Lara Schmosiman (00:11)

Hi everyone, welcome back to Coffee Number 5. And you know a little bit about me by now, and you know that I’ve been all over the place. But I don’t believe in all over the place just because I believe that we are on a journey and the journey takes you places. I don’t know what I would be doing today as a marketer if I didn’t have my screenwriting degree. I use that every day in direct response, understanding my consumer or the brands consumer, I use that all the time. My degree in production and direction, I use it all the time using film, television, everything adds up. And so everything that happens to you in your life, you don’t know why, but please use it and learn from it. So today I have, like always a treat for you. I met casually in another part of my life, Alison McNamara.

 

Allison McNamara (01:03)

Hi!

 

Lara Schmosiman (01:04)

I’m so happy to have you here. I mean, I was always so impressed with your brand and then I heard your story and you were all over the place like me too. So tell us a little bit about your journey and how did you end up owning an incredible brand?

 

Allison McNamara (01:19)

Thank you for that, you know, Mara is by far my greatest accomplishment, I think, so far. But I did have a lengthy history, a full career really, a full life before I launched the brand seven years ago. So with my first life, I went to college thinking I was going to either do something like molecular biology, law, or just talking on camera was always very natural to me, but I didn’t know how I was going to parlay that. So I did like.

 

microbiome law, then ended up as a television host and a writer, went into journalism school instead. You know, I feel that back in the day, women weren’t really showed like how to be a boss besides being a journalist or being a lawyer or being something like that. So I felt like I went on this journey. I graduated USC. I had a journalism degree. got I graduated in the height of the recession. So it was like a really crazy time to find a job. 2009 and

 

ended up working at E Entertainment as a tape librarian. Before everything was digitized, I would like pass around tapes.

 

Lara Schmosiman (02:17)

believe me, I remember we were in the same companies at the same time and it’s where only the tapes was like shooting and then going back to this, the office so we can get our tapes and then you can send them by satellite.

 

Allison McNamara (02:29)

Thanks. Yes, it was crazy. even the producers that I worked for at the time, they would have to go into these tape libraries and say they wanted from 18 seconds to 27 seconds. And then they would have to request the digitization of that particular clip. And then would pull it. It was crazy.

 

Lara Schmosiman (02:49)

And let me tell you something from the producer side, you had to log everything. The logging, was, my God, I cannot explain how many hours I spent in front of the TV just logging. Woman walking, this, talking, my God.

 

Allison McNamara (02:53)

Yes, yes, the logging was crazy.

 

I know.

 

Yeah, one of my internship projects, I was at E in the News Bureau and I had to transcribe like a seven hour set visit with Ken Baker and I forget where he was, but it was a seven hour set visit. I had to transcribe the whole thing. I feel like people today who are working in production just have no idea how hard it used to be. Like even when we would interview people on the red carpet as I grew in my career at Pop Sugar, I would have to go home and transcribe the interview, like write it all down.

 

Lara Schmosiman (03:34)

Absolutely,

 

not only that, I remember you’re gonna have to go to the pre-show, get ready, it’s not like you show up on the red carpet and you’re fighting for the spot, but then, yes, trying to get the… Then you need to go wait until the show ends, do the post-shows, do the post-parties, and then on top of that, then you need to go and edit.

 

Allison McNamara (03:44)

Yes, always, you’re like this.

 

Totally.

 

Yeah, and the editing is something I never did, but I would sit with an editor and literally edit packages. So I started at E, graduated in the height of the recession, then ended up getting a job at Who What Where, which is a digital fashion website. They gave me my first on-camera job, and I was like, I love this. So continued on the career path of hosting, broadcast journalism, but I was also always a writer. So doing the transcriptions, writing the stories, I worked

 

Lara Schmosiman (04:10)

you

 

Allison McNamara (04:22)

January 29 to Pop Sugar to Entertainment Tonight. I did work for FYI Network. I hosted the Oscars red carpet for ABC. I did a litany of sorts, but then ultimately in like 2016, I really saw the shift with social media and I felt that broadcast like magazine was eventually going to be irrelevant. And the shows that I wanted to host weren’t necessarily what people wanted to watch. So no one was waiting till like 6 p.m. to watch E! News.

