Anyone who is lucky enough to meet the bundle of sunshine that is May Lindstrom knows what a goddess she is. Her decadent skincare line focuses on empowering women to take pause, slow down and enjoy a daily beauty ritual. A former chef, model and makeup artist, May has had the perfect background to concoct truly magical skin potions. Products from her line include ingredients such as wild-harvested spices, luxurious fruit oils, salts, organic herbs, and raw cacao. These outcomes of her labor of love have left their permanent mark on the beauty world, and it’s all thanks to the gracious glowing May.
My adventures into skincare began as a small girl. Growing up, I would spend full days mashing wild plants into a pulp and covering myself with them. Everyone around would always humor me with my “potions” made from these vibrant green liquids and the clays I would dig from the iron rich soil in my yard. I have been a formulator of sorts since the very beginning, moving from child’s play, to my work cooking in professional kitchens, and back again to magical beauty potions.
My original background is in food and my every intention was to become a chef. That is really where my passion lies – little makes me happier than feeding someone I love. I worked in restaurants, both sides of the house and for many years as a model. I had no experience with the kind of business I now run. It’s been a giant learning adventure.
The challenges brought me to where I am today, each and every one. Moving forward, I do know much more now than when I started envisioning this adventure over six years ago. I have more clarity on what I want to build, and more faith in my own dream and capabilities. I’ve also learned how to ask for help—absolutely vital. This has been my biggest lesson.
I am passionate about pure, potent ingredients and about a return to our roots. Our planet provides such an elegant bounty of delicious botanicals, clays, salts and spices that it is hard for me to fathom how we have strayed so far from that to the current trend of hocus-pocus performed in laboratories, mass produced plastic bottles filled with damaging synthetic chemicals and cheap fillers.
I believe in simplicity. While I have given an incredible amount of attention to designing products that create a feeling of decadence and celebration, my very core is as basic and grounded as it gets. Beauty truly does come from within and I know that without a healthy body and spirit, our skin suffers. I can talk for days about nutrition and the delicate balance of our inner workings. There is no magic bullet in a bottle, not from my line and not from any other.
This collection was born out of a desire to create blissful moments in my day, a time-out morning and night that was just for me. I am blessed with highly sensitive and chemically reactive skin, and I yearned to create something that was simply luxurious and lovely. My foundation in purity and simplicity is solid, but it was time for me to embrace playfulness and beauty in my potions. I wanted to feel something when I picked up a bottle and entered my cleansing ritual. I wanted to feel peace, joy and celebration all in that one moment. And I wanted to share that with every woman I loved and cared about so she could feel this too.
Start slowly, be patient and read each label thoroughly. Your skin absorbs whatever you put on it, so I follow the same philosophy for skincare as I do in my diet. There is simply no place for pesticides, preservatives or unnecessary synthetics. It’s not about being an “organic” brand, as much as it is about creating the highest possible quality skin treats that I am capable of. Just like with food, organically grown ingredients often have higher nutrient levels, and are missing chemical residues that can irritate skin or potentially cause long term harm in the body. I strongly believe in utilizing the very best of possible ingredients for my formulations. By choosing raw materials that are grown in the wild, or by organic farming methods, I feel I am doing just that.
As a rule, I select only ingredients that are: Organic. Bio-dynamic. Wild Crafted. Cruelty free. Sustainable. Conscious, environmentally and socially. There are no fillers or fluff. Every single ingredient is lovingly procured for it’s vital purpose. I create my own proprietary formulas with absolutely no outsourcing—this means I do not purchase base formulas, use labs, generics or shortcuts. These are my own personal recipes, every single one, in full.
I purchase raw ingredients in their fresh and active state from a very small handful of suppliers who work directly with farms from all over the world. With the plant ingredients especially, this is incredibly important. It is imperative to fill each and every bottle with the most vibrant raw materials possible. That sometimes means a lot of searching and alternating areas of the world I source from for each ingredient as seasons fluctuate and certain crops are more or less abundant. I travel often, seeking inspiration from new cultures and their ingredients and learning more and more about what I’m already utilizing. I recently visited Sri Lanka where I was able to taste fresh cinnamon straight from the tree for the first time ever. It’s magical, what nature provides us so generously.
I am on a quest to reveal radiant skin while igniting recognition of our individual beauty. I have always been fascinated by the idea of ritual, setting daily reminders to take time out and indulge in ourselves. I am very much a romantic and I believe that the greatest love story begins with yourself and overflows from there. Each of my formulas was developed to make one feel so incredibly special. I knew that they would undoubtedly become a catalyst for unlocking decadent bathing rituals, creating the time and space for the personal connection you deserve.
My brand is an invitation for you to create the time and space for the personal connection you deserve with yourself. This action alone will transform you. What I want to is to get this message out there, to start a shift in how we care for ourselves, starting with the most basic and intimate of rituals—how we cleanse.
