Bethany McDaniel: Founder of Primally Pure

Episode 590

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, we’re joined by Bethany McDaniel, Founder of Primally Pure. Bethany’s journey started in her family’s farmhouse kitchen, creating natural skincare products inspired by regenerative agriculture. Primally Pure has since grown into a beloved brand, known for its commitment to transparency and authenticity.
In our conversation, Bethany shares how her family’s farm, Primal Pastures, influenced Primally Pure, the brand’s bold new marketing campaign, and the challenges of scaling a mission-driven business. If you’re interested in clean beauty, sustainability, or entrepreneurship, this episode is a must-listen. Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. I’m super, super excited and somewhat obsessed with this next company that we’re gonna talk to. The founder from Bethany McDaniel is the founder of this great, great company with amazing skincare products called Primally Pure. And Primally Pure is super, super great. It started in her family’s farmhouse kitchen, where she started crafting these natural skincare products as an extension of her family’s regenerative farm. And what began as a small endeavor has grown significantly to be in the hands of 1000s of people, super, super great, effective skincare. And as I said, it’s truly, truly terrific. So they’re really challenging the beauty industry and with a focus on regenerative agriculture and simple, effective ingredients. So we’ll get more into that, and let Bethany share a lot more about her journey and about the company. So welcome.

Bethany McDaniel 1:46
Thank you so much, Kara, Thanks for the kind words. It’s so fun to be on here chatting with you today.

Kara Goldin 1:52
Yeah, super, super excited. And like I said, I mean, I I’m not kidding, like I loved them. I mean, sometimes you receive products and you’re like, Oh, they’re okay, but these are, like, really, really amazing. You’ve done an excellent job. So can you talk to us a little bit about your background and kind of, how did this all come to be?

Bethany McDaniel 2:10
Yes, so I never thought this is what I would be doing. I mean, going back to my childhood, I was always kind of like making and selling things, and so I had these entrepreneurial instincts from an early age, but then as I got older, I went to college with a graduated with a degree in Communications and Creative Writing. I thought I might want to do something with writing, like writing for a magazine or maybe working for a nonprofit. So I did both of those things, and during that time that I was kind of moving forward with these different career options, my husband and his dad and brothers had started a regenerative livestock farm, and that was really starting to take off and pick up momentum. And so my husband and I ended up quitting both of our full time jobs, and we moved in with his parents, because the farm was on their property at the time, and some of his other siblings had moved in. There was nine of us living in a 1700 square foot house for a year. It was bananas. And during that time, I was started formulating these natural skin care products, just as a hobby, and they ended up catching on. I was selling them. Started selling them to farm customers who really ended up loving them. And that kind of propelled me to just take the next step forward, and then the next step and the next step. And pretty soon I started my own website for primarily pure and started really taking it more seriously, like an actual business. And that was back in in 2015 when I started the company, and, yeah, it’s just it’s grown exponentially since then, especially in the last few years.

Kara Goldin 3:46
That’s wild. So do you think your husband starting this kind of his business made you realize what you had grown up with in many ways, and what the opportunities were? Yeah, I

Bethany McDaniel 3:59
think so it was an exciting time, because the farm was kind of starting to take off, and we were all kind of seeing it and experiencing it happen like, wow, this is this is really turning into something like, this is possible. And it definitely did it like showed me and opened my eyes to what was possible, if I just, you know, persisted and kept working at it.

Kara Goldin 4:19
So can you explain to people what is Primally Pure? Yeah, so

Bethany McDaniel 4:25
primarily, primly pure. We are a non toxic skin care company, and we also have a lot of more wellness products as well. So kind of like a holistic wellness company, we really prioritize, in addition to creating clean, non toxic products. We prioritize education on non toxic living, because we always say, like the two go hand in hand. If you want to have great skin, you have to also prioritize full body health, because the skin is an extension of your body. It’s a part of your body. You can’t separate it. And so our products are amazing, like we. We take a lot of care in formulating products that are actually clean and that really work, that are competitive with, you know, non toxic products that people are familiar with. We really, yeah, we we really prioritize the formulation and the quality of the ingredients that we use and just making sure that they’re super effective, along with creating that life changing education on just simple things that people can do to improve their overall health and therefore also improve their skin health. Yeah, I

Kara Goldin 5:34
love all the education on your site too. It’s, it’s really interesting and super, super great. So what was the first product that you actually developed? The

