Kayla Childress is the Sales Director at Naturich Labs, a contract manufacturer specializing in beauty and personal care products. With decades of experience in the beauty industry, she focuses on developing and maintaining relationships between brands and manufacturing partners while navigating the complex challenges of global supply chains.

Nate Wheeler is the host of the popular Manufacturing Insiders podcast. He also ownsweCreate, a nationally recognized marketing agency that helps manufacturers grow, save money, and become more efficient.

In this episode of Manufacturing Insiders, Kayla Childress explains how contract manufacturers are adapting to supply chain disruptions while building successful partnerships with emerging brands. She discusses the real-world impact of tariffs on raw materials and packaging sourcing, revealing how manufacturers are helping clients navigate cost increases and timeline delays. The conversation explores practical strategies for scaling sales operations in a relationship-driven industry.

Childress provides insights into what makes brand-manufacturer partnerships succeed, from communication protocols during supply chain volatility to the hiring and management of sales teams in manufacturing environments. She also covers emerging trends in sustainable packaging and ingredient sourcing that are reshaping how contract manufacturers approach product development and client relationships.

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Nate (00:01.282) Welcome to Manufacturing Insiders. I have an exciting guest with us today, Kayla Childress. She is an amazing person with great energy and a super positive attitude. She is the sales director at Naturich Labs and has a really extensive background in creating, maintaining, and promoting beauty brands and developing beauty products.

So it’s a great resource and I’m excited to talk to Kayla today about the relationship between the contract manufacturer and the brand. I know that there are a lot of companies out there that are interested in starting a new brand or developing a product. I want to pick Kayla’s brain about how that relationship works and what creates a successful brand manufacturer relationship. So welcome to Manufacturing Insiders, Kayla. Happy to have you on.

Kayla Childress (00:58.222) Thank you so much for having me, Nate. I appreciate it.

Nate (01:02.134) You are very welcome. So I know we posted a few different directions for this podcast, and I wanted to start with what I thought would be of most interest to the most listeners. So let me start with the question: How do you develop a positive relationship between a manufacturer and a brand? How does that start, and what are the steps in the process?

Kayla Childress (01:32.238) I think it starts with very strong communication. That’s really key to a successful partnership with a brand and a contract manufacturer. There are so many things happening right now in contract manufacturing. Tariffs are a big topic right now, so it’s really making sure that line of communication with the brand and our team is constantly happening to make sure that you’re staying on track with your timeline and your goals with your launch.

Nate (02:09.304) Sure. So you mentioned tariffs. What part of your supply chain – I assume that some of your supply chain exists in some of these countries where tariffs are an issue. How are you dealing with that? And what percentage of your business is that problematic for?

Kayla Childress (02:28.042) Right now it’s 100% of our business. I think in contract manufacturing, especially in the beauty space, you’re dealing with raw materials that come from various countries and you’re dealing with packaging and components which also come from various countries. And as we know right now with tariffs, it’s really affecting all of us. Unfortunately, every day looks different.

So again, going back to that communication, we’re really staying very close to our clients and seeing what we can do together to make that look different. For some it might be just holding for a couple of weeks because it’s such a moving target right now.

Kayla Childress (03:25.464) So, you know, it varies right now, but yeah, it’s definitely affecting us for sure.

Nate (03:31.66) So what components, I would assume that there’s some ingredients, I guess you could call them that you could source in the US, but then I also assume that there’s some that you absolutely couldn’t. Is that correct?

Kayla Childress (03:47.724)

Yeah, absolutely. That’s such a great question. So depending on the formula, we always try to keep things as close to stateside in the US as we can, but it really comes down to quality. let’s say you’re looking at a vitamin C ingredient, the quality of the vitamin C might be better in another country versus here. So it just really depends on what ingredients.

But yes, raw materials, ingredients are sourced globally, just like packaging.

Nate (04:25.379) Right. So you’re actively helping your clients work through these issues and create solutions. Can you name a solution that you might have come up with in response to tariffs that was effective at mitigating some of the loss or some of the issues?

Kayla Childress (04:44.846) Sure. Some of the solutions that we’ve seen here at Naturich Labs really involve a lot of the resources, whether it’s a packaging company or the raw material company, and seeing what they’re doing. Some of them are pivoting right now and looking at other countries as well to get materials from. It seems like every day there’s constant communication trying to figure out what to do.

We’ve also seen a lot of our brands forecasting in shorter buckets of time. They may have forecasted before for a year or two in advance and now they’re looking more at quarters and half a year. So that’s also something that we’re encouraging them to do.

Nate (05:35.03) Okay. Are you already seeing some of these brands pass along costs to the consumer? Price increases?

Kayla Childress (05:45.036) Not quite, but if things do continue the way they are, unfortunately, it’s what they’re going to have to do because of the cost that’s involved for them. So not yet, but it’s coming.