I wake to the sound of my chickens, gossiping outside my window. I wander out into the early light of the day to feed them and our potbelly pig, and then the dog and cat. After, I wake my darling daughter and we start our day. Breakfast, getting dressed, pigtails for her, and then rushing her out the door to preschool with my husband. I grab a little something to eat and tea, and sit outside to look through emails, organizing and prioritizing the day ahead.
When I finish, I head into the studio, taking phone meetings on the way in more often than not. When I arrive, I step into my heaven. The studio feels more like a bakery than a lab, and always smells insanely delicious. I make the rounds and say hello to everyone on my small team, exchanging hugs and seeing that everyone has what they need to get the day off to a good start.
Back at my desk, I sit down with a stack of stationary and begin hand-writing letters to each of the clients who orders through our website directly. This is always a treasured part of my day, my moment of gratitude for each and every man and woman who entrusts me with their skin—our most intimate organ. After this, ensues infinite emails and correspondence. I will guide my clients through personalized rituals. I also respond to press inquiries and interviews and a multitude of wholesale inquiries, sorting through contacts from ingredient vendors and resumes from those seeking to join our little family. On the best days, I’ll step into my creative corner and play with some of the formulas that are constantly spinning around in my head and hoping for release.
There is lot of variance in my days and weeks, factoring in meetings and lots of travel to educate partners, seek ingredients and meet clients, but these are constants.
I try to leave the studio by six thirty so I can make it home for dinner and snuggles with my little one and my husband before her bedtime. The hours go quickly and there is always more to do. On the drive to my house, I roll down the windows and let in the last colorful traces of California sun for the day, breathing deeply. When I walk through my front door, I do all I can to just be home and fully present with my two most important people. My world is a beautiful whirlwind.
The birth of first child and my current pregnancy with my second has reaffirmed a lot of my core beliefs, philosophies and dreams. This is brought me an enhanced desire to bring ritual and connection to our skin back to the lives of women. It also reinvigorated my hope for a cleaner, happier planet for us all to live on together. This has always been a concern for me, but bringing new life onto this Earth shines a new personal spotlight on the urgency of this matter. I will always choose sustainable and beautiful ingredients that honor our earth mama, and packaging that protects, honors and preserves them, while also being recyclable and highly reusable.
I made a promise to myself to only release a new product if I knew that it was truly special, a remarkable formula that wasn’t already on the market. And then I promised to package it beautifully and provide the most over-the-top personal customer service that I could—exactly what I think my clients deserve. These choices have really resonated with everyone who I’ve had the pleasure of introducing to my line. Word of mouth built us and is what sustains us. Our growth was so much faster than I expected and the enthusiasm from my clients has changed my world. Every day I wake up happy to keep raising the bar and really working to deserve the praise I have received for what we do at MLS.
We are an intimate family of twelve (eleven of us reside in Los Angeles, and one team member works remotely from Toronto), start to finish.
My team is my world. Until early 2014, I was a one-man-band (alongside my dear husband). Knowing now that I am not in this alone, that I have such an incredible little chosen family alongside me, is beyond words. Together, I know we can do anything. We can move mountains, and we can shift what the world will expect from their beauty ritual. With this much love and commitment to the vision, and now with the tools and hands to make each detail come to life, I feel truly invincible. Inspiration is easy here, and gratitude is abundant.
We have over fifty wonderful partners globally between our online and brick & mortar relationships – this is after reducing consciously by over 30% in the last six months in a renewed effort to stand by our foundational values and work to increase our service level and commitment to freshness and quality. I am being extra particular about taking on new partnerships so as to not over-extend my small team, myself, and our capacity to produce and delight at our established quality level given that we do 100% of everything fully in house.
We are not aiming for mass in any way, shape or form. In fact, as we watch other brands in our niche go big, sell to Estee Lauder and move into Sephora and a huge selection of department and big box stores, we lean more and more away from this. Our focus in the months and years ahead is on becoming better, more active and engaged partners to our current retailers, continuing to support the green beauty community, expanding into unique brick & mortars throughout the globe, and moving full force into the world of high luxury—where real change is desperately needed, and where we know we can make a great impact on shifting and inspiring the standard of beauty for all.
We continue to lovingly blend and fill every small batch of fresh treats in our private studio, with a small team that feels like family. We continue to ship every package ourselves – there is no factory, no lab, no distribution center. Our hearts are all-in, and in order to continue doing business in the way that I love so much, we do have to make these tough decisions. I may only have the capacity (and desire) to care properly for a hundred or so accounts on the entire planet. So who those hundred accounts are suddenly becomes very important.
The Blue Cocoon is my absolute favorite treat of all time, on the entire planet. This is essentially the most beautiful facial oil you’ve ever experienced in a unique waterless and waxless balm form. In the jar, it is a solid. Once it touches skin, it turns immediately to a lovely fluid. This is used both as a daily hydrator or as a special treatment for skin that is sensitive, inflamed, damaged, acneic or irritated. It can be used as a spot treatment or for the full face, neck and decollete. It is a powerful anti-inflammatory and soothes skin in the most beautiful way, providing the perfect level of hydration and healing, eliminating any redness and irritation. It works wonderfully for all skin types, and is especially effective for those prone to eczema, psoriasis, dermatitis and rosacea. This contains blue tansy, which calms and relieves inflammation on a magical level. It’s like a meditation and spa vacation for your skin – in aromatherapy, blue tansy is used to reduce anxiety, heal sleep disorders and soften the feeling of being out of control. Total bonus—this can double as my favorite eye and lip treatment of all time.
