The Founder Series is a column by and about Utah founders and how they got to where they are today. Click here to read past articles in the series.

M

om’s Stuff was born entirely out of necessity. It was created to provide protection and healing for my family’s skin. 

In the early 1990s, my husband took our first trip down the Colorado River. My hands suffered because of the harsh environment we were in, as I pulled on ropes and tried to lash rigging down. That mighty river was filled with mud and sandy water, and my hands were constantly cracked or bleeding.

One remedy helped—a tiny jar of salve I’d bought at a health food store before we left. It contained just three ingredients: olive oil, comfrey plant and beeswax. I shared it with others on the trip. I had a big comfrey plant growing in my yard, and the experience sparked the idea that maybe I could make my own salve. It was pre-internet days, which meant my research amounted to checking out library books, talking to people and asking questions. I was messing around at first, with no intention of going into business. I just wanted to replicate what we’d benefited from so I could ease our suffering on future trips.

My experiments lasted a few years. Every time I made the salve, I used different ingredients, figuring out which herbs and oils were best for the skin and taking notes of the results.

Around 1995, I struck gold: the piñon salve evolved to a place I was 100 percent satisfied with. The first time I made a batch, I immediately decided I wouldn’t change it anymore. And in 28 years, I haven’t! This all-purpose salve includes organic extra virgin olive oil infused with comfrey leaf extract, piñon pine pitch, beeswax, sweet almond oil, apricot kernel oil, jojoba seed oil, lanolin, rosemary oil, tea tree leaf oil and neem oil. It’s the same recipe we sell at Mom’s Stuff today. 

When we were passengers on another river trip later in 1994, I came bearing gifts. Because I still had friends having babies back then, I asked for their empty baby food jars, filling them with the salve I’d conjured up. Everybody on that river trip had a tiny jar to call their own.

Mom’s Stuff started right then, even though I wasn’t selling it yet, and it didn’t have a name.

Handmade for hands-on work

I used the salve on river trips, but my husband Joe had reason to use it daily. He’s a potter by trade and always has his hands in clay and water. Lotions never worked, and I discovered why: water is the number one ingredient in most skincare products. The active ingredients, on the other hand—what your skin most benefits from—comprise under 6 percent of the lotion you use. That doesn’t cut it if you’re working with your hands or feet often. So, I made something better.

At Christmas, I started giving away even more baby food jars of salve to family and friends. Eventually, they wanted more and started asking me to make and sell it to them. It still had no name, but one surfaced when my oldest daughter, Louisa, accidentally provided it.

She was working as a whitewater river guide and had packed a tiny jar of my salve. Every night, she’d faithfully apply it to her hands and feet. All the guides had permanent cracks on their hands that wouldn’t heal because they worked for weeks and months without relief.

Their curiosity was piqued. They asked what she was using. “It’s this stuff my mom makes,” she said, and they all were desperate to try it. She obliged, and during that trip, their cracks healed as they used the salve and continued to work on the river.

When summer came to a close, one guide offered, “Next time you go home, bring back more of your mom’s stuff.” She did, and just like that, the business was awarded its name.

A slow and intentional strategy

More jars were filled with salve, taken to the river, then sold or given away. The seed was repeatedly planted: this was a product people wanted and could use.

Back then, if you wanted to sell a product, you hired a representative to shop it around and sell it at wholesale prices. That wasn’t what I wanted to do. For years, I only advertised via the twice-a-year pottery newsletter we printed and mailed.

Annually, we sold about 100 jars through Joe’s pottery shop. There was no online store. You had to walk into the shop in Spring City, Utah if you wanted to buy it. It was so low profile that my labels were initially handwritten. I upgraded to a dot matrix printer, then eventually a laser printer. The salve was sold at cost for a long time.

In 2010, ambition set in. I wanted to serve a larger audience. Online businesses were surfacing, and I was beginning to receive emails from other small makers. I could sell in a similar way, I thought, but the timing wasn’t right: my mom had dementia, and I was heavily involved with caring for her.

After she passed on, I put up my first website for Mom’s Stuff. It was so primitive I even wrote all my receipts by hand. My aspirations were simple, and my goal was to earn enough with the business to cover our health insurance premiums.

My husband and I are self-employed artists. I’m a painter, and as I already mentioned, Joe is a potter. Our largest expense every month was always health insurance. It was killing us. We’d never owned a new car because our premiums cost more than our mortgage. Some months, it was really hard. By the end of that first year, though, Mom’s Stuff was paying our premiums, and I was happy. Anything we earned on top of that was gravy.

Beyond the river

As a potter, my husband works with clay, sand and water. The throwing process is hard on his skin. Before using the salve, his hands flared up when he was glazing. The finely-milled glazes sucked moisture out of his skin. His hands would be red and chapped, his knuckles cracked and bleeding. At age 50, he started a second career as a river guide on the Salmon River and in other places, leading to even more exposure to moisture, mud and heat. 

