Longtime advocacy for green skin care is paying off

CITY GIRL: Farmaesthetics founder Brenda Brock says that retail is her company’s biggest growth channel, recently picking up Urban Outfitters as a customer. / PBN PHOTO/KATE WHITNEY LUCEY
CITY GIRL: Farmaesthetics founder Brenda Brock says that retail is her company’s biggest growth channel, recently picking up Urban Outfitters as a customer. / PBN PHOTO/KATE WHITNEY LUCEY

Growing lavender on Garman Organic Farm in Middletown beginning this spring is one more step in the expansion of Farmaesthetics that founder Brenda Brock delights in, as her line of green, sustainable skin care products continues to blossom.
The 100 percent natural products are now being used in wellness centers for patients whose skin is under siege from cancer treatments. Retail is the biggest growth channel, with the addition of 15 Urban Outfitters shops, including five in New York City, one in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco, selling Farmaesthetics products since December.
Spas are continually added to the customer list and online sales continue to grow. The Farmaesthetics shop on Bellevue Avenue in Newport has seen a substantial increase in sales – an estimated 30 percent increase in 2013 over 2012, on top of 50 percent growth at the shop the previous year.
“The business is at a trajectory of significant growth,” said Brock. The Newport-based company has eight full-time employees, including the new position of operations director, as well as six part-time staff, in addition to Brock, and two contractors in public relations.
“We’re prepaying for the crop of lavender and other herbs Garman Organics will grow for us,” said Brock, who started selling her natural skin care products from a farm stand in 1999. The roadside stand got so much response in sales and so much encouragement from friends that she got help writing a business plan and turned her plantings and investments from family and friends into Farmaesthetics.
The product line continues to expand, sometimes with the season, such as winter-related products that bring a bit comfort during the chilly temperatures. There’s Deep Lavender Rub as well as Warming Oil: Aetheric Bath and Body Oil. There’s also Vapor Bath Elixir, with a “heat-producing essential oils of ginger, rosemary and eucalyptus to relax and release upper-respiratory tightness due to colds, allergies, stress or asthma.” If the suggestions for alleviating annoying health concerns sound more than beauty-related, well, that’s an important element of the Farmaesthetics mission.
“The heart of the green beauty movement is that it is not cosmetic,” said Brock. “Cosmetic, to me, is a mask. There is nothing cosmetic about what we do. It’s about how healthy you are.”
Take, for example, Farmaesthetics collaboration with two Women & Infants Hospital Integrative Care Centers for Health and Well-Being, one in Middletown and one in Providence. Brock first started discussing the possibility of using Farmaesthetics synthetic-free products 10 years ago with one of the doctors affiliated with the facilities.
“They approached us in March 2013 about putting our products in the centers,” said Brock. “They’ve developed protocols and treatments for facials and massage for patients, men and women, undergoing cancer treatments or recovering from them.”
The new and expanding outlets and a lot of media attention speak to the success of Farmaesthetics.
At the Bellevue Avenue shop, estimated retail growth for 2013 is about 30 percent over the previous year. That’s on top of 50 percent growth in 2012 over 2011.
Brock has appeared with Martha Stewart. Time magazine named Brock to the list of the 100 most influential people in “green design.” Yankee magazine voted the Bellevue Avenue store the “Best Shop for the Senses” among its Best of New England choices. Conde Nast Traveller included Farmaesthetics among its top six lines for organic beauty.
Brock was named the 2013 Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Rhode Island district office. The business growth and recognition show, “What I’m doing resonates with a lot of people,” she said. “We’ve been able to attract really talented people to work with us and I believe they find value in green and sustainable businesses.”
While the organic skin care products are in luxury spas, including the Ocean House at Watch Hill in Westerly and some of the Four Seasons hotels in California and Florida, in addition to a new wholesale channel for in-room amenities with Relais & Chateaux, Brock says many college students buy the products. The latter, she says, is a sign that the line of skin care items is relatively affordable, considering the cost of many luxury skin care products.
“We have college kids come into the shop and they have a certain amount of money. It may be a bit of a stretch for them, but they believe their health is important and the products they choose matter,” said Brock. “They read the labels and they believe in green, sustainable products. … They believe in the health of the environment.”
Brock started from that basis 15 years ago and has grown Farmaesthetics with the health of the environment a foundation for the health of her business. Learning traditional mixes for skin care when she spent summers and holidays with relatives on farms in Texas, where she grew up, Brock still uses those basics for her products.
After spending 10 years acting and writing plays in New York, destiny led her on a visit to Newport with a friend to deliver a boat. She met her husband in a Newport restaurant and in 1989 bought a vacant farmhouse in Tiverton and started planting on one acre.
Nurturing of Farmaesthetics into the thriving business it is today seemed natural.
Just “riding the horse in the direction it was going,” she said. •

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