Beauty Bento Box Interviews Neva Kares of Leyende, Part 1

I’ve been fortunate to be granted an email interview with Neva Kares, Owner and Founder of Leyende, the brand behind two products I’ve already featured, the Shake it Off Body Exfoliant and the Once Bitten Chocolate Soap Bar. I’ll let her introduce the brand and her products herself.

How did Leyende come about, how long has it been around and what is the story behind the brand?

Leyende is one of those happy accidents in my life. Writing is really my passion, my life’s work. But I am almost equally passionate about beauty. I had dabbled in make-up, doing a few fashion spreads and shows in 2005.

Then I started to develop adult-onset skin problems. They got worse even with trips to the dermatologist. The treatments would work for a while, but then the ugly skin bumps and acne would come back with a vengeance. I tried all hypoallergenic brands in the market but they were little help. Eventually, a friend recommended organic products. I wasn’t the vegan, alternative medicine kind of person, but I felt the difference almost immediately when I tried organic skin products. The problem was, real organic products were pricey and only available outside the country, so I paid a lot for shipping.

I decided to learn how to make these products myself. I went to workshops about making natural or herbal products, thinking they were the same as organics. But I learned that these products contained very little amount of natural plants and extracts. And the base they used, like SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate, betaine) and chemical preservatives (phenoxyethanol) were so abrasive, you can’t even touch it with your bare hands! The clincher was these formulas had to be diluted with gallons of water. It made me think twice because I didn’t want to use anything that was watered down. Why would I waste time and money making these things if they didn’t do anything more than give temporary fragrance?

Luckily, a friend in the U.S. recommended an organic products workshop and I learned as much as I could about making skin care products and the organic ingredients involved. It was hard at first, since it took time to make these products by hand. But I enjoyed the experience, and came up with products I could use myself: shea butter to calm my skin asthma and relieve eczema, mango butter and bearberry extract to moisturize my oily face without shine, vegetable glycerin for my shower gel and pure aloe vera shampoo for my falling hair.

The trouble was, my relatives soon wanted me to make for them, too. Before long, through word of mouth, I got calls and requests for organic skin stuff to give as presents or for personal use. I finally decided to make it a business and developed my own brand and product line. Last February 2007, I started taking orders and selling to the public via Flickr and Multiply. Hopefully, my store application gets approved so I can open my own flagship store soon.

The story behind the brand

Leyende means “legend” in Spanish. I chose that name because I wanted to incorporate my “writer side” into the branding. So “Leyende: the story of skin” is all about my opinion that each skin is as unique as the person it belongs to. No two people are alike, so why would skin be? Leyende celebrates this individuality of skin through organic products that won’t dry or strip off or change skin in an unnaturally abrasive way.

Also, I used puns for the product names; they come from books I’ve read, films I’ve seen, memorable songs and dialogues, idiomatic expressions, etc. Leyende is a funky brand.

What is Leyende’s core objective?

First, to educate more people about the health and environmental benefits of using organic products and how it affects our everyday lives. Second, to provide pure, organic personal care products at a reasonable price. I believe many people would be willing to switch to organic products, but they just don’t have alternatives in the market. I want to provide that choice with Leyende.

Also, part of my mission is to steer Filipinos’ attention away from our “white obsession” when it comes to skin, and help promote a healthier self-image among Filipinos. We’ve been blessed with pigment-protected skin. Killing those pigments with bleaching products increases our risk for skin cancer.

Can you describe the Leyende user?

The Leyende user is me, basically. People who are always looking for something better for themselves, well-informed through their own initiative, very self-aware and not too much into fake, Photoshop-flawless beauty. They’re interested in what’s real, what works. And when they see a good thing, they know enough to stick to it. Usually, these are people who know about organic ingredients already.

What sets Leyende apart from its competitors?

Truthfully, I don’t have any local competition yet. There’s no brand that offers a full, organic personal care line in the country right now. But I would say what sets Leyende apart from natural or botanical brands is that it is what it is. It’s pure, it’s simple, no mysterious “secret” ingredient. And the results are immediate. Maybe because Leyende products are not overdiluted with water. So what you read in the label is what you get.

What is Leyende’s stand on going natural and organic?

Natural and botanical, by definition, is different from organic. Organic means the ingredients were grown, harvested, produced without harmful chemicals like pesticides or herbicides that tend to remain accumulated in the plant or animal by-product. This ensures purer ingredients, the way nature intended it. Natural or botanical products simply use plants as part of their ingredients, but not necessarily from organic sources. Some ingredients in botanicals, in fact, tend to irritate skin more than help it.

This is the first of the two-part interview. Stay tuned for the last installment.