The philosophy I try to follow is the one I also encourage in my clients: Eat the rainbow. Move your body. Breathe. Romance yourself to the point of blushing. Know that you are beautiful. Beauty is a reflection of your inner self—prioritize your own deliciousness, and be truly, fully, authentically You. Be sure that you create time to rest your body and your mind, to play and encourage opportunity for learning and joy, to share yourself fully with others and also to embrace moments of time alone. When we are happy and intimately immersed in our world, our beauty cannot help but shine through.
As for my formulations – they are not magic, they are better than that. The changes you will see in your skin over time will not be a temporary illusion. My goal is always to restore your own natural balance, bring health to your skin and illuminate your individual beauty.
I build each treat on the same philosophy and pure, nutrient rich, sustainable ingredients that have been treasured and shared by women all over the world since the beginning of time. I trust in earth’s bounty and the wisdom of those who came before me.
For your ritual—close the bathroom door, turn down the lights, inhale the beautiful scents of the collection and exhale any heaviness from your day. Choose your favorite treats and savor your time-out. At least once a week, create time for the full ritual.
Most importantly—be in the moment. Even if you have only five minutes, make it the most delightful five minutes of your day. Savor it, drink everything in and let yourself get a little swept away.
Natural products are definitely still a niche market, but there has been some serious infiltration happening, crossing over into the mainstream. I love when I see a product of mine featured in the big magazines without so much as a mention of “organic”, “natural”, “green” or so on. I’m on the shelves at Barneys NYC now right next to massive luxury brands, with no differentiation between us and them. It’s these little steps, the normalization of good ingredients and the brands that use them, that will ultimately change the industry. It will take time for there to be a full shift, and it may not happen anytime soon. But that is okay—for me it is about the skin, health and beauty of one individual client at a time.
The formulas are 100% my own recipes, created very specifically for this collection. There is no outside lab or factory, or team of chemists. I’m the Willy Wonka of MLS. 🙂 I am fully involved in all aspects of the day to day business. I worked out of my very small home studio with my darling daughter Talia at my breast in a sling as I blended products and filled bottles for shipment for the first nineteen months of her life, entirely solo. I finally moved the business out of my home and into our Los Angeles studio in February of 2014, and hired my first three employees that same week. My tiny dream became real. Last February, we knocked down a wall, and took over the space next door. Today, we sat down to lunch together in the studio and I looked around realized there were now a dozen of us. My little family is growing, and I could not be more proud or delighted.
Spending time with my family is my biggest non-work activity. My husband will turn on music in the morning, loud. My three year old squeezes herself between us and we all dance around wildly. It’s super goofy, but gets us all off on the right foot, and connected to each other. We have a lot of animals—a dog, cat, chickens, a pig…every little personality lights up my world. I love to be outside in nature, and my heart still sings when I cook.
I have so many dreams about what is ahead. We are growing quickly, but my foundation and core philosophy stand so firmly on the grounds of intimacy, on being special, and on delivering the most over-the-top client service and a truly personal experience. I want the Skin collection to remain compact and concise, and for each piece to play a vital part of my ideal ritual. I have no desire to add dozens of new treats to the line, but I very much wish to continue adding to our story, and to bring in new pieces that deepen our connection to self and skin. Looking forward, I see space for more collaboration with other artisans, for just a few more special products that I feel deeply pulled to develop. I am also looking every day to discover more ways to delight each client individually—asking myself what more I can share that will show each and every one of you how truly grateful I am for your support of this dream of mine.
I am happy to share that I am actively working on developing smaller “discovery” sizes for release later this year. Outside of this, I am always playing in the studio with new formulas that weave themselves through my dreams… there are no official launch plans yet, but I would love to share something exciting before the end of 2016 if all comes together.
Our studio is essentially a small bakery, emanating the most incredible hunger-inducing aromas from all the cocoa, spices, beautiful plant oils and raw honey. It’s my favorite place to be.
Our treats are gorgeous, from the bottle to the box and attention is paid to every detail. Life-changing client experience is our focus—this isn’t about cleaning up dirt or softening rough spots. This is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. This is a celebration of our individual beauty.
Tags: Behind the Brand, Cleanser, Detox, Hydration, Moisturiser, Skin Care, Toner
Emma Stern is an American expat who, 5 years ago, fell in love with the city of Berlin and hasn't been able to stay away ever since. A writer and English editor for the Amazingy magazine, Emma's other interests include film, surrealism, avocados, and barefeet. Emma finds herself in perfect harmony with Amazingy's ethos, as a sustainable lifestyle is at the core of her values. She aims to spread her love for life and art through her quirky writing and upbeat attitude.
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