Nate (06:05.678) Given the intention, I promise I’ll jump off the tariff topic in a minute. Given the intention behind the tariffs, whether we agree with it or whether we don’t agree with it, I think the intention is American jobs, American business, et cetera. Do you have anything positive to report on that side of things? Do you feel that in some cases it has brought business back to the US or created US jobs already?

Kayla Childress (06:46.092) Not yet. I think we’re all waiting to see how this shakes out. Like you said, whether you’re for this or not, I see the point of it all. I think maybe the execution wasn’t exactly what we were hoping for. But I do hope that this does bring some positivity, whether it’s jobs or the economy, back to the US.

If you think about packaging, let’s take packaging as an example, that takes anywhere from 12 weeks or more to get from another country. How great would it be if a brand could order something from a manufacturer here in the United States and get it in days or a couple of weeks? So I think there’s hope that it brings more jobs and more economy to us here in the United States for sure.

Nate (07:48.246) Right. Yeah, that’s a good point. So for your company in particular, what type of organizational setup, whether it be on the packaging side, whether it be on the ingredient side, whether it be on the filling process, whatever it might be, what type of company inside of the US can you see yourself kind of looking for and what capabilities would you like them to have?

Kayla Childress (08:20.718) Sure. So at Naturich Labs, we do everything under one roof. a fairly large facility. When it comes to BB contract manufacturing, we have about 130,000 square feet. So we do most of what you’ve talked about under one roof. We’ve got R &D, we’ve got regulatory, QC, filling. Packaging is something that we, our brands usually are providing to us and fragrance.

Kayla Childress (08:49.602) So those two things would be my dream to have here in the US, you know, more packaging and components along with, you know, more fragrance houses here. You know, some of the fragrance houses that we work with are based here, but a lot of the things that they’re getting are global. So, and that may just have to stay that way. I’m not sure, but packaging is definitely top.

Nate (09:16.96) Right, yeah, because those quantities, you know, even a few cents on an item, I think, could make a big difference.

Kayla Childress (09:23.054) Huge difference, especially for brands that are, you know, selling through millions of units a year. Some of these brands are, you know, selling five, 10 million, 15 million units a year. So, you know, you can do the math. A penny is a big deal.

Nate (09:42.99) Yeah. So with your product lines or the products that you develop, how would you say that they break down percentage wise? know, you have, you know, perfumes at 15 % deodorants at 5%, you know, shampoo at, how does that break down?

Kayla Childress (10:03.01) Yeah, so I would say about 40 to 50 % of our business is in hair care. And then the rest of that is split up between skin care, body care, which includes deodorant, and we do

Nate (10:21.452) OTC. Can you just define that for me?

Kayla Childress (10:22.766) So OTC and our world is an anti-acne product, anti-dandruff, SPF, hand sanitizer.

Nate (10:36.427) Okay. Gotcha. So, over the counter medication.

Kayla Childress (10:40.442) Yeah, lot of contract manufacturers don’t work in OTC. So it’s, I would say, one of many special things about Naturich Labs.

Nate (10:52.638) Why is that? Why don’t a lot of companies do that?

Kayla Childress (10:56.258) That’s a great question. It’s very expensive. It’s very expensive. is a lot of, you you’re talking about the FDA being involved, regulatory. So, yeah, it’s just a very expensive process.

Nate (11:12.716) I see. So with your role as really the first salesperson that Naturich Labs has had on board, guess what prompted them to, I assume they were around for quite a while before you came on board, right? What prompted them to kind of fill this position or create this position?

Kayla Childress (11:36.878) I’m proud to say we’ve been around almost 25 years and for a company to be around that long and never have a sales department really says quite a lot about our company. Everything was referral and word of mouth before I came on board. And I think for them, it was just the natural next step to do in business. So having someone come on board that’s got the relationships that I do, I think was just a natural progression in business.

We also broke ground at the end of summer last year on a new facility, which opens at the end of year, beginning of next year. So I’m sure that cost also was something in mind, like let’s bring on a salesperson to help increase our sales, to help pay for this building that we’re breaking ground on.

Nate (12:43.614) Yeah, I mean, that definitely makes sense. It’s shocking to think that they went 25 years without the position and that the product spoke for itself to that degree. So that’s pretty impressive. But I understand you’ve had some successes as well and really been great at bringing on new business.

Kayla Childress (13:03.950) Yeah, I don’t think either of us knew going into this what opportunity was out there. And so it’s been so exciting to see the last year that I’ve been here and the business that we’ve been able to create together. I don’t take credit for any of it. I bring the opportunity to the company, but it really takes a massive team to make that happen. So I’m really proud to say I also work for such an amazing group of people that help make this happen.

Nate (13:44.812) Yeah, we talked about that before. It’s just really great culture there. It seems like everyone’s got good positive vibes. So there are quite a few companies out there that I think are kicking around the idea of bringing on a salesperson and probably exploring a lot of different methods for generating some business.