At 71 years young, he still makes pottery. He hasn’t had a crack or rash on his hands since 1995, thanks to Mom’s Stuff. Putting the salve on his hands beforehand keeps him safe. He throws pots for a few hours and then washes the clay off when he is ready for a break. Before he starts again, he reapplies Mom’s Stuff. It protects him while promoting healing. He also applies it every night before going to bed—we both do.

So many customers have come to us with similar problems, including eternally cracked heels. If you get a bacterial infection in those cracks, it’s a great place for it to live. No matter how much lotion you apply, unless it can address the fungal or bacterial infection, it won’t heal. Many of our ingredients are both antibacterial and antifungal and stimulate blood flow to help with healing.

I primarily made Mom’s Stuff salve for hands and feet, but over time, the ways it was being used started to multiply. I started using it on my face, then as a leave-in conditioner. Some male customers used it on their beards after showering. It’s surprisingly effective on eczema. I learned from my customers about all the ways they used it, and the stories were countless.

At one point, it made sense to have my daughter Zina start working with me. She said, “Mom, I can increase your business enough to support us both.” I was so worried about that and paid her a part-time salary at first. I wasn’t certain I’d be able to keep up with my bills. But she was right: by rebranding labels and building a better site, she quadrupled our sales.

From garden to jar

Even as sales and customers increase, much about Mom’s Stuff remains the same. I still make every batch. None of it is farmed out. All the comfrey used is grown in my garden, which I harvest by hand. It’s laid out on racks and dried in the sun, then put into buckets. The piñon pine pitch we use is a limited resource because it comes from a tree that only grows in the Four Corners region. Not all trees offer the pitch, either—they only produce the pitch globules when a particular beetle bores into the tree. Later, the afflicted piñon pine oozes sap to flush the larvae out. Extra virgin olive oil is poured into the bucket with the comfrey. It’s still very much a handmade process.

But our life revolves around more than just business. Mom’s Stuff provides a fairly steady income, but we get a lot of pleasure out of it, too. We get to make products and receive feedback from our customers. We get to work together on our own terms.

Word of mouth is still the strongest and best way to grow. It may be the slowest way, too, but that’s how we do everything. Mom’s Stuff fits into the “slow food” or “slow fashion” model. We’re a slow business growing slowly, and we tend to like it like that.

We know the way we make our products could be done more efficiently, but we’re also not interested. It would mean more infrastructure, possible debt and hiring employees. We’d lose the handmade quality and enjoyment we have now. I enjoy being a maker and do not want to be a manager. When my daughter and I make salve together, we talk the whole time, which is an integral part of the business. That has its own merits.

Over the years, Joe and I have always agreed that time is worth more to us than money. We are both outdoor people. We like to river run and work in the garden. Being employed by someone else, you usually get a couple of weeks of vacation at most. Part of why we went the route we did—of being self-employed—was to allow us time to be outside. It’s a core desire that’s been a guiding light for us. Everything else has sort of filled in.

If I’d had a crystal ball 50 years ago, I’d have been as surprised as anyone at the course we’ve taken. I had no idea I would be doing this, but it fits. Each road we’ve traveled or tried has been something new. We have had time to live a very good and fulfilling life. We have worked hard, but much of our work feels like playing and doing things we love to do. Mom’s Stuff is a steady eddy—we count on it because our customers love what we do. As long as they have skin, they’re going to need us. 

Making is meditating

Making all Mom’s Stuff products—salve, face balms or body oil—is meditative for me. Once I have figured out a recipe, it doesn’t vary from that point. It’s not necessary to reinvent the wheel each time I make a new batch. Instead, it’s a lot like visiting an old friend.

Many steps are involved. Some days, I harvest plant materials in my garden. Other times, I combine ingredients, filling jars for hours. I might be doing nothing but making labels another day, but I don’t burn out because the routine changes. My mother always told me, “A change is as good as a rest,” and she was correct. Each step of making Mom’s Stuff offers deep enjoyment, even if it’s hauling a big bag of orders to the post office three days a week. 

I enjoy making products people need and love and have a treasure trove of stories. Customers send messages about how our products have helped them with skin issues that have been problematic for years. They say the smell and feel of the products are soothing and beneficial at an energetic and physical level, and that gives me a real boost. Each batch of salve I make is with the intention of healing and connection for the users. Bringing them into contact with these amazing plant and animal gifts is so satisfying. I am aware of the purpose of the products and am deeply grateful to be a part of sharing.

We view all customers as friends and family. If our products don’t work for you, we will refund your money. That happens once or twice a year, but we’re glad to do that. We don’t look at customers as dollar signs. If you take a gamble on us, you’re a friend.