Alaska Glacial Essentials Skincare uses local botanicals and raw glacial minerals to create skincare products. The company believes that skincare is self-care. As founder, Lauren Padawer, reminisced, “I created Alaska Glacial products to soothe the skin, calm the spirit, and help friends find stillness in a crazy world. My wish for you is to carve time for yourself and tune out the chaos. And when it’s time to crush your goals, I hope the beauty and magnitude of Alaska inspires you to go BIG!”
Missouri native Padawer moved to Cordova, Alaska, when she was 23. She wrote in a blog post, “I fell in love with the Copper River, and the untamed spirit of its wilderness. I fell in love with the highly prized salmon way of life. I fell in love with slow living, with periodic endless rainy days and with breathtaking scenery that is so rugged it pierces the heart.” After working as a program coordinator and grant writer for the Eyak Preservation Council and as a salmon biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, she felt called to become an entrepreneur, inspired by the question, “What if every non-profit was funded by a successful ethical business venture? What if the profits from every business venture supported great causes?”
Photo Courtesy Alaska Glacial Essentials Skincare
While on a rafting trip on the Copper River in 2000, Padawer stopped for lunch in a canyon to watch brown bears fishing on the other side of the river. Upon applying mud to her face, “the divine sensation of the glacial mud and ensuing soft skin started my journey to discover the power of the plants and minerals to heal and detoxify skin,” she recalled. Alaska Glacial initially launched as Alaska Glacial Mud Co. in 2006 when it sold only glacial mineral mud masks and soaps, the company has since expanded to make skincare products made with Alaska glacial water, called AK-Beauty. “I am admittedly obsessed with glaciers. They make me feel small, and alive, and inspired,” Padawer added in a Facebook post. The company is committed to sourcing all their ingredients responsibly. The one-woman company hand-harvests glacial clay from the Copper River Delta, which contains “pure minerals that have been in Mother Nature’s factory for over 10,000 years,” and often takes less than 1% of its permitted resource amount. They use 5-gallon buckets and spade shovels and have promised never to use earth-moving equipment like bulldozers. Meanwhile, using already toxin-free Alaska glacial water instead of groundwater avoids an energy-intensive purification process that strips water of its natural minerals.
The company never uses synthetic colors, fillers, fragrances, parabens, petroleum, phthalates, or sulfates. Instead, it sustainably harvests wild botanicals, certified organic if possible, including blueberry, chaga mushroom, horsetail, kelp, nettle, and yarrow extracts, as well as lingonberry and lupine seed oils, all of which contain antioxidants and immunoprotective properties. The ingredients and products are also vegan and cruelty-free, except for goat’s milk used in mineral soap bars, which makes it Leaping Bunny–certified by Cruelty Free International. The company is recognized by the Made in Alaska program, meaning more than 51% of its products are hand-harvested, handcrafted, and manufactured in Alaska.
As a certified B Corporation, environmental friendliness is part and parcel of the company’s philosophy. “We are on a mission to protect and defend your skin and our precious planet Earth through self-care rituals, results-driven research, and sustainability,” Alaska Glacial wrote on its website.
Alaska Glacial’s operations are extremely green. The company manufactures its products in small batches at a facility in Cordova, which is both energy-efficient and powered by clean energy. 60 to 80% of its power needs are met by community hydropower, and the business conducts most processing in summer and fall when this clean energy source is most effective. Meanwhile, product components include recyclable materials such as recyclable paper, plastic, glass, and aluminum. Additionally, the company’s paper and cardboard packaging is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, as it incorporates post-consumer waste and recycled materials when possible. It even uses biodegradable, soy-based inks instead of more harmful synthetic ones. The small business is dedicated to continual improvement, too: “As options grow, we will continue to improve packaging and find ways to recycle or offset our carbon footprint.”
Photo Courtesy Alaska Glacial Essentials Skincare
Alaska Glacial’s operations in the remote community of Cordova, only accessible by air or boat, are “inextricably linked to the healthy intact ecosystem of the Copper River,” Padawer explained in an interview, because “there’s a true reliance on salmon, both as a subsistence lifestyle and for the commercial fishing economy.” She elaborated on the natural beauty of the Copper River Delta: “There’s 150 miles of braided wild river wetlands that teem with wildlife: bears, wolves, lynx, coyote, moose, deer, trumpeter swans, and eagles. And then you have an annual migration of 23 million shorebirds!” Notably, all five species of Pacific wild salmon call the delta home. It turns out that when glaciers slide down and create “glacial flour” packed with iron and nutrients, it supports phytoplankton, marine plants, and the salmon populations.
With both economic and environmental reasons to preserve the Copper River Watershed and Delta, it is no wonder that Alaska Glacial joined 1% for the Planet and pledges 2% of its annual revenues or 10% of net profits, whichever is greater, to local nonprofits working to preserve, restore, or educate people about this wild salmon habitat. This work is vital given the lack of a comprehensive management plan that could shield the area from unsustainable development. Some of the nonprofits that Alaska Glacial supports include the Copper River Watershed Project, which implements invasive plant management and fish habitat restoration projects, and the Alaska Center Education Fund, whose educational programs teach all Alaskans to be better stewards. “Without the purity and health of the Copper River Watershed, we are nothing,” Alaska Glacial wrote on its website. Although Padawer did not get a deal when she pitched her company on Shark Tank, her company is now making a difference in Codova and Alaska at large.
Photo Courtesy Alaska Glacial Essentials Skincare
