Business Spotlight: Lotioncrafter Moves from Milking Goats and Making Soaps to Distribution of Cosmetic Chemicals

— by Margie Doyle —

Jenny and Tom Welch, the masterrminds at Lotioncrafter, with their muses Winnie and Poppy

When Jenny and Tom Welch moved their business Lotioncrafter into a new building on Hope Lane in February 2014, it was a natural progression from a venture that started years ago with the purchase of one little pygmy goat.

That was when the Welches lived in Texas, and one day their daughter had a yen to own a goat. Within six months, Jenny herself had 50 goats, she loved Nubian dairy goats, and was looking for  something to do with the milk. “I heard of soap-making and that was really the start of this business and it re-awakened my childhood interest in chemistry.

“I find the chemistry fascinating; and it proved a stress reliever from a computer-centric business, even though it’s a lot of work making and selling soap.” For years Jenny ran her business Caprabella (beautiful goat), making soaps and lotions from goat milk, and distributing ingredients so others could make and improve their own soaps and lotions.

Now, at the two-story lab/distribution center off Mt. Baker Road, Winnie the Golden Retriever greets visitors to Lotioncrafter’s steel two-story building. It is full of storage areas, offices, laboratories,  a carpeted library area for Tom, who has an enviable collection of history books; and a playpen in Jenny’s office for the new puppy, Poppy.

Even if she’s not in her office, Jenny is probably working at home. Lotioncrafter is her business, her passion, her daily routine and her fun. For relief, she says, she has Poppy.

The Welches enjoy hard work, and Jenny says she and Tom are each others’ support system. In former years they owned  a distribution company that warehoused computer and networking equipment and catastrophic response equipment for Fortune 500 insurance companies. That was “in the days when you couldn’t just fly off with your laptop and connect through satellites.

“There came a time when Tom, who’s an astute business person, could see the climate was changing, and coming back to Orcas was a dream we’d had since we first met” (at a business conference in Los Angeles), says Jenny.

“Lotioncrafter is very much a family business. I’m not keen on titles: our son Ian is procurement director, and daughter Erin is administrative assistant and financial manager.” Other family members work in the research lab and office at Lotioncrafter.

The LotionCrafter offices and distribution center in Eastsound’s service light industrial zone

Jenny adds, “We’re lucky to have hired great people here on the island — 13 of them now — who think it’s a great place to work. I provide the primary technical support and organizational running of the company. I’m HR and payroll; I still wear a lot of hats and probably always will.”

“One of the biggest things I’ve had to learn is delegating — teaching them and then letting go to let them do their jobs. It’s hard as a business owner to let go. Now, the bulk of my time is spent researching for our company direction and new chemicals to bring in. The trends are toward products that are anti-aging and naturally formulated.  Information abounds on the internet, and anyone can come to our website.  It’s not just ingredients but about proper formulation for efficacy, preservation and formulation stability.”

Much of Jenny’s time is spent giving free advice on the phone and in emails. “Daily I get 50-100 emails. No one else here knows what I do about cosmetic chemistry; the advice and assistance I give to customers keeps them coming back. And I get a lot of satisfaction, especially in formulations. My real passion is playing with chemicals and sometimes, there’s not enough time to play–and that’s what informs my work.”

Back in 2001, when the Welches were ready to retire, they drove to Orcas west across the south and then headed north with a trailer of 17 goats, two Great Pyrenees, a barn cat and a Maltese household dog to their 2.5-acre home in Olga. Tom had long wanted to delve into local history and help non-profits. He wrote the book Orcas Island, and served on Library, Historical Society and Community Foundation boards.

Jenny thought she’d have fun showing her goats, but she says, “The reality when living on an island is it’s not easy or cheap.” So she retired from showing and then from breeding and selling goats and devoted more interest to Caprabella. After three years at the Farmers Market and craft shows, Jenny had a growing business selling the excess quantities of ingredients for making cosmetics through the internet to other groups.

And more fun than doing that was the chemical formulation of her products: “Constant rote wasn’t what I wanted to do. Selling ingredients called upon all the skills I’d learned and applied … and it grew into what it is today.”

In 2004, she officially trademarked Lotioncrafter on the internet and then launched a full-fledged shopping cart site. The chemicals purchased and shipped by Lotioncrafter are non-hazardous; suitable for creation of creams and lotions for the body. Lotioncrafter changed its status from sole proprietorship to a LLC; and Jenny and Tom hired their first employees in 2010. The business has experienced 20 to 25 percent growth since its inception, Jenny says.

“What we found with a successful business is  that it can be like a runaway train. You have to be on top and ahead of it and it’s moving all the time.”

As the company expands into new areas, Jenny will be “carefully” looking for more people. Small and medium-sized companies come to Lotioncrafter for ingredients for retail products, and growth is often guided by customers requests.

As the owner of a year-round, non-tourist business that employs over a dozen people, Jenny Welch speaks from experience about the local business climate and about the rapid changes electronic advances have brought. Personally, business on Orcas and in the county “can be very rewarding. We live in a beautiful place — the land, the scenery, the people.

“As a business we’ve been fortunate to find wonderful employees. From hiring this year, I know there are many good workers here, who want to be committed to their job. [County] business is tourist-centered, but that’s not the only thing that brings money to the island.”

Jenny sees the ferry system as a challenge: “It doesn’t cater to business at all. For shipping, my employees have to come in early to make the 10 a.m. cutoff for UPS. That makes it hard for shipping-centric businesses to function as well as they could on the mainland.”

Still they have the demand, the energy and the space to expand their operations on Hope Lane. Jenny thanks Bob Waunch for his “invaluable help as construction consultant  at the Eastsound location while we ran the business,”

“To take the building from a sketch on a piece of paper and to  bring everyone together under one roof to do what I wanted and needed was very gratifying.”