 

because they have Instagram and they’ve gotten the updates live on their phones. So took a little bit of a hiatus and came up with the idea for Mara. And that’s how I decided to launch my skincare routine. I totally just went on a whim, had this idea and.

 

Lara Schmosiman (04:55)

Good night.

 

But didn’t

 

they hear that you were interested in biology earlier?

 

Allison McNamara (05:10)

Yes, so I’ve always like, thought I was going to work as a microbiologist or biochemistry, something in the science world. But then, you know, when you’re when you were younger, and like, especially when I was younger, I think around the same time, I just didn’t know of the jobs that were available to me. I thought I had to be like a lawyer or like a writer to be a successful person. Because that’s what I was seen. I was shown in movies like I watched like, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and she’s a writer.

 

Lara Schmosiman (05:36)

Of course.

 

Allison McNamara (05:37)

or like Sex and the City and she’s this like boss ass bitch, but she’s a writer. So I was like, that’s what I have to do to be successful. So I didn’t even know like brand founder, all those things to me were not something that I thought about back then, but biology and science have always been really important to me. And so that’s kind of how Mara took shape because I’ve always been deeply inspired by the ocean. My last name means Hound of the Sea. So Mara means sea in Gaelic.

 

And I was like, what a cool space.

 

Lara Schmosiman (06:04)

And even

 

in Spanish, mar means sea.

 

Allison McNamara (06:07)

Yeah, Mar is the Latin derivative for ocean or water, sea. So that’s why you see it in so many languages. I think Italian, it’s mare. I thought this whole idea around finding organisms, algae, that have been around for billions of years and have survived the harshest of conditions, there has to be an amazing connection to skincare. And so it really started as a side hustle. And I’m so proud of how we’ve evolved since then.

 

Lara Schmosiman (06:12)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

 

Okay, so

 

let’s talk for a second about the side hustle. So you started, you were still working.

 

Allison McNamara (06:38)

Yes, I worked a full second job up until 2022. So three years after launching my brand.

 

Lara Schmosiman (06:43)

Wow.

 

So you launched a brand that was an overnight success. ⁓

 

Allison McNamara (06:51)

No. well,

 

I thought it was. Honestly, by all measures of my success in 2018, we crushed it. But I think, you know, we sometimes sell more in a day today than I did all year in 2018. So obviously, my bar was not that high in 2018, but I only had one product. And I think we sold like $80,000 worth of product that first year.

 

Lara Schmosiman (07:07)

Yeah.

 

Allison McNamara (07:14)

I was just like, wow, people are responding to this idea. We got some great press placements. And so I kind took that as a sign to continue the process of Mara. And I had the products I wanted to launch. I just didn’t have the capital. So each product is so vital to our future growth because they really fuel the success of the next one and the formulation and development of the next product.

 

Lara Schmosiman (07:37)

So, I mean, that’s very interesting. I mean, you did it seven years ago, which is a completely different space that we are today in the beauty industry. feel like today is a lot more competitive than it was then. Why do you think that happened?

 

Allison McNamara (07:50)

You know, every everyone says this, right? Like hindsight’s always 20 20. So we always think the past is easier because we’ve done it before. But in 2018, yes, the saturation was less like there weren’t as many brands to compete with. But the education element wasn’t there. So educating customers on clean beauty, on ingredients like that was all new. And at the time we had Instagram when I launched. But Instagram stories like that that feature launched

 

Lara Schmosiman (08:10)

Yeah.

 

Allison McNamara (08:18)

the year that I launched Mara. So I feel like the touch points for a brand today, I feel like there’s so many more opportunities to reach new people. Like you can go viral on TikTok. Like TikTok is this crazy platform that really has no bias, right? So we didn’t have that type of discovery. You really needed like retail celebrity and like influencer back then. But now it’s like, I feel like there’s a little bit more control on the brand side on exposure.

 

based on all of these different levers and tools that we have in social media. But I do also think it is hard because there’s a lot of competition, there’s a lot of people saying the same thing. There’s just a lot of redundancy in the category.

 

Lara Schmosiman (08:55)

Yes.

 

And also there is a lot of copycats that they see that something is succeeding and then they go and they produce something very similar to compete.

 

Allison McNamara (09:00)

Yes.

