Small Business: Beetl founder Kirsty Stanbridge on extending baby skincare range to adults

Beetl founder Kirsty Stanbridge talks about conceiving a business plan during the Covid pandemic and why transparency is so important for skincare products.

What does your business do?

Beetl Skin Armour is made here in
Aotearoa using a select range of quality, natural ingredients that are gentle, effective and suitable for all skin types, especially sensitive ones. Our focus is on children’s skincare with a view to expand to adult skin care products in late 2023.

What was the motivation for starting it?

When I was a child, I had eczema and sensitive skin. When my daughter experienced similar skin problems, I set about creating a product that I could use and share with other parents. My mother is a doctor and herbalist and I grew up with my mother’s intergenerational and bicultural knowledge of plants and their healing properties, in particular, that gentle plants are equally effective to heroic plants. It wasn’t until I had my own daughter, Tilly, who has very sensitive skin, that I remembered my mum’s nourishing and healing formulas. I couldn’t find anything on the shelves that I liked or that worked. This ignited my desire to create products for my daughter, and to share them with my friends and family.

Why is it called Beetl?

My mother’s old VW Beetle inspired our brand name. A fitting connection to the herbs that compose our natural skincare and the inspirational woman behind our formulations.

What’s your background?

I have a marketing background and I have worked for large corporates overseas and in New Zealand for the past decade or so. My passion is to provide a natural quality product for sensitive skin types, which means that a product is then suitable for all skin types . Gentle, effective, nourishing, strengthening, protective and with inter-generational knowledge. That sums up my product range.

What are you focusing on right now?

Right now, life is very busy. I continue to grow in my marketing career and I am also focusing on expanding the Beetl product range – my starter product is the Beetl Baby Cream which is available now and I have three new skincare products launching early next year for children and adults. The most exciting of which is our first adult product; the “everything” oil, designed for use on everything from post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, as well as scarring, particularly good for women during pregnancy.

What is your vision for the future?

I developed Beetl Skincare for women and their families and in particular, those with sensitive skin especially babies and young children, as we learn more about skincare products and the ingredients that go into them it’s often chemicals that are too harsh for children’s skin, so my focus is to keep working on these formulations that are 100 per cent natural, effective, but gentle on skin. My vision is to achieve my full product range for both children and adults and grow Beetl into an international brand. Sustainability will always be a big focus for us and we’re working towards refillable options and reducing our overall carbon footprint by becoming certified carbon positive.

What is the main challenge you are facing?

Conceiving a business plan in Covid times and starting up my business in post-Covid times. Experiencing first-hand supply chain disruptions – these are very real and challenge any personal or business targets. Packaging in New Zealand has been challenging and to commit to our sustainability values ​​I’ve had to push out launch dates to ensure we adhere to our brand values. We aim for total transparency at every point in Beetl’s supply chain — from formulation through to packaging. On the formulation side, it has taken me three years to develop and test many iterations for the initial skincare products and it’s been important to me to make these products here in Aotearoa. These challenges have taught me to be flexible, troubleshoot and be patient!

Who do you work with?

I have a marketing background and understand how important it is to get cut through in the market so I have ensured that I work with different experts across branding, packaging and digital marketing so I have the best possible resources to make Beetl successful. At the moment it’s just me, alongside a Creative and PR agency Someday Studios, and digital agency, Pilot. I consider them, my partner Will and my friends and family my team.

What would be your advice to others starting a business?