Leyna Allred, the founder of URB Apothecary, has always been obsessed with the medicinal qualities of plants. In 2013, she transformed her passionate hobby into a thriving skincare business dedicated to reconnecting us with the nourishing power of plants. As a mother and entrepreneur, Leyna, along with her small team of women, creates amazing products for the face, body, and hair. In this interview, she shares her journey from hobbyist to business owner, discussing the pivotal moments that led to the creation of URB Apothecary, the challenges of balancing motherhood and entrepreneurship, and her deep commitment to sustainability and natural skincare.
Leyna, what inspired you to start URB Apothecary? Well, at the time I was living in LA, and it was around 2012, 2013. The GMO labeling movement was just starting to pick up steam. We did a few marches, you know, to label GMOs. One amazing side effect of that movement was people actually started paying attention to the ingredients in their food. This curiosity spilled over into skincare and hair care products. Around that time, I got several tattoos in LA, and one artist recommended Aquaphor, but it was the worst healing tattoo I'd ever had. Another artist gave me an herbal salve they made, and it healed amazingly. That was my "aha" moment. I began reading about herbs with skin-healing properties and created an herbal infusion that I turned into a salve, which is now our Repair Salve. I gave it to friends and family, and they loved it. They encouraged me to sell it, so I started a small Etsy shop. What began as a hobby grew organically into a business.
There is a lot that goes into building a business, building a brand. You've done such a beautiful job. With all that you're doing, plus raising children, it seems like a ton of stress. How do you handle it? Honestly, the past three years have been the toughest. The pandemic affected everyone, and small businesses were no exception. When it starts to feel like a huge task, I break it into smaller chunks. For example, I think about ways to reduce costs or take a day off to clear my mind. Nature is my sanctuary. A trip to a mountain lake can be incredibly grounding. I think a lot of people in my industry have a special place in their heart for nature. I just went to a mountain lake this weekend where I got to swim in the water. It's just so grounding, so centering. After that, I think "okay, we can go back and do this and tackle the myriad of things that are now on our plate." Taking breaks and tackling one thing at a time helps me avoid feeling overwhelmed.
Sustainability is another big area of importance to us. What does it mean to your brand? Sustainability means not depleting natural resources to create our products. We look at the ingredient supply and demand for the crop and see if the crop is renewable and if we're being good custodians of the earth. For instance, we previously discontinued our Copal Palo Santo body oil because I was concerned about the sustainability of Palo Santo. However, further research showed that there are many indigenous people and communities that revolve their whole life around creating and maintaining these Palo Santo trees and forests. They don't want Palo Santo to go extinct because it's their livelihood. They are cultivating ingredients in a sustainably minded way. So, we reintroduced it, supporting both the environment and these communities.
Wild American ginseng is another good example of something that flared in popularity many years ago; it was over-harvested in the wild. It created an endangerment, so wild ginseng is not a sustainable ingredient. But, there was such a demand for it that farmers began to cultivate and farm it, creating a sustainable form of ginseng and leaving the wild ginseng alone to regenerate. The ideology of sustainability for me is looking at an ingredient and understanding whether it is sustainable in general and for the community that's cultivating it.
I noticed you also do a lot of sourcing from local farms and small farms. Could you elaborate on this practice? Sourcing locally has been incredibly rewarding. It's not easy to find small growers specifically for medicinal herbs. But it is getting better because of the market demand. People are like, "These herbs are amazing healing things. How do we get more of them?" A lot of it has been word of mouth. We get vibrant, high-quality herbs from small farms, often biodynamic, which ensures the potency of our ingredients. For example, a small farm in Canada supplies us with the most vibrant calendula. We also collaborate with local farms in Sacramento for ingredients like lavender. The freshness and potency are significantly higher than mass-produced alternatives because we can order it in small batches.
And you're also supporting their sustainable businesses. The ripple effects of that can be powerful. That's right.