 

Yes, I have a funny story. Are you familiar with Trader Joe’s? OK, so some executives. love Trader Joe’s too. No shade. I actually took it as a compliment. But some executives’ wife at Trader Joe’s for sure is a big Mara fan. Because my third year in business, after we went viral with Chrissy Teigen, they kind of combined my

 

Lara Schmosiman (09:11)

Yes. Don’t say anything about a trailer jobs, please, because I love my trailer jobs.

 

Allison McNamara (09:31)

my vibe, so was like a blue, kind of a blue bottle, glass bottle, but then they used marula oil, which is kind of like the signature of Drunk Elephant. We kind of took our two best sellers and put them into one product, but they made it visually so similar to Mara.

 

Lara Schmosiman (09:34)

No, please.

 

Well, Mara packaging is gorgeous. I will talk about that for a second, but I want to ask you a question because you mentioned something just now that you were like every product development depends on the success of the product before or the product. So can you explain that a little more?

 

Allison McNamara (09:48)

Thank you.

 

Totally.

 

I’ve learned so much through this accounting journey that I’ve been on. I didn’t study finance, surprise. So with how my business is structured, since we have not taken outside capital, we run on a cash basis. So we’re not on the gaffing structure. We’re run as a cash basis business. So we have to have cash coming in in order to have output. And so because of that reason, when I had, think I put in $50,000 around marginally, and then think my dad gave me another $50,000.

 

to launch the business. And that $100,000 paid for bottles, droppers, formulation costs, website development, the little lack thereof, and photography. But after that, when I launched Universal Oil, I had no capital left. So I had to sell what I made in order to future fund not only growth of the business, but also hiring a team, getting that next product out. And so it really is this rolling cycle. Now that we’re bigger, we have so many SKUs that are performing that we don’t

 

Each launch isn’t as precious, but at the beginning, those secondary and third launches were crucial for the business.

 

Lara Schmosiman (11:07)

So now that when you’re planning your season, like now, for example, probably you already plan your 2026. And do you know that you’re going to be dropping so many skills next year?

 

Allison McNamara (11:17)

Well, we only drop one to two SKUs a year. So the Mara Way, the whole ethos behind the brand is obviously science-backed algae skincare. But it’s really trying to minimize your routine and have more luxurious, more effective, potent products in as few steps as possible. So ⁓ to remain true to that ethos, we have to be very selective on the products that we launch. And so I have two products slated for next year. I am very excited about both of them.

 

But like this year, for example, I only launched one product the whole year.

 

Lara Schmosiman (11:50)

So I know you are in Sephora, like everyone dreams to be on Sephora, you are on Revolve, I mean your target audience is there, but do you think that it should be every brand’s goal to be on Sephora?

 

Allison McNamara (11:58)

Hmm.

 

I think it just depends on what the brand goals are and what retailer they best align with. We’re in a new age where, depending on who you’re marketing to, there’s so many avenues for people to shop. There’s Amazon, which is building $100 and $200 million supplement businesses with just one point of distribution. There are places like luxury retail. I think it’s super interesting for us, like Cost Bars and Blue Mercury. There’s a very interesting.

 

Lara Schmosiman (12:21)

Mm-hmm.

 

Allison McNamara (12:29)

different subset of customer there. So to answer your question, like, no, I don’t think every brand has to be at Sephora to be successful. But I do think Sephora is the premier prestige retailer in the United States. And I think having their stamp of approval goes really far. But that’s not to say that Ulta also has a great assortment of other types of brands.

 

Lara Schmosiman (12:41)

Mm-hmm.

 

So

 

how was your transition from being B2C or smaller retailers when you got big retail? Because I hear these stories over and over saying I wasn’t ready for what it takes.