So what advice would you have for a contract manufacturer that is thinking about bringing on a salesperson? In my understanding, and I’ve hired salespeople before, I tend to be the only salesperson for my company, but I’ve attempted this multiple times and I realized that there’s a big difference between being a good salesperson and a good sales manager. So operating without management, essentially, at least from the sales side, how do you make that work? And what would you say to a contract manufacturer that’s considering this? What do they need to have set up? What do they need to think about?

Kayla Childress (14:51.584) A couple of the things that they need to consider when hiring someone is looking at someone that fits their business. Obviously in contract manufacturing and beauty, I was a good fit for that because I’ve been in the beauty industry for decades. So I think looking in the industry that you’re in is really important.

And then the relationships that they come with. If you’re looking to scale quickly, bringing on a salesperson that has relationships is really going to help with that. You might have to pay a little bit more for that person, but it might pay off in the long run. And I also think just finding someone that culturally is a fit for your company.

We don’t really work for a company, we work for people and making sure that whoever you bring on is energetically a fit for your team and kind of has that same thought process and the way they do business that you do. So I think it’s really important to make sure that that person fits within your culture.

Nate (16:16.788) I agree with that. I completely agree with that. I wonder how you figure that out? The hiring process is usually pretty canned, interview one, interview two. What kind of questions can you ask? How do you really decide whether somebody’s a good culture fit for you?

Kayla Childress (16:40.366) That’s a great question. My interviews, like if I’m interviewing someone, are pretty unique. I think you find out who someone is by asking some interesting questions. It might not be your typical “tell me what percentage increase you had in sales last year.” It might be more geared towards what does every day look like for you? Or how do you manage your time? And some other fun questions I like to ask.

But I think taking time also – there’s so much buzz right now about it shouldn’t take but a couple of interviews to hire someone. I don’t know if I’ve ever been on board with that theory. I think taking a little bit more time and learning about who you’re bringing on and meeting them in person, having them meet the team. I don’t think it’s all about just meeting with HR and meeting with your direct report. Meet with the team members, see what they think about that person, have them interview them just like you would.

Nate (18:02.510) Yeah, I think that’s all good tips. I’ve learned the lesson more than a couple times. And the saying “hire slow, fire fast” has become my motto. It’s like when you have somebody that isn’t performing well, you have a conversation with them to figure out what’s going on in their life or whatever. And if it doesn’t get fixed, it’s not going to get fixed. It’s not going to happen. It’s not going to work. So you got to just part with them.

And I’ve had these situations where you just kind of string it along and hope it gets better. I hope it gets better. It doesn’t. But then the hiring is the same thing – I need to fill a position. You seem right. Okay, let’s go. Two weeks later, something comes up and they’re gone.

Kayla Childress (18:53.292) Yeah, I know. And things do happen, but I think putting the time and energy into the interview process and doing your due diligence is so key.

Nate (19:07.373) So as a beauty expert, what is your recommendation for skincare for a male? For fine lines, get some forehead creases, what do you recommend?

Kayla Childress (19:19.807) I jokingly say you guys are simple creatures. So keeping your regimens simple is important as well. There are some really great brands out there, but most of the time guys are using just a bar of soap and that might be it. But if you want to maintain your skin for a long time and I think we all want to stay young, I think it’s important to have a regimen.

I am asked all the time, whether it’s a man or a woman, what skincare brand would you recommend? And I really don’t recommend skincare brands. I recommend ingredients, things like SPF. That should be what you use every single day.

Nate (20:19.288) Can I stop you there? I’m curious about your take on SPF and sunscreen. I have some small children, right? And when we go down to Florida, I put this sunscreen on them and they break out instantly. And it’s happened every time. And then they have all these bumps on their arms for months afterwards. And I’m like, this stuff can’t be good for you.

Kayla Childress (20:42.670) So there are a lot of ingredients in cheaper sunscreen that can break you out. I think you probably need to stick to mineral sunscreen for them. Minerals are what I use most of the time and on my child when she was young. Right now, I just am like, use whatever, just use sunscreen. So really looking at the ingredients, they’re either having a reaction to one of the actives or you’re using a chemical sunscreen which could potentially be what they’re having a reaction to.

Offline, if you want to send me whoever you’re using, I can make some recommendations for you. For sure. Yeah, so sunscreen’s important. I know that a lot of people have reactions to it, but it is what keeps us from number one, getting skin cancer, and number two, keeping us looking younger, longer. So it’s my number one thing I tell people to use. Everything else is just kind of a nice addition. So use a decent cleanser for yourself and a great moisturizer that has SPF. Keep it simple and a good shave product if you’re shaving or beard oil.

