The Making of Lissom Skincare

When starting Lissom, the first thing we looked for was a contract manufacturer who could help with sampling our formulations, and scale up production as required.

Shieling Laboratories in Auckland was the professional outfit that we ended up choosing, due to their fast turnaround time and the level of ease the Shieling team is to work with. 

For us, having a background in skincare marketing and sales helped tremendously as we had an in-depth knowledge about the ingredients going into our formulations, as well as a good understanding of the market we hoped to sell to.

We started our skincare range in on the basis that we stay committed to these promises: (1) made using only the best, most effective ingredients, (2) formulated in accordance with safety guidelines according to the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Database, and (3) designed for the real lives we live: full of variety, always on the go, and in need of luxurious yet affordable skincare that we can turn to time and time again. We are big on clean beauty as we know all too well the long term effects that harmful ingredients expose us to, and we wished to share our brand with those who, like us, enjoy looking after their skin and refuse to risk their health for beauty. Products are formulated with non-toxic ingredients to help maintain soft, glowing skin the safe way, and we wanted to focus on delivering effectiveness in the natural beauty space by working with one of the country's most experienced laboratories to combine actives such as hyaluronic acid and AHAs with the strength of natural ingredients like kiwi seed and rosehip oil for products with a great skin-feel that leave skin refreshed, healed, and revitalised.

Following our product concept brief to Shieling's NPD team, we proceeded to work out the timings required for product and packaging sampling, full production, and sending the product to our distributors' warehouses as well as our own when manufacturing was complete. Once that was mapped out, we started to plan our brand launch date just six months out from sampling start date (and two months after Lydia was due to have her first baby!).

Shieling's website features a Q&A conducted with us. To read the article, view this link here (link).