 

Allison McNamara (13:01)

I’m still not ready for what it takes, to be honest. I

 

think it just depends. I always knew that Omnichannel was going to be my strategy for the brand. I came after the glossieres of the world. There was the Darlings that were D2C, that these businesses that grew astronomically in the early 2010s. And I knew that I wanted something that had retail exposure. I thought retail was really

 

Lara Schmosiman (13:12)

Okay.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Allison McNamara (13:29)

vital to my distribution plan. But I think with retail, it’s interesting. We still haven’t figured out retail. I think you’ve got to first figure out who your shopper is and where they’re shopping and whether that’s just placement on dot com, whether that’s in store, whether it’s going in store with a larger footprint. These are all big decisions that are part of the strategy. now with hindsight, I’m learning that

 

Sometimes going everywhere is not the best approach. I think brand founders, myself included, get so excited when a retailer wants you, or you want to be put here, and they want to put you there. Deluded, yeah. So I think having been disciplined in your retail strategy is something that I’m now revisiting. Because I think at the beginning, so to answer your question, when I launched in 2018, I launched D2C. But then I launched Credo Beauty.

 

Lara Schmosiman (14:03)

Your brand can get diluted because you are everywhere.

 

Allison McNamara (14:21)

in June of the same year. Credo is like, I think, the ultimate clean retailer in the United States. There are like 15 locations, they have a great assortment, they have the best clean brands.

 

Lara Schmosiman (14:31)

Yeah, well,

 

there is a reason we call it creative clean. You want to be creative clean.

 

Allison McNamara (14:35)

Yeah, yeah, Credo Clean. that was important

 

to me. And then after that, I did slowly launch new partners. even if you’re a brand that’s starting out, you don’t even know how much it takes, how much preparation it takes, even to get your items to the warehouse in a way that each different retailer can receive it. I was shipping.

 

Lara Schmosiman (14:50)

No, and

 

also as you evolve you might need to change those logistics. ⁓

 

Allison McNamara (14:56)

Yes, I switched warehouses

 

last year. It was a nightmare.

 

Lara Schmosiman (15:00)

Everyone

 

says that, it’s so funny.

 

Allison McNamara (15:02)

Yeah, I think in the scope of the hard things that I’ve had to do, I think a warehouse move was one of the most challenging. Because I don’t have an ops team. I oversee my operations. And we had to move warehouses because the previous warehouse that we were at didn’t do EDI. If you’re not familiar, EDI is an electronic transmission of information. And so I had to use very, very,

 

Lara Schmosiman (15:19)

Mm.

 

Yeah. Which is super, super important to you guys. you,

 

you’re scaling, if you don’t have EDI, it’s like all your product can get lost in translation. Yeah.

 

Allison McNamara (15:33)

Yes, and you get chargebacks. You’re not it’s just a

 

whole whole thing. So I had to switch Warehouses and that was really challenging. But that’s the other thing when I went into credo beauty I was shipping the products to their DC myself like myself Taking them to FedEx and that worked for credo, but it’s so funny because like at the time I really wanted to be at Sephora that first year and I was pitching them a bunch but like we weren’t ready for that like no chance like

 

I could never have shipped my own products to Sephora. That would have been clinically insane. So there are these like…

 

Lara Schmosiman (16:03)

And you could have lose a lot by not doing things right.

 

Allison McNamara (16:06)

it’s like so expensive. Every charge back is so expensive. Like even my warehouse, if they’re listening, they are incredible. But even they make mistakes and they’re professionals. So like it happens. And so just imagine like.

 

Lara Schmosiman (16:15)

Yeah. And everything is another

 

cost for you. And this is, I talk to so many brands all the time that they forget to include shipping in their cost.

 

Allison McNamara (16:27)

girl, we don’t. We don’t forget because it’s so expensive that you can’t avoid it.

 

Lara Schmosiman (16:31)

it is

 

and it’s getting more expensive so let me ask you a question because originally you ⁓ you started with skincare but now you launch a lip line yes i saw you and i tried it i had it i got exactly the same one i was looking where is it i think it’s in my purse now not in my drawer

 

Allison McNamara (16:41)

Yes, I just put it on. ⁓

 

You know, like color cosmetics is something that’s very close to my heart. And I think, I’m not sure if it’s the right fit for Mara to explore more makeup in a way. Maybe in the future I’ll create my own cosmetics line in some capacity. But I’ve always loved color cosmetics. And I thought this was a fun natural extension of the brand. But the lip category is so competitive right now. And it is so saturated by the big guys, right? We know the big ones.

 

Lara Schmosiman (17:15)

So what was

 

it that passion project for you?

