Mainebiz introduces a year-long feature, Made in Maine. The first column is about a family-run skincare maker with stores in Winthrop and Waterville.
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Pickle’s Potions and Lotions is a family-run skincare maker that develops its own product lines and opened its first retail store in Winthrop in 2020.
That success led to the lease of a second location in Waterville that opened in November.
Founded in 2015 by Kristin Mutchler, Pickle’s Potions and Lotions uses local herbs and beeswax, unrefined oils and botanical extracts. Its best-selling products are Itch Balm and tick sprays.
Mutchler has diplomas and certifications in aroma-dermatology, cosmetic science, cosmetic formulation, aroma-psychology, botany and herbalism, along with two years of nursing school.
Her husband, Gary Hunt, is a co-owner and provides web and graphic design, product packaging and labels.
Mutcher’s entrepreneurial journey started more than 10 years ago. Her newborn daughter suffered from dermatitis and the couple was reluctant to treat it with a steroid cream prescription. At the time, there weren’t any natural options on the market, so she researched the benefits of different plants, oils and formulations. She tested products on family and friends.
“Now we have a tried-and true-formula,” she said of that first product, called Eczema Elixir.
Subsequent formulations included a product to treat arthritis pain and facial care products.
The family’s house has two kitchens, so Mutchler claimed the second one for her research lab. Her husband came up with a logo. The two started an Etsy store.
For a long time making lotions was a side hustle.
“But the best thing we did was attend different events, like makers markets and farmers markets, to talk with people, connect with customers and create relationships,” she said. “That was what made us grow the most. People would come back and then send their friends.”
Mutchler quit teaching in 2019 to focus on the business. In 2020, during the pandemic, the couple found a storefront of about 700 square feet in Winthrop.
“We figured we could turn that into my lab,” she said. “The upstairs kitchen was too small at that point.”
She intended to just have the lab there.
“But my husband said, ‘Let’s set up our tables in the front of the store and have, like, a pop-up market but a permanent one,” she said. “We tried that and that was a huge hit.”
Customers who knew the products from craft shows came from as far away as Bangor and Portland. Now she has a 1,200-square-foot lab and packaging facility, which she’s rapidly outgrowing.
“So many people came in that we had to push the lab back and make the store bigger,” she said. “I had to find another place to put the lab, so I went up the street a little bit and found a much bigger lab space.”
Mutchler got startup help through SCORE Maine and now has 10 part-time employees. The business mainly grew through bootstrap financing.
“It grew slowly and organically,” she said. “I started with our own money, buying ingredients, and as we sold products I’d buy more ingredients. It was pretty self-sustaining.”