Regarding your products, what are you most proud of? I'm incredibly proud that we make everything in-house. About 98% of our ingredients are infused with the herbs and the plant material so they have all of the healing and medicinal properties of the plants themselves. It takes extra time to put the plant material in the product, but this hands-on approach ensures our products are effective and true to our plant-based philosophy. That's the basis of URB - the whole line is based in plant medicine.
In the last few years we've definitely come up with more in-depth formulations, like the Goji Nectar Cleansing Balm. There are lots of cleansing balms, but I wanted a balm to milk cleanser that wasn't soap based for people with more mature skin. I had this idea of what I want it to be like in the end, and then worked backwards to find all the ingredients that it could be. Then we experiment with different combinations and ratios. The trick is finding ingredients that people are familiar with, but are unusual enough to make someone curious or to catch their eye. That's always something that I've been proud of. It's pretty fun to have strange, not so mainstream ingredients. It's rewarding to create something that not only heals the skin but also connects people to the power of nature.
The Goji Nectar is just gorgeous. It's just so rich and creamy, and with a little water in it, it feels so nice. Yeah, it's like magic. The willow cleanser was another example. That one is Castile soap-based. We did that one many years ago and it took quite a while too.
As a female founder, what does that mean to you, and how has it shaped your business journey? I can't say that I've faced many struggles specifically because I'm a woman. I think that might have been different if I'd sought venture capital, but since it was such a slow growth route, it felt very natural. It feels empowering as a woman to own my own business and to have gone through all the learning curves of figuring out how to run a business and everything that entails. I've been fortunate to have a supportive partner who encouraged me to grow this business from the beginning. Now, as a mother of two small children, it's very difficult. There are only three of us in the studio, and I can't be here as much when I'm busy being a mother and trying to give them my whole attention. But I'm proud that we can do it, even though it's incredibly challenging. My kids used to come to the studio often, but then they reached the age where it just turned into more mayhem, and I was like, we're not getting any work done here.
Tell me a little bit about your future goals. What do you see your brand turning into in the years ahead? I want to continue to expand and get into more markets. We recently started wholesaling to Japan, which is very exciting. So yeah, just to keep growing and get in front of more markets. We're very comfortable right now, but it's always fun to kind of step outside of that comfort zone and see what we can do. While we want to grow, maintaining control over our production is crucial to ensure quality. We dream of scaling in-house, similar to larger skincare companies that keep their production close. Additionally, getting into bigger grocery store chains like Whole Foods would be a fantastic next step for exposure and growth.
As you scale, there's probably going to be a lot of pressure to follow conventional production methods. Are there ways to get around that? Yes, there are some larger skincare companies that have scaled in-house, and they basically have their own production facilities. That's a wonderful goal I have in mind. If it ever got to that point, that's how I want it to go. I don't want to hand over the sourcing and formulation to someone else. I'd love to go against the grain a bit and do it my own way, keeping the baby close.
Is there anything else you'd like to share with our audience that maybe you're excited about or that's coming up for you? We have a new product launching soon, a collaboration with Naked Goat Soap Company. It's a limited run of the Palo Santo Vetiver Hand and Body Liquid Soap. We're really excited about that.
I do want to say that we're inundated all the time with anti-aging, anti-wrinkle and all those messages. At the heart of URB, we just want to help people heal their skin and get in touch with a part of themselves they love. They don't have to cover themselves with makeup. I mean, some people just enjoy doing that. But if you feel like you're covering something, I want to help heal your skin so you can see your own beauty. I created the belly balm and the belly oil because when I went through pregnancy, I had a really hard time with my own body image. And just the act of massaging oil on my belly helped. It was like I was acknowledging my body. To tell myself little things, like "my legs are strong, they carry me through the day. My body is amazing, what it's doing." And I feel like those little things really helped shape and shift my image of myself. I want my URB products to ultimately be that, a tool for reconnecting with yourself, a deeper sense of self, not just the skin, but a deeper sense of who you are and how you've been made.
Find the Goji Nectar Cleansing Balm and other URB Apothecary products in this collection on Here I Am.
This interview has been edited and condensed from my conversation with Leyna. To hear the full interview, find it and follow Here I Am on our YouTube channel.