 

Allison McNamara (17:18)

You know,

 

so my ex, my ex was a pretty big smoker and I’m always like an, I’m an ideas person. So when we would talk about it, like thinking there aren’t really any lip balms that actually have actives in them. Like lip balms are what? Like glycerin, some seed butter, some vegan waxes, but like, do they have any actives that actually support like trans epidermal water loss? Do they actually help with aging? Do they fight fine lines and wrinkles? And so it was a sort of.

 

Lara Schmosiman (17:44)

Yeah, as

 

I said, as you get older, it gets old. Yeah.

 

Allison McNamara (17:46)

crinkly and if you’re smoking

 

you get this stuff up here so I kind of developed it as a need I was like this is like a thing I think needs to exist so I started with the clear shade and we have this beautiful algae plumping complex that is clinically proven to help fine lines fullness volume volume loss and so I loved it and then I was like this will be fun to like try out some shades I will say like these two shades are quite popular see latte and beach

 

Lara Schmosiman (18:10)

Mm-hmm. I have the promised

 

one.

 

Allison McNamara (18:12)

Yeah, but the one that I love the most, the two that I love the most are the Toasty Rouge and… I think people don’t like, they’re scared of it because it’s such an intense red, but the people who actually use it love it so much. You look great in dark colors.

 

Lara Schmosiman (18:18)

I have to say that’s my favorite.

 

I use only dark colors. So I

 

feel very accepted now because I did the color matching and red colors are my thing. the dark color.

 

Allison McNamara (18:37)

Well, you look great.

 

I can tell. Your lip looks so nice. But lip isn’t like a big category for us. I think in the Mara landscape, like being known for our skincare is more important for us than being like a lip product brand.

 

Lara Schmosiman (18:48)

Well, but it’s complimentary. really think that lip maintenance is a lot more important than color. And I mean, there now all these lip oils that they became really popular. They don’t do much for me because you want more nutrients in your lips.

 

Allison McNamara (19:05)

I mean, oils can be so nutrient dense, but I think what you’re pointing at, which I agree with, is I love oils for skin. But sometimes, lips in particular really need something occlusive to seal everything in. And an occlusive formula is usually something with a petroleum, a petrol atom, some sort of glycerin. And so I think the lips really do benefit better from a balm or salve than a lip oil. Everyone asks me why I didn’t launch a lip oil, because we’re so known for our oils in general.

 

but that’s kind of why I didn’t, so.

 

Lara Schmosiman (19:34)

Something that makes your brand very unique also is that you are not the typical influencer, but you still consistently the face of your brand.

 

Allison McNamara (19:43)

Yeah, feel like, well, to that point, I feel like when I was creating this line, I really looked up to what I thought were the first great wave of female founders at Sephora. So there was Tata Harper. There was Tiffany Masterson from Drunk Elephant. There were Connie and Sarah from Glow Recipe and Greg from Youth to the People. And I remember going into Sephora, and they’d have their next big thing wall, and they’d have the cute little founder picture next to it, and they’d have their few products.

 

And look, those brands have gone on to be massive brands, and I hope I can emulate that same type of success. But ⁓ in a world now, it is much more challenging because every influencer thinks and wants to have their own brand. So you’re right. I’m not an influencer. But I’m not also, I do have like a, I am a public facing for my line. Yeah.

 

Lara Schmosiman (20:28)

Yeah, I say you’re not the typical influencer because I do believe

 

that you are, but you were before and you were like both at the same time. You merged there beautifully. what about, we were talking about color and because all this algae, how can you integrate science with skincare, but also color? How was the challenge of including algae with color?

 

Allison McNamara (20:40)

Thank you.

 

Well, mean, the color is pretty easy. Once you have the clear shade down, we knew that the algae already worked within the formula. It’s an oil emulsion. So there’s water and oil inside the balms. And so I felt that ⁓ the color wasn’t difficult, actually, with the algae in general. Because it’s just like any other ingredient once it’s already formulated. But the bigger picture was finding the right types of algae that supported the goals that we were looking for of that product.

 

Lara Schmosiman (21:22)

How long

 

was the development for your working on Elite?

 

Allison McNamara (21:26)

Lip took me about like two years to develop before we launched. It was a quicker formula, transparently. The ones that were long, I mean long, long, the cleansing oil took me a long time. Seadream, which is our affirming algae cream, took me a long time. And the sunscreen. Those are probably my three most challenging products.