Bethany McDaniel 5:44
first product I developed was deodorant, and I really saw a gap in the market when it came to non toxic deodorant. I was in this I was on this journey of just learning at the time. So when my husband and his family had started the regenerative farm, I started learning about food and realized that a lot of the foods that I had been eating my entire life were really highly processed and causing different issues for me. I felt so much better once I changed my diet and ditched these ultra processed foods and started eating whole foods. And so then I was kind of like, okay, like, what else can I do? And started doing a lot of research online and messing around with different natural ingredients, formulating things. But deodorant was something that once I learned about aluminum and parabens, and how some of these ingredients, like like aluminum, for example, has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease, parabens have been linked to breast cancer and so and also hormonal disruption. Once I started learning all of this, I was like, Wow, I can’t use conventional deodorant anymore. But the problem was, there weren’t very many natural alternatives on the market, and there certainly weren’t any natural alternatives that worked. At least some of the ones that I tried did. So I just thought as an opportunity to create something that was natural and effective. And man, I must have come up with hundreds of different iterations of our deodorant formula. I would formulate something, and then I would give it to my husband, give it to family and friends to try, and then they would come back and they would say, it was good, but it caused some irritation, or, you know, it didn’t, didn’t quite work like how I want it to. And so I spent a lot of time. I really took that feedback to heart, and would implement a change every time I heard, you know, feedback from people, until I had a formula that I was really happy with. And that’s what I started primarily here with, was deodorant.

Kara Goldin 7:34
So you went beyond deodorant and how many products, how many SKUs Do you guys have now,

Bethany McDaniel 7:40
oh, my goodness, that’s a good question. I think it’s around. I want to say, like 70 ish, wow, including all the different, you know, scent profiles we will have. We have certain products where it’s like deodorant, but then we offer it and like six different aromas. So yeah, but probably like 6070, different skews. That’s terrific.

Kara Goldin 8:00
And so your go to market strategy has been, do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Bethany McDaniel 8:07
Yeah, we so initially it was really just a hobby, and I didn’t have plans of primarily pure turning into what it is today. And so it was just education was a big part of it, and we, I started an affiliate program really early on, and really hustled to get in touch with influencers and develop relationships and just get the products into more people’s hands. That helped a ton. And then word of mouth was huge. And we started direct to consumer. We’re still direct to consumer, so we’re only selling our products on our website and just a few like very small, different retailers that we have close relationships with, but nothing big, because I really value that open line of communication with the customer, and the ability to educate the customer and and all of that. So we’ve remained direct to consumer, but recently we we’ve done a few things that are new. We launched an out of home campaign, which has been really fun. So we have a bunch of billboards across the US in major cities that went up a few weeks ago and and that’s been a really fun new campaign for us. So

Kara Goldin 9:17
I, I love your marketing campaign that you’ve done, it’s, it’s really challenges the beauty industry standard. So do you want to talk a little bit about that? The messaging? Yeah, kind of what? Yeah, what you’re doing.

Bethany McDaniel 9:30
I would love to. So we are unique in the sense of, we really are. One of our goals as a company is to bring ancestral practices to the forefront. And so if you look back, centuries ago, people were using animal fats on their skin to moisturize their skin. And so these are things like tallow and Amy oil. We know that ancient Greece, ancient Rome, several ancient civilizations, used animal fats. As as a moisturizer and and so we really are trying to, like, bring that practice back to the forefront, because we think there’s a lot of value in it. Animal based ingredients have nutrients that plant based ingredients don’t have. Just like, plant based ingredients have nutrients that animal based ingredients don’t have. And so our philosophy is that when you combine the two you get optimal results for skin health. And we really see that in our customer feedback. Our customers love our tallow based products, people with skin issues like eczema, psoriasis, like there’s a lot of people that other ingredients just don’t soothe and nourish their skin the way that that tallow does specifically, and emu oil also. So we wanted to kind of create a campaign to bring these ancestral practices to the forefront and kind of to the mainstream. And we wanted to come up with a campaign that was palatable but also attention grabbing and something that would kind of just spark that conversation. And so we worked with an agency called day job, and we we had so much fun like creating this campaign. They, they came to us with several options, and we were able to kind of decide, okay, I like this from that one, like this from that one, and come up with something in the end that we were all really happy with, and even down to so and just to give people some context, so our billboards, they say things like, beef fat on your face makes you hotter. And they say, they say they have, like, a picture of a cow, and it says, rub this on your skin. And that may sound weird to some people who aren’t familiar with this concept, but it really, like, I keep saying, it really does go back like this ingredient has stood the test of time and and our philosophy is that you should use every part of the animal and honor the animal’s life by using every part of it, just like our ancestors did. So if for people who do consume meat, meat in their diet. It would also make sense to use the tallow and to use as much of the animal as possible. And that’s kind of like the nose to tail philosophy that we are promoting. And so that was what the campaign said, that we landed on. And even like down to picking the right photo of the cow, like our marketing director Dinah, spent so long like figuring finding the right cow picture to use and the right picture of the EMU to use. And yeah, we’re we’ve been super happy with the results. It’s been really sparking a lot of fun conversations online, and our site traffic has has really shot up since it started, along with sales. So it’s been, it’s been fun. Well,

