Meet Sandee Ferman of No Tox Life

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandee Ferman.

Sandee, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Five years ago, I taught myself to make soap (from scratch! with lye! and math + chemistry!) and gave them as Christmas gifts. The process touched all the bases: handmade art plus science and wonder — a new passion.

A few months later, when shopping for natural shampoo, I read the ingredients and was horrified by the list of hormone-disrupting chemicals in the “natural” shampoo I’d been using for years. After lots of research, I realized the reason my scalp was itchy and hair felt greasy was because of these unnatural ingredients.

I needed an alternative and decided I was going to create it. No Tox Life was born. Today, I work with my daughter Callie, along with three full-time and three part-time employees to research, design, craft, and sell nearly 70 home, body and pet products with clean ingredients that work better than store-bought.

We opened a retail store two years ago in Glassell Park next to our studio where the magic happens. Our products are also carried in more than 190 retail stores worldwide.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not a smooth road, although it’s been a satisfying journey of expansion!

Originally all the products were made by me (Sandee), sold by Sandee and Callie, with Sandee doing the website design and maintenance, handling orders and customer service and all fulfillment. After about a year of working nonstop nearly 100 hours a week, Callie joined to help take some of the load.

Shortly after that, we were able to hire our first employee and get into more pop-up markets. Fast-forward a couple years, and we realized none of our products were priced correctly. Not only had raw materials costs increased dramatically, we hadn’t factored in the costs of worker’s compensation insurance (for our employees), rent, equipment, and even sales costs like market pop-up fees.

A crisis was at hand. Decision time: raise prices? Close down? And what about getting a paycheck (up until then there was no money to pay ourselves wages). What to do? We decided to take a hard look at our product line which had ballooned to nearly 200 items.

We cut that to a more manageable level and did accurate cost calculations of everything else. Once that was done, new prices were announced, and we moved forward.

Fortunately, although we lost a few, we gained many more customers and were able to expand into more retail stores. Crisis managed. This year, sales have grown 30% over last year, which was double the year before. Retail outlets grew from 15 to 190.

Please tell us about No Tox Life.
We handcraft vegan body, home, and pet care.

Our products are palm oil-free because even “responsibly sourced” palm oil is contributing to wage abuse and human rights abuse, plus deforestation, environmental destruction, and animal cruelty.

The top seller is our Eucalyptus Steam for the shower which is great for the winter cold and flu season! We make these constantly to keep them in stock. They fly off the shelf at all our retailers, too. We are known for our deodorant (that really works!) and have quite a following for that.

We took a chance opening a store in Glassell Park because it’s not really “on the map” like Silverlake or Highland Park (but we think it will be soon). We are very pleased with how we are beautifying the neighborhood and taking care of our section of LA.

Something that sets us apart from other skincare companies is that we research, design and handcraft each of our products. Often a celebrity or brand will have an idea for a product they want to sell, then hire another company to make that item for them.

We do the entire sequence from idea, through development and manufacturing, to marketing and selling. We believe that gives us the best quality control and gives the customer the freshest and most precious product they can buy — and they can buy it directly from the maker in person at our store!

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Traveling the Southwest, every summer, for family vacations. Visiting the Grand Canyon, Cochise’s Stronghold, the Pueblos, and Barton Springs near Austin, Texas. There’s a fond memory of an old run-down motel in the middle of scorching hot Arizona that had an ice-cold swimming pool which we LOVED.

Pricing:

• Eucalyptus Steam, $32 / jar (contains 12-14)
• Deodorant, $28 (lasts up to a year)
• Zero-Waste Dish Soap Bar, $26 (Lasts forever, and cleans everything!)

Contact Info:

• Address: 3351 Fletcher Dr Glassell Park
• Website: notoxlife.com
• Phone: 818-925-5075
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: instagram.com/notoxlife
• Facebook: facebook.com/notoxlifestyle
• Twitter: twitter.com/notoxlife
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/no-tox-life-los-angeles-4

Image Credit:
Callie Milford

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