 

Lara Schmosiman (21:47)

Do you believe that for your skincare you have a target audience that fix in the age box or you have you’re going across different age groups and how do you address connecting with them?

 

Allison McNamara (21:58)

I think we’re still trying to answer this question ourselves. think with what we’ve learned about our customer is she is mostly female, and she is between the core age of 30 to 50, with late 30s, early 40s being our true median sweet spot. But I do think that the Marr customer is a little less about age and more about what they’re looking for. They value aesthetics. They value luxury. They value.

 

Lara Schmosiman (22:15)

Mm-hmm.

 

Allison McNamara (22:26)

They also value things at a good value. Like Mara is affordable luxury. We’re not commanding like $100 and something dollars for a moisturizer. We’re offering you stem cell technology at $64. So I think it’s women who are valuing how things look on their shelf, how they make them feel, who are looking for a sensorial experience. And my goal with the brand is to kind of meet the luxury customer in every phase of their life journey. So maybe in their teens, they discover the lip balms, and then maybe, um,

 

in their 20s they get the universal oil and then maybe in their 40s they kind of discover one of our treatments.

 

Lara Schmosiman (22:58)

I think it’s mentioned one of the biggest trends lately or the hashtags, steam sale. Or I feel like that there are two words that have been used in every product. Maybe you want to clarify a little bit. mean, there is the steam sale and the ⁓ growth factor that have been overused lately.

 

Allison McNamara (23:04)

Thumbs up.

 

So if this keeps up, I’m then…

 

yeah, human growth factor.

 

Human growth factors, haven’t played with those yet in the Mara formulas, but stem cells are interesting. Ours are ⁓ vegan, so they’re derived from Swiss apples. And they really mimic the matrix of the skin, and they help visibly tighten the look of skin. And I love them because it kind of just helps lift everything up, like Botox in a jar. And I think it’s a really powerful ingredient, but…

 

Lara Schmosiman (23:39)

Mm-hmm.

 

Allison McNamara (23:41)

you can derive them from so many different things. They can be derived from apples, in my case, or they can actually come from actual humans. I think figuring out what, I don’t love formulating around an ingredient like that. Mine usually is around something like an actual skin function or something I’m trying to achieve, and then I kind of backwards into it. I do formulate around ingredients, but more like a key pillar ingredient, like a retinol or a vitamin C.

 

I’ve never formulated around a trend, if that makes sense. Yeah.

 

Lara Schmosiman (24:12)

So what’s next for Mara?

 

Allison McNamara (24:14)

my gosh, so much in store. I’m just so excited. feel like this has been a challenging year for a lot of founders. feel like rises in tariffs, cost of goods, market instability, shifts in consumer behavior. It’s been a year. But next year, I’m really excited because I feel like for the first time in a long time, I have very clear direction on who I’m talking to and where I want to go. And I think our prog-

 

Lara Schmosiman (24:37)

That’s amazing

 

to get to that point that you feel it, you feel grounded, that I know who I am and where I’m going.

 

Allison McNamara (24:41)

Yes.

 

Yeah, and I think back a lot to the first early days of the business. And I remember freaking out with my second product, not knowing what kind of bottle to put it in or how the line would look altogether. There was so much unknown. And for the first time really in my career in Mara, I feel very sound in what our choices are. So we’ve got a really exciting product. I can’t share what it is just yet, but it’s launching in April. And it is a follow up to one of our best selling products.

 

Lara Schmosiman (25:08)

and wait.

 

Allison McNamara (25:12)

We’re launching a bunch of size variations, so different ways to experience the brand, minis, deluxes. And then I have, how do I say this? One of our other really popular products. I’ve always wanted to build out a franchise within the business. And what I mean by that, I’ll give you an example, is like, Too Faced had their chocolate bar, and then they had the whole chocolate bar family, right? They had the eyeshadow palette, they had the bronzer. So they built out that as a theme within the brand.

 

Lara Schmosiman (25:30)

Mm.

 

Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Allison McNamara (25:38)

And I’ve

 

been looking for my theme since I started the business and nothing has felt quite right. And I think I finally found my theme. So this is our first theme extension that’s happening next year. I don’t know, you’ll have to wait and see. But I’m really excited because I think that that is, that’s something that I felt like I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.

