Marlo Hydroponic Skincare TM Announces Release of Bloom Lush Revitalizing Cream
Bloom Lush Revitalizing Cream is brand new, 100% non-toxic, pure, potent, sustainable and handcrafted beauty product from Marlo Hydroponic Skincare which holds the distinction of being the world’s first beauty company based entirely on hydroponics.
Marlo’s star ingredient is Super-Lycopene Hydrosol which is formulated with extracts from hydroponically-grown tomatoes and the artisanal result is rich in raw yet skin-loving nutrients. This so-called “mega compound” helps keep skin smoother, firmer, plumper, and more moisturized while fighting toxin build-up and promoting natural collagen and repair.
The cream and brand was founded by Marjorie Lau and Renee Ordino, friends who bonded over a shared passion for the environment and the beauty business to make a cleaner/greener beautiful difference. This revolutionary approach to skincare was discovered by experimenting in a makeshift lab in Renee’s kitchen, using hydroponically grown tomatoes.
Marjorie and Renee recently discussed this brand via an exclusive interview.
Meagan Meehan (MM): What was behind the inspiration for the brand?
Marjorie: At mid-career, I decided to pursue my passion for environmental sustainability. I returned to school to get a master’s degree in sustainability management at Columbia University. I wanted to combine my new-found knowledge of sustainability with my Wharton MBA. I thought that the intersection of my passion for sustainability with my successful career in business was the perfect combination for starting up a business. While at Columbia, I learned about hydroponics and was fascinated by the technology, its value to the food industry, and its nutritional importance to local communities. I also thought that hydroponics was an innovative concept for the skincare industry — thus, the idea for Marlo Hydroponic Skincare.
MM: How did you both get into the field of beauty, especially skincare products?
Marjorie: I went to Wharton to get an MBA because I wanted to be a brand marketer. I had several opportunities to work for some really great companies, including Apple and Johnson & Johnson, and Estée Lauder. While at Wharton, I took a management class, and we studied Estée Lauder in-depth, and I fell in love with the company, which, at that time, was a family-owned company. It was also a company founded by a woman, Estée, for women, with a mission to ‘make every woman beautiful.’ I knew precisely the division and the person that I wanted to work with — Dianne Osborne, a woman who was a major force in the skincare industry at the time. It took me several company promotions before I ended up in my dream role. It was a fantastic job because I worked on some of the most innovative and highly recognized brands in the world, including Advanced Night Repair, aka The Little Brown Bottle with a dropper!
MM: How did you both get into the field of beauty, especially skincare products?
Renee: My undergraduate degree is in Chemistry with the intent of pursuing a career in healthcare. My life path took me in a different direction, and I landed a dream job in Revlon’s lipstick lab. You have to understand; I am that little girl who, at five years old, started raiding my mom’s makeup bag and perfume collection. I had an amazing time at Revlon, and my proudest moment was being one of the inventors of Revlon’s Colorstay lipstick. It was the first of its kind, transfer-proof lipstick that revolutionized color cosmetics — kick-starting the trend of transfer-proof makeup. Having a passion for makeup and all things beauty, I did not want to silo myself to just making lipstick, so I needed to move on. I have worked at Coty and Victoria’s Secret, which expanded my development knowledge, and I have worked on every beauty category. Makeup is fun to develop and provides immediate gratification, but skincare is where you really have to have a thorough understanding of the skin, how it functions, and what it needs. You can provide immediate gratification with skincare through texture, but the real magic is making sure that everyone who uses a skincare product I develop sees a positive difference in their skin the more and more they use it.
MM: How tough was it to find a manufacturer?
Renee: It was extremely difficult finding the right partner to manufacture our cream. Since we are a start-up, our volumes are small, so there are only a few manufacturers who can, or are willing to, fill small runs. But that wasn’t the difficult part. The difficult part was finding a manufacturer who provided the quality we demanded. We stand on solid principles at Marlo — we put our hearts and souls into who we are and what we believe. The last thing we want to do is ever disappoint our customers by providing them with a product we wouldn’t use ourselves. Integrity is fundamental to us, and it has to be important to our manufacturer as well. And this goes for our entire supply chain — our package supplier, our raw material suppliers, our testing facilities — quality needs to be the top priority. We also formulate with Environmental Working Group (EWG) standards in mind. Our heritage anti-aging cream, Bloom Lush Revitalizing Cream, is EWG certified. We are also PETA certified.
