Lily’s Handmade, Crafted Skin Care with a Big Heart

Lily’s Handmade: Crafted Skin Care with a Big Heart

Tracy Wang, Senior Editor | Jul 27, 2016 10:00 am | Add a comment | 2195 reads

Lily Wu used to work at an herbal cosmetics company in Beijing, which provided her her expertise in natural skincare before she went on to start making her own handmade soap six years ago. We recently met Lily and her boyfriend Gary Zhang at the Farm to Neighbors Market at the Grand Summit, one and a half years on from when these two energetic Beijingers started to attend the market with their goods. All the products they make fall under the brand Lily’s Handmade, with highlights that include craft soaps, balms, skincare, and other goods, all of which are made using organic produce. Below, she tells us more about her organic ethos and how her journey into making skincare products began.

What problems do people have with skincare in summer?
Sunburn is the biggest problem. In winter you only need about SPF 25, but you need to have over SPF 30 on your skin in the summertime, and it’s preferable to reapply every four hours. Sometimes that is not realistic though, so you can put some on in the morning, and wash it off at night. If you have lighter skin, or you intend to be in the sun all day, you need to put more sunscreen on.

What inspired you to make your own products?
I used to work at a local company that made skincare cosmetics; sometimes it was hard to change my boss’ mind, since his main concern was cost. For me, I’d rather to use organic and natural ingredients.

When my friends and I started using my own products, we began to think about starting our own business. I make a lot of tailored products now. For example pregnant customers will ask me to make chemical-free cosmetics for them, or people who have special requirements not met by the big cosmetics companies.

Tell us more about the ingredients. Where do you get them? What’s the philosophy behind them?
We go for local ingredients, as well as the most natural ones we can get. If we have to use imported ones we only use cruelty-free ingredients. For the smaller farms, it’s hard to get products that are certified organic, so we trust local farms. For example, we use organic oats from Beijing farmers, organic sesame oil and flaxseed oil from Hebei, organic camellia oil from Hunan, and organic flowers from Anhui.

There are no preservatives in our products and thus most of them last five months. The products we sell at the market every weekend are made during the week. Soaps and mosquito repellents have natural preservatives, and last longer as a result. We don’t use tallow or palm oil because of their environmental effects throughout Southeast Asia. And many of our customers are fans of our dog shampoos.

Any tips for customers?
When buying skincare products, you should first look at the ingredients, which most customers don’t do. That’s why we like coming to the Farm to Neighbors market, because it gives us the opportunity to communicate with our customers face to face.

To get Lily’s Handmade products, find her at the Farm to Neighbors market every weekend, or check out their WeChat shop (ID: lilyshandmade).

This article first appeared in the July/August issue of the Beijinger, read the entire issue here.