 

Lara Schmosiman (25:48)

are we gonna get algae bubble gum?

 

Something that is very interesting to me is that you started your skincare line as a face line, but then you went into body too. Why did you decide that you need a body product? And that’s how, how did you introduce that to your audience? And how was the reception? Because that was educating them again.

 

Allison McNamara (26:06)

Mm-hmm.

 

Great question. I feel like, OK, body is interesting. So when I have these conversations about Mara and what the brand really stands for, we are, first and foremost, an algae oil-based company. Our blend is oil soluble, which is why a lot of our products are oil-based. So we’ve got the face oil. We’ve got the retinol oil. We’ve got the vitamin C oil. We’ve got the cleansing oil. And when I was thinking about skin holistically, I was only covering 10 % of the whole body.

 

with my products. And I’m like, well, we’re known for oils. And we can apply really the Mara lens to a beautiful body oil. And we have the technology. We have the customer base for people who love oils. A body oil makes so much sense. So I definitely put my spin on it. We’ve got three actives in that product that help with cellulite, stretch marks, firmness. But more importantly, it’s our biggest new customer acquisition skew, which is so interesting.

 

Lara Schmosiman (27:12)

It is.

 

Allison McNamara (27:13)

I

 

think it’s interesting because a lot of people are scared to put oils on their face, but who’s scared to put oils on their body? No one. So it’s been a great way for people to experience the sensorial luxury of the brand without putting oils on their face. And then they fall in love with it, and then they’re like, OK, maybe I’ll try something else from the line.

 

Lara Schmosiman (27:30)

Yeah, well, I mean, did it feel like you had to start bundling for people to try it?

 

Allison McNamara (27:35)

No, the body oil was pretty instantly a success. And I think the reason why is it feels different than other body oils. It’s got a weightiness to it, like a medium viscous, but it doesn’t leave you greasy. It really sinks into the skin. It really hydrates. And the scent profile, in my opinion, is the best on the market. It is just expensive, luxurious, fresh. Men and women both love it. Unisex.

 

So doesn’t kind of have like, I love Sol de Janeiro as well, but like it doesn’t have like a super fragranced feel. It has like a luxury feel. So no, we never really bundled. I launched it with a lymphatic drainage tool and it’s just kind of like the silent killer for us. Like people love it.

 

Lara Schmosiman (28:15)

that’s amazing. So I have one more question for you, Allison. How do you drink your cojes?

 

Allison McNamara (28:18)

Of course, ask away.

 

it’s funny. I am now just a classic whole milk person latte. I like a whole milk latte. If I’m making it at home, I do like to froth up my whole milk. like to use, yeah, I use a brand called Stross is my favorite. But if I can’t use Stross, I like Alexander. And I do add one scoop of cowboy colostrum to it, which is

 

Lara Schmosiman (28:33)

⁓

 

That’s

 

a good tape.

 

Allison McNamara (28:44)

Yeah, I like the cowboy colostrum. It has a vanilla-y flavor profile, and it kind of adds this warmth to the whole milk. it’s not, I don’t love sweetened coffee, but I like the way that that works together. And then if I’m feeling frisky, I’ll add in a little cold foam at the top. So I’m making my own lattes at home.

 

Lara Schmosiman (29:01)

⁓ And then if it’s a little late,

 

you can put something else to make it. Yeah, you can make a little Irish there.

 

Allison McNamara (29:06)

Yeah, Baileys or something. Yeah. Yeah,

 

I love it. I’m a coffee fiend. I do love my coffee. How do you take your coffee?

 

Lara Schmosiman (29:14)

very similar to yours actually, but with 2 % milk and at night I may add something else if it’s a long light. Yeah. Well, thank you for coming and this was really, really fun.

 

Allison McNamara (29:17)

Clean, simple.

 

Totally, I love it. Well, thank you for having me.

 

I can’t wait to see you again and hopefully we’ll get you some products so can see the glow.

 

Lara Schmosiman (29:33)

Oh, I would love that. And

 

to you guys, I will see you next week with more Coffee Number 5. Bye.

 

Allison McNamara (29:39)

Bye.