Earth Harbor Naturals

Earth Harbor's first lab was the kitchen of a 100-square-foot treehouse. Shane Hatch spent six months building it. He and Ali Perry-Hatch lived in it off the grid, which gave a future skin care company less floor space than most walk-in closets. Today Earth Harbor makes its products in house in Utah County, and its returns address is in Spanish Fork.

The road there ran through a near-fatal car accident. Perry-Hatch, who holds a master's in public health and spent her early career in environmental health and toxicology, came out of it with injuries that changed how she thought about what went on her skin. Her husband quit his job to care for her. They had a young child and no insurance, and the medical bills kept coming.

She went back to formulas she had been making for years and started selling them at farmers markets in 2018, with $2,000 she had saved. The Daily Herald reported that the business was profitable from its first market. By 2021 it had moved three times, from a converted backyard garage to an 11,000-square-foot warehouse in Springville.

Perry-Hatch wanted Whole Foods and Ulta from the start, she told Beauty Independent. Whole Foods came about two years in. For Ulta, she stayed in touch with a senior buyer whose email address she did not have by mailing products and notes every few months. "It was all those sweet touches that helped seal the deal," she said. Most of us would have stopped after the second package.

Earth Harbor makes nearly everything itself, with sunscreen the exception, because Perry-Hatch did not trust outside labs to share her standards. "I don't feel there are any labs or co-packers out there that really care about what we care about," she said. The plant could run 50,000 units a day and was running about 20,000 at the time of that report, and the company has begun making products for other brands. Its FAQ says even the shipping boxes are made in house, under the name Ethical Earth Brands.

The company calls itself the only skin care brand founded by a toxicologist. That is its own claim. The certifications it can point to are Climate Neutral and Leaping Bunny, which covers cruelty-free products.

Perry-Hatch grew up on St. Simons Island, Georgia, mixing marsh mud masks for friends as a kid. Her bestseller is a moisturizer called Mermaid Milk, and it is now made in a state with no coastline at all.