It started with sensitive skin.

I’ve had sensitive skin my whole life. As a kid, I was always mixing things together — combining random products from the bathroom cabinet, trying to make something better than what was already there. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew something was always off.

In high school I got cystic acne. Not the surface kind — the deep, painful kind that doesn’t respond to anything. I started looking into it and kept coming back to the same conclusion: the additives in the food I was eating and the products I was putting on my skin were almost certainly part of the problem. I started cutting things out. The rule I landed on was simple: if I couldn’t pronounce it, it probably wasn’t supposed to go on me or in me.

In college I started making my own products — as simple as possible, as few ingredients as I could get away with. Toothpaste first. Then deodorant. I wasn’t trying to start a brand. I was just trying to figure out what actually worked without everything else in the way.

Around that time I started thinking more about where my food came from — not just what was in it, but the source. I bought a cow. I wanted to honor the animal by using every part of it, which left me with more beef tallow than I knew what to do with. This was before tallow was mainstream — before it was trending on social media, before the skincare world caught up. I did the research anyway and found that tallow’s fat profile closely mirrors your own skin. It absorbs instead of sitting on top. I started using it on my face and my skin — which had been through years of acne, harsh treatments, and everything else — finally settled down. That became the balm.

The soap came from a different place. I got tired of spending money on bar soap at the grocery store, and honestly, I just wanted to be able to say I make all of my own personal care products. That’s it. Sometimes the reason is that simple.

And then there’s the kokum butter — and this one is a little different. My roommate (we call him Lube Dude — long story) works at a dermatology office. The head doctor there started telling him about the benefits of kokum butter: non-comedogenic, regenerative, one of the most skin-compatible plant butters there is. He passed it along to me. I did my own research, tested it, and added it to the lineup. Consider this your heads-up. I put you on.

The whole thing is called À La Natural because that’s exactly what it is. No filler ingredients, no mystery blends, no marketing language on the label. Just what’s in it, and why it’s there.