Hi! We're Judith & Justin Sweeney...
...and since 2014, our purpose has been to comfort dry & sensitive skin like ours.
Our home has multiple sensitivities...eczema, allergies, chronic dry skin, sensitivity to lights, noises, and crowds, emotional sensitivities, reactive skin...the list goes on!
Our sensitivities have caused a lot of discomfort, but they never had to. By being attentive to our skin, honouring our sensitivities, and listening to the people we help, we've made planet-friendly solutions that will have you feeling comfortable (& confident), in your dry & sensitive skin!
Our Mission:
To help bathers emerge with confidence in how they feel, how they smell, and how they care for their dry & sensitive skin each day.
Prioritizing Safety & Integrity In Each Step
We test & source documented, effective, certified cruelty-free ingredients from reputable suppliers;
we use award-winning manufacturing practices & hurdle techology to preserve our products; and
we publish every verified review!
Guided By Love & Our Sensitivities
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BEFORE EVERYTHING CHANGED
This is us in our first shop...we knew how to make soap and body butter, had an antique cash register that dinged, and were ready to take on the world!
We opened on December 3, 2014.
We'd started making products months earlier when a painful eczema flareup was aggravated by dry mountain air and no local source for the types of whipped butters Judith had been using on the east coast.
While recovering, baths were limited to damp face cloths. For a bath lover like Judith, it was insult on top of injury.
We decided to be proactive. So, we went to the local library to gather every book available on natural skincare.
The answer we found was simple - minimal ingredients with lots of raw butters and oils. A bonus was that the butters and essential oils didn't trigger Justin's fragrance allergies!
We blossomed over the next 4 years. Our community supported us. We attended two schoools of aromatherapy and created hundreds of custom products and essential oil blends for our customers and clients.
Amazing smells became our 'thing.'
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AFTER EVERYTHING CHANGED
Everything changed in 2018, when our daughter was born. The last memories of our first shop were days spent handing it off to dear friends with a newborn in our arms.
No choice is easy as a parent, but we both cherished time with our grandparents as kids, and wanted our kids to grow up with lots of those same memories.
We moved to our home province of New Brunswick and launched our first branded boutique in Saint John on December 3, 2018.
With our second location in sight, 2020 rocked all our worlds while we were 5-months pregnant with our son.
We moved entirely online that year, and continued operating. These were exciting and hard times. We held on and hustled, but ended up going from a team of 6 to a team of 2, having to do layoffs for the first time. It was heart-wrenching.
But, with resilience, programs in cosmetic science and product development, and new partnerships in beauty tech, we continued building the brand we'd dreamed of...one that makes the best-smelling daily care for dry & sensitive skin!
So, our search for comfort is done, but a new chapter in the journey is always just a turn of the page away 💜
Building Resilience: Challenging Mental Health & Addictions
If these topics are sensitive or triggering, skip below for more happiness!!
We are very comfortable with our sensitivities, but weren't always so self-accepting.
We both felt uncomfortable in childhood, and would find out that we have ADHD - Inattentive Type (Justin), Cyclothymia (Judith), and high sensitivity as adults.
We'd watched family members and friends use alcohol and drugs in their lives, and easily found our way to these things as well.
There are significant reductions in life expectancy with our diagnoses (up to 20 years+), and risky behaviours are the root cause for this reduction.
Within the people that we love, Judith lost her father at 11, Justin lost a cousin and uncle to suicide.
We lost Justin's best friend to a drunk driving crash, his first university mentor to suicide, and his brother's best friend to drunk driving as well.
In 2011, Justin would make an attempt at his own life, which was the rock bottom needed to realize the WAY he was living was NOT getting him closer to where he wanted to be.
We met months later, and found comfort and love in one another. Judith's depression would resurface at times, and a hypomania period in 2021/22 led to a new diagnosis on the Bipolar spectrum.
But, with well over a decade of learning how to accommodate our sensitivities in our lifestyle, we've adapted and built an amazing life.
For us, most of the pain and loss we've experienced and witnessed were completely avoidable. This is why we share our experiences openly, to help destigmatize the silly fears around diversity in how our brains work that can hold us back from talking openly or seeking assessments and knowledge.
We want to replace pain and fear with comfort and confidence.
It's why we make products that comfort sensitive skin, use packaging and materials that help build confidence in tomorrow, and invest heavily into housing and opportunities for others...because it's hard to do good or feel better each day when you're uncomfortable in your skin or struggling with your daily needs.
Leading With Kindness
Having been on the receiving end of many kindnesses, we try to lead with a kind heart in our family and our business.
Our work and home life have helped us so much, we invest 5% of each sale into an affordable housing fund to help local families on their own Better Each Day journey!