MM: What other items do you offer?
Renee and Marjorie: Our heritage anti-aging product is Bloom Lush Revitalizing Cream, powered by our exclusive key ingredient, Super-Lycopene Hydrosol. It’s a deliciously rich moisturizer that absorbs quickly, intensively moisturizes, and helps combat those pesky signs of aging — lines & wrinkles, sagging skin, uneven texture, lackluster skin tone. We are currently working on developing a facial cleanser for Spring 2021. It has what we call a lavishly cushioned clean. We have more products coming down the line, so stay tuned!
MM: How did you come to develop this product and how did you think up its unique blend?
Renee: It took us four years to develop our Bloom Lush Revitalizing Cream. Yes, four years! It took us that long because we had to invent our Super-Lycopene Hydrosol. This is our super-powered ingredient that is derived from hydroponic tomatoes. We are the first to take hydroponic tomatoes and distill them into a potent hydrosol that is the key driver in our products. Hydroponics is unique because plants are grown in mineral-rich water instead of soil. They yield fruits and veggies that are cleaner than their natural and organic counterparts. You read that correctly — they go beyond natural and organic because they are cleaner and purer. When a fruit or veggie grows in soil, there are contaminants from the soil that are absorbed, like pollutants, fertilizers, pesticides, and heavy metals. When extracts are made from these plants, their purity is diluted by these contaminants, and their purity and potency are diminished. In hydroponics, plants are grown in clean, mineral-rich water, yielding 100% pure extracts, providing the highest level of potency.
MM: How did you meet and decide to work together?
Renee and Marjorie: Our story begins, quite simply, with our friendship. We met while working for world-renowned beauty companies. Aside from our shared passion for the beauty industry, we found commonalities outside of our careers. Each of us is influenced by strong family values, a love of nature, a passion for healthy living, and making a positive difference in the world. It was the combination of our professional backgrounds — global marketing and cosmetic chemistry — along with our kindred spirits that led us to pursue a new creative challenge.
MM: What kinds of results can users expect to see?
Renee and Marjorie: Bloom Lush Revitalizing Cream is an intensive anti-aging moisturizer that instantly revitalizes the skin for a more youthful look. This multi-benefit cream helps to visibly reduce lines and wrinkles and delivers firmer, more resilient looking skin. Users will be amazed at how immediately smooth and radiant their skin looks after just one use. It’s all due to our exclusive ingredient, Super-Lycopene Hydrosol. We formulate this key ingredient from lycopene that is extracted from hydroponically grown tomatoes. As you may know, lycopene is a powerful antioxidant that fights skin-aging.
MM: How did you establish your company, and has it been tough to stay afloat during the pandemic?
Renee and Marjorie: We were very deliberate about what we wanted our company to stand for and how we wanted to operate. First and foremost was to provide our customers with the best possible skincare. We also felt a responsibility to educate the public on environmental sustainability. On our website and our social media channels, we explain the story of our formulating and the great benefits of our heritage cream, along with blogs that highlight sustainability topics. Currently, our business is direct-to-consumer (DTC), and our company operates remotely so, we did not see much disruption when the pandemic hit. Customers can continue to find us online at marlohydroponics.com.
MM: How do you hope your brand evolves over the next five years?
Renee and Marjorie: We believe strongly in the power of hydroponically grown plants and the application to skincare. So, stay tuned!
MM: What are your ultimate goals for the future, and is there anything else that you would like to mention?
Renee and Marjorie: Our passion is to bring progressive innovation to the beauty industry. A lot of the industry’s newness is based on existing technologies. We strive to truly deliver on clean beauty. There is a lot of industry speak out there and a general lack of clarity regarding the meaning of clean beauty, natural, and organic. It isn’t very clear for consumers. We believe in transparency in what and how we formulate. We also feel that it is our responsibility is to educate the public about sustainability. We do this through our blogs on our website, some of which we feature on our social channels. Beauty is such a broad and highly engaged category, so we wanted to take the opportunity to share our knowledge about environmental sustainability.
We will stay true to these principles in our future. We’ve already identified new opportunities with hydroponics and skincare. Pure, potent, sustainable skincare is our signature. We believe in beauty and a better world and aim to make a beautiful difference for our customers and the environment.
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To learn more, visit Marlo’s website.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marloskincare
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marloskincare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/marloskincare
Follow them via @marloskincare
