well. Yana, it's been such a pleasure talking to you today. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Thank you so much Elaine. This was so much fun.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Are you buying products from indie hair care brands yet or do you make your own hair care? What are your thoughts on how this sector can grow? Please do come and leave us a comment on our social channels as both the Formula Botanica team and I love hearing from you. And if you want to hear more about some of the topics we covered today, please do delve back into the podcast archives too. Go and listen to episode 139 in which I interview Suzanne Soto Davis on why less is best in sustainable hair care. Or listen to episode 140 in which I discuss the challenges around making hair care sustainable. Or Yana mentioned the Pact Collective which was co founded by Mia Davis who came on the podcast back in episode 111 to discuss the sustainability of beauty samples. There is a wealth of information sat in our old episodes and I do encourage you to go back and listen to them. Thank you for joining Jana and I for this latest episode of Green Beauty Conversations. I really hope you you enjoyed it and if you did, please do leave us a five star review so that other people can enjoy these conversations too. Make sure you subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever your favorite podcast app is, but stay tuned for the next episode. Follow Formula Botanica at Formula Botanica on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter or LinkedIn and come and give me a follow at Lorraine Dalmayer on Instagram. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com and sign up for our free online formulation course today day.