Kara Goldin 12:44
it’s interesting, because I think vegan has definitely been such a, you know, it’s sort of the buzzword, like, that’s out there. I mean, there’s, you know, organic and vegan, and, you know, B Corp. I mean, there’s, there’s all the and, and I think that people haven’t really thought about it or done the research. And I think so many people have talked about organic that when it first started, it was one thing, and then now it’s become a lot bigger, right? And if you do it outside of the US, it’s like, it’s a totally different thing. So I really think that now is the time where people are starting to think about this a little bit more, and not just what they put in their body, but also what they put on their body. And why am I doing something so it’s, I thought it was super, super interesting. The other thing that that we touched on earlier, which you mentioned, your family’s been involved in it, and also your your husband, but regenerative agriculture, for those who aren’t familiar with that term, what does that mean? Yeah,

Bethany McDaniel 13:47
so it’s really, it’s farming. It’s a way of farming livestock, and it’s really taking things back to how they were hundreds of years ago, like we always say at the farm, like 100 years ago, this would have just been called farming. So before the advent of factory farming, where animals, you know, cows, are just on a feed lot in dirt, 24/7 and chickens are stuffed together into a grow house, never seeing the light of day. You know, with very little space to move around, never on grass, just fed totally unnatural diets. So regenerative farming is the antithesis of factory farming, and with regenerative farming, animals are in the pasture where they have plenty of space to roam. They’re eating a diet that’s natural for their species, and they are naturally regenerating the soil so soil health is so foundational for the planet, and it’s foundational for the nutritional value of our food. And it’s really cool, like how things work when humans don’t get in the way of it. So, like in nature, animals are naturally fertile. In the soil with their poop goes into the soil and it fertilizes it, and when the soil is more healthy and biodiverse, it’s able to sequester more carbon from the atmosphere. There’s been studies done showing that in regenerative farming, more carbon is sequestered from the atmosphere into the soil, because healthy soil has a heart a higher carbon carrying capacity, and so regenerative farming is really like the future of not only getting the most ethical, humanely raised animal and most nutritious animal products, but also in restoring the health of the planet.

Kara Goldin 15:37
I love it. I geek out it when I hear founders who really understand this stuff, because there’s so many that don’t. So

Bethany McDaniel 15:46
it’s, it’s a newer concept for a lot of people, but it’s cool to see it coming more to the forefront. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 15:53
no, it’s, it’s great. So your journey has involved a lot of learning and growth. I mean, you, you kind of grew up sort of hearing this, probably your family was talking about

Bethany McDaniel 16:03
my husband’s my husband’s family, actually, or, yeah, once I once we got together, it became more of a common, like household conversation.

Kara Goldin 16:12
So what’s been the most surprising lesson you’ve learned along the way? You know, as you’ve dove into creating this company, but also just about, I don’t know, like growing the company or the consumers, or things that, yeah, you know, a lot of people didn’t know. I mean, what has been, sort of the the most surprising, there’s been

