May Lindstrom, CEO and founder of cult LA-based indie beauty brand that carries her name, mother of two young children, and partner in business with her CFO husband, joined us for a remarkable episode of Green Beauty Conversations. If you know May Lindstrom, the chances are it is through her brand's fabulously coloured Blue Cocoon Beauty Balm Concentrate; a product that has seen many a copy-cat. This episode of Green Beauty Conversations only touches on this hero product because it is the truly unique, quiet and mindful way May Lindstrom has built her business that caught our attention. In some ways, May's personal journey to starting 'May Lindstrom the brand' resonates with many founders in the indie, natural beauty space. She has hypersensitive skin and spent her childhood to early twenties desperately seeking ways to alleviate a raft of skin problems triggered by using synthetic ingredients in mainstream personal care. But, this is where May Lindstrom's backstory parts ways with other indie beauty founders. A childhood amidst nature and parents who taught her to see magic in the great outdoors, gave May her lasting sense of responsibility to humanity and nature. Her formative experiences and deeply-rooted personal philosophies drove the brand at start up, and still do today even as it has reached iconic status. Interestingly, May, ever a creative child, became an art student, model and make-up artist but had once set her sights on becoming a chef with her own restaurant. May is not called 'The Skin Chef' for nothing. Her products are renowned for their high-quality, ethically- and sustainably-sourced ingredients. May takes obsessive care in sourcing natural botanical cosmetic ingredients directly from trusted, vetted farmers and other suppliers just as if she were cooking with them and nourishing her own family from within. In this podcast, host and Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier reveals the May Lindstom behind her now celebrity status to discover a truly atypical, indie beauty brand founder. May puts sourcing the highest quality ingredients before growth and people most certainly before profit, is unphased by copy-cat products and will pull out of big retailers even when profitable if they can't support her brand in line with her high standards. As she says, with each product having her name on it, May Lindstrom is still a very personal business with all the good times and the difficulties that come with keeping things relatively small in a very big, profit-driven industry. Listen in for a chance to hear how May Lindstrom founder and brand thrive by bucking the beauty industry normal. In this episode with May Lindstrom, you will hear: How in formulating for her own skin issues and for individual clients with severe skin problems gave May her expertise in ingredients and how to make products effective, but that skincare needs also and as importantly to be sensorial, magical and beautiful and take you to a different space. Why May deliberately formulated a capsule collection beauty range rather than felt pressured to continually release new products. 'Choice can be paralysing', May says. A multitasking, smaller range is also in line with the current minimalism trend in skincare. Why your customer's opinion comes first. Listen directly to clients about what they like or don't in a formula and reformulate to respond to their needs. Do this rather than pump out new stock to suit retailers (who often don't have the systems in place to sell your current stock well before its Best Before dates anyway!). How May Lindstrom retains complete control over her company to ensure they own the entire manufacturing process. 'Ingredient integrity' is of paramount importance to indie beauty brands if they wish to differentiate. Outsourcing means you often lose control over the provenance of your ingredients and you won't know how they went from seed to skincare. Why May doesn't like to focus on categories such as 'green', 'clean' be