What to expect from New England Apothecary
Let’s learn about skincare together! I’m Abbie, and I founded New England Apothecary as a way to share my bath, body, and spa creations with you.
There’s a lot of misinformation and runaway marketing in the body & spa product world, and I cringe a bit each time I run into products that use fear and ignorance in their marketing. This is my effort to counteract that. In addition to providing you with amazing body products, my goal is to expand my understanding of individual components and share that knowledge with you, too!
I want the New England Apothecary brand to be defined by science, integrity, and transparency. I will always strive to create the best product, and tell you everything I know about the science behind it.
I want to start with a bit of a disclaimer: I have a PhD in systems biology, not chemistry, and I have no formal training in cosmetic chemistry. This has been my hobby for a few years, and I’ve found it has a solid cross-talk with my benchwork. My training is in cellular/molecular biology, and computational biology, so I’ve got expertise in related areas, and a solid grasp of experimentalism, scientific research, how to find information in the literature.
That said, I’ve often found it difficult to figure out what is actually in the products I use, and which bits are effective for me, what I should stay away from, which marketing buzz is worth supporting, and why. This project started as a personal quest to answer some of those questions and find ways to be good to my skin.
So, my perspective is as a trained non-expert looking to delve ever deeper into a fascinating hobby and share the fruits of that labor with whoever cares to listen.
To start, I want to sketch out some thoughts on where this project is going:
First and foremost, everything in existence is made of chemicals. Water is a chemical. Everything natural is built of many different chemicals. They shouldn’t inherently be feared! I plan to write a little blog article on each ingredient I use and why I use it. (and possibly alternatives as well)
Natural/organic does not imply “good for you” or inherently sustainable! I have a lot of thoughts here and will plan blog articles to articulate these as well.
Ethical sourcing/packaging are at the forefront of my mind in establishing a supplier base. Wherever possible I’ll be looking for fair-trade or sustainably sourced ingredients, and eco-friendly packaging. I’m actively learning a lot about this, and will plan to share what I find as I learn.
Finally, I’ll highlight how I test each product to ensure it passes quality control before offering it for sale.
