Today we’d like to introduce you to Melanie Petschke and Kelly Weston.
Melanie and Kelly, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I (Melanie) am a Family Nurse Practitioner and have been in practice for over 12 years, so I’ve always been very passionate about health promotion and disease prevention. When I was pregnant for the first time about 8 years ago is when I started paying closer attention to the emerging research and the importance of living an organic and toxin free lifestyle.
I started looking closer at what I was eating, what I was putting on my skin, what I was using to clean my house and over the next few years I slowly transitioned over the different areas in my life.
When I met Kelly five years ago, we were at a very similar stage in life trying to navigate through this challenging phase and make the right choices for our health as well as for our families.
Through this process, there were many things we both found to come as a pretty easy to transition. However, the one arena we both found ourselves struggling to find a safer alternative was cosmetics. Due to poor cosmetic regulation in the United States conventional products on the market today contain ingredients linked to cancer, endocrine disruption, reproductive and developmental toxicity, and many other health concerns. The safer options available simply did not perform.
We quickly realized we were not alone in this dilemma and discovered a huge void in the marketplace for cosmetics that met both our safety and performance standards. We decided to take on the challenge of creating safer cosmetics that could compete with the toxic products on the market. We were confident it could be done.
In January 2016, we launched Crunchi, a revolutionary line of cosmetics uniquely crafted with a combination of safe, certified organic and EcoCert Ingredients.
Additionally, the entire collection is: toxin free, cruelty-free (Leaping Bunny Certified), made in the USA, gluten-free, and either vegan or vegetarian and where possible we have used eco-friendly and toxin-free glass bottles and paper packaging.
Has it been a smooth road?
There have been many challenges and opportunities for growth through this experience. Some examples include:
– The choice not to take on any investors to launch this business resulting in significant personal sacrifice
– Managing growth and expectations
– Maintaining our product safety standards despite the added costs and time involved in development and production
– The balance required each being mothers raising young children while launching a new brand
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Crunchi story. Tell us more about the business.
We are becoming well known in the green beauty space for creating a line of cosmetics that performs as well as our toxic competitors. We have become specifically known for our Smart Primer, Beautifully Flawless Foundation and Flat Top Foundation Brush.
We are proud to offer a product line where women no longer need to compromise their health for their beauty or their beauty for their health.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We have set some massive goals for the next 5-10 years.
We have an exciting pipeline of products in development. We have plans to become a household name not just for cosmetics but for an array of products related to living a healthy lifestyle.
This is the day and age of the conscious consumer, and we are primed perfectly to meet these needs.
Contact Info:
- Website: crunchi.com
- Phone: 1-888-831-3133
- Email: info@crunchi.com
Image Credit:
Crunchi
Ian Jacobs
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