Bethany McDaniel 16:36
so many, so many surprises as any entrepreneur knows there’s like, there’s so many ups and downs along the way. I think I was surprised by just in general, how hard it is to grow a business, like how much work it is. And I can see why people go into it thinking that it’s going to be this, this easy thing and smooth sailing, and you get freedom, and because you’re the boss, and you know, it’s, it’s they see, like the the after picture of someone’s entrepreneurial journey, and think that that’s kind of like what it’s going to be so soon into the journey. And that’s just not the case, I mean, and I didn’t start family, pure with with business experience or funding, or any of that. And so there, there’s just so much, like, blood, sweat and tears that went into it, so many challenges. And I remember I used to have the mindset of, like, every time I would hit a challenge, like, why is this happening? Why do I keep running into having to deal with these hard things, like, hard thing after hard thing after hard thing. And it just feels like too much sometimes. And that really shifted when I started to see those challenges as opportunities for growth, and looked at them not in terms of, like, why is this happening to me? But like, what can I learn from this? And so I think any challenge is such a waste if you don’t learn something from it, and if you don’t grow from it, versus having a victim mentality of like, oh, woe is me, like all of these, all these bad things keep happening. Yeah. So I was initially surprised by just the level of work and just like heart and soul that it takes to to create something successful and sustainable, but but then it’s once you kind of flip the script on that it becomes more of of a fun journey and less daunting when you can change your outlook. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 18:35
definitely. I always tell people that I don’t think I got this in the beginning when I was first coming out with my company, but, but as time would go on, I would always think about it as I had put up a shelf and and the shelf just like, wasn’t staying put. Like, maybe I, yeah, whatever. Like, it just like, wasn’t working the way I wanted to. And I had to just keep working on it. And then finally I got it there, and then I had to move the shelf up higher and move the shelf up higher. Like, it’s just it never ends. Because when I meet with entrepreneurs, especially brand new entrepreneurs over the years, they’re like, especially the plans that I see where, like, in two years, I’m going to flip it and it’s going to and it’s like, this is not what’s going to happen. And the best entrepreneurs are, you know, really the ones that kind of look at it as either a puzzle that they just keep building on, or that shelf that they just keep, you know, trying to, you know, put more on it or or lift it higher, or however you want to visualize it. But it’s never,

Bethany McDaniel 19:43
ever like, just arrive and things are good. It’s like, you there’s always more to be done and more to press into. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 19:50
no, it’s, it’s so, so true. So when you think about the community that you’ve built, I always say, like, uh. So you know that on those tough days when you’re just like, why is this happening to me? I like, without fail, I would find an email within a few days from a customer that just lifted me. That was like, Okay, this is why I’m doing this. And so staying to your point, staying in touch with your community, and having, you know, access, I think it’s so much more so today than even it was 20 years ago, when, you know, people just didn’t talk by email to their community, right? Like it was just kind of like they’re out there somewhere. But, you know, I have no idea who they are. Call a customer service line, but today it’s like, you know, you go on X or Twitter and you’re like, you know, I love what you guys are doing, or, or you send them an email or whatever. You can find people pretty easily, or LinkedIn or whatever it is. So can you think of any of those notes that have come from customers that have, you know, really lifted you or surprised you, right?

Bethany McDaniel 20:59
I actually have a folder in my inbox of, I mean, when I was initially, I was doing all the customer service, so I would kind of file away the really, like, sweet, especially heartfelt messages. And now, even today, our customer service team, like, they still, still send me some of, like, the sweetest notes that they find and and so it’s cool to have those available for when I am, like, in a challenging time, to just kind of look through and and remember that, you know, it’s easy. It’s easy to focus on, like, the one disgruntled or like, I don’t know, an angry comment on Instagram or whatever it is. Like, it’s easy to let that take up your headspace, but you have to kind of give yourself a reality check and remember, like the vast majority of people, of like customers are, are so, so grateful and so happy, and like, the impact that primly pure really is having at the end of the day. Yeah, it’s, it’s cool to to have those, to remind myself of that, and then sometimes just stumbling upon them. You know, I still I’m active and on our social media account, and so I I’m in there, and I’ll catch a DM or a comment every once in a while. And I think some of the coolest ones are for like, moms who talk about their kids that struggle with eczema, and like, how much our baby line has helped. I’m really proud of our baby line. I developed it after I had my first daughter, and I just wanted to create the most gentle, nourishing products possible. And so they have the rich and animal fats, a lot of them have herbs that are can’t think of the word right now, herbs that we infuse into some of these oils, like olive oil, we infuse calendula and marshmallow root into the olive oil of our baby bomb. And we do this ourselves in house. We make most of our products in house. And so it’s cool that those products, like all the time I’m seeing are having such an impact on on kids that are struggling with eczema. And then deodorant like we get so many, so much good feedback on our deodorants. It’s still so hard to find a natural deodorant that works. And so I’m really proud of our deodorant formula and how it’s allowing so many people to ditch the their aluminum deodorant and switch to a more natural option. That’s

Kara Goldin 23:29
awesome. So looking back from those early days when you’re developing this like and now looking at where you are today, what’s the one thing you wish you knew before you started Primally Pure. I mean, obviously there’s a lot of other stuff. Like, I always tell people, it’s not just about getting the idea out there. And, you know, having a successful direct to consumer business, or if you also have a, you know, retail business, it’s like, you gotta build a team. You’ve gotta, as somebody told me, like, at some point you’ve got to have, you know, insurance, and, you know, like, all these, all these things, right? And never think about, yeah, and then you’ve actually got to make sure that your product is back in stock. And then you’ve got to, you know, and if you’re co packing, maybe you get to a certain level where you’ve got to get another co Packer so that you can, you know, keep up with production, or, you know, or whatever it is, what? What is it that you wish you would have known at the beginning? And maybe it’s something about yourself too, that you know, you wish that you would have been able to see that in those early days?

Bethany McDaniel 24:41
Yeah, I think probably, like a lot of entrepreneurs, I held too tightly onto things in the beginning, like I I was working such long days for so long in those early, early days of friendly, pure because I didn’t think that anyone. And could answer customer emails like I could, or make the products like I could, or interact with influencers and bloggers like I was, like, I had these like, false beliefs that were really limiting. Well, they were like making it hard just in terms of the amount of work that I was doing for so long, but also, like, limiting the growth of the company, and what really helped me to start to be able to let go of things. It was kind of forced when I when I got pregnant with our first daughter, and I was like, nearing my maternity or nearing her birth, and I had to make a decision, like, do I continue to do everything myself and just put everything on pause, take a maternity leave, and then come back and, you know, put a little like thing up on our website that we’re taking a break, which I didn’t like the idea of, because there was a lot of good momentum at that point. Or do I hire someone on full time, move the business out of my home and just trust that things will continue to run in my absence. And so that’s what I did. I did the second one, and it really showed me that okay, like I can still weigh in on on the big things and and I don’t have to be as in the weeds. I don’t have to be the one actually making the product and shipping the product. Like there are people out there who will do things as well, if not better, than I can, and it’s like I still have to evaluate that in my responsibilities, like, what am I doing that I can that someone else could do? And what are the things that I really need to to focus on that only I can do? Because there are things that that only me as the founder can do, and so I’m constantly trying to, like, reevaluate what those things are and really prioritize those things and delegate or work with other people on the other stuff. But it’s easier said than done. It’s really tough in the beginning. I wish I would have had the like mindset and foresight to do that even earlier than I did, but I’m grateful that that it happened, and something I’m like, still working on today.

Kara Goldin 27:12
Yeah. No, it’s super, super good point. So final question, so, what is your what is the hero product? Your maybe your favorite product, and maybe those are the same.

Bethany McDaniel 27:25
Okay, so deodorant is has been our charcoal. Deodorant has been our top seller pretty much consistently for years and years and years. It’s amazing. I’m super proud of that product. I feel like I talked about deodorant a ton. So I’ll also mention our plumping serum. I love our plumping serum. It has astaxanthin, which is a really potent antioxidant found in red algae. It’s actually 6000 times stronger than vitamin C. It is really good for sun protection. In fact, a lot of surfers will take this internally to help their skin to become more resilient to sun damage. And you know, it works amazing for that externally and just for repairing just the wear and tear that our skin gets on a daily basis. And our customers love our plumping serum. It’s like right kind of neck and neck with our charcoal deodorant. But I love that product, and it’s just kind of proof of the power that natural ingredients actually have, and that they they can be as good, if not better, than synthetic alternatives.

Kara Goldin 28:29
Yeah, and your your soothing is really nice too.

Bethany McDaniel 28:32
That’s, I love the soothing line too. Yeah, it’s

Kara Goldin 28:34
super it’s super nice. And your packaging is really great. So thank you guys have done a super nice job. So Bethany McDaniel, founder of Primally Pure. Thank you so much. We’ll have all the info in the show notes, but definitely, everyone needs to try Primally Pure and buy more if you’ve already tried it. So super, super, great. Thank you so much. Bethany,

Bethany McDaniel 28:57
thank you so much, Kara.

Kara Goldin 28:59
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint, we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now you.

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