Nate (22:11.982) Yeah. So I saw an ad online somewhere or something like that. And so I decided one day I was going to start rubbing beef tallow on my face and I swear by it. I mean, I’m telling you what, like noticeable differences in my forehead wrinkles, my face wrinkles. And I just keep the bottle of beef tallow up in my bathroom and I told my wife, I was like, this is the most dedicated I’ve ever been to a skin routine. Because I actually see results. So I just kept doing it.

Kayla Childress (22:45.710) Yeah, exactly. Beef tallow is interesting. It’s an ingredient that we don’t work with because it’s an animal byproduct. Our facility doesn’t work with animal byproducts, but I’ve read so much about beef tallow and its benefits. And I get a lot of requests for it.

Nate (23:07.190) Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I mean, I’ve definitely done the lotion thing. I even did like, what’s that oil? The name is slipping my mind right now. Castor oil. Castor oil has a lot of benefits too, like anti-inflammatory and stuff, and I put that on my face for a while and I didn’t really notice any difference.

Kayla Childress (23:32.674) Yeah, I mean, castor oil, I think, blended with other ingredients can be really beneficial. I don’t know if you know this, but it can help bring a woman into labor.

Nate (23:45.994) I heard that there was some sort of, yeah, there’s a lot of weird things.

Kayla Childress (23:49.454) So if you ever have children and your wife is like, I need to kick it into high gear and I want to go into labor, you can just take a couple spoonfuls of castor oil and it’s supposed to help you. I don’t know if it’s true.

Nate (24:00.878) Isn’t the castor bean also what they make ricin and the bio weapon out of? I think so. I think that comes from the castor bean but yeah, we need a – I don’t know if you listen to other podcasts but they usually have like some tech guy in the background that likes googling things for them as they go.

Kayla Childress (24:26.670) Absolutely. But I probably listen to just as many podcasts as I do music, which says a lot because I’m a total music person. It’s on all the time. So yes, I listen to podcasts a lot.

Nate (24:42.880) I’m the same way. I love music, but I do find myself listening to more and more podcasts and less and less music. Podcasts are how I learn. It’s how I get my news. It’s just something I can do while I’m driving. A lot of times I don’t even want to get out of my truck because I’m into it. What’s your favorite podcast right now?

Kayla Childress (25:01.294) I’m the same. I knew you were going to ask me that. I have a few beauty ones that I listen to all the time, just because it helps me kind of stay in the know. One is Fat Mascara. And the other one is totally slipping my mind and I can’t believe that – it’s two beauty editors. And I forget, that’s terrible of me.

And then I listen to some finance ones. I listen to NPR every day. I listen to some interesting ones that might be murder documentaries or – recently I listened to one that was all about this band called The Edge of Daybreak. And it was a podcast all around their kind of history up to today. It’s really cool if you like music.

Nate (26:07.744) Yeah, I do. Yeah, so pretty diverse interests. Tell me about your…

Kayla Childress (26:12.344) All over the place. Yeah.

Nate (26:19.118) Like I said before, I was impressed with your energy the first time we talked. I think you really are just a generally positive, good person from what I sense about you. How do you accomplish that? Do you have a spiritual practice? Do you meditate? Are there books that you read?

Kayla Childress (26:36.802) Yeah, that’s such a great question and I appreciate you saying that because sometimes you don’t think you’re positive. I think as we age, you learn through life that you can either react to things or you can choose – well, you can react, but you can choose the way you react to things. And I think that’s probably been the one big lesson that I’ve learned: I can’t control everything, but the thing I can control is me.

And why not wake up every day and try to be positive and hopefully leave this world being a legacy, whatever that means, whether it’s a financial legacy for my daughter or people remember me as being a happy human. I think it’s just all about choice and how we go about our day. I think the way that I maintain that is I journal. I do some journaling, not a ton. I’m trying to get into the practice a bit more. Yeah, it’s really tough. I think music – I know that sounds crazy, but music’s in my DNA.

Nate (27:51.510) It’s hard to make that habit.

Kayla Childress (28:03.383) Literally, my dad was a 70s and 80s rock star. Yes, I’m such a…

Nate (28:08.232) Really? Would it be a band name I would know?

Kayla Childress (28:15.374) Well, if you know Southern Rock, you probably have either heard of them or know a lot of the bands that they toured with. He was in three different bands: Hydra, Rex and Stars, and they all toured with big names, Rush, Ozzy.

Nate (28:37.870) That’s pretty cool. What was it like growing up with a musician father?

Kayla Childress (28:43.694) It’s been interesting. He toured a lot, was on the road a lot. So unfortunately, he had to make that sacrifice to do what he loves. Yeah, it’s cool. I mean, I have my record collection because of him and my mom. So music is such a part of me and really, I think, keeps me positive too. And I listen to every genre, kind of depending on my mood for the day.

So I don’t know. I just think that it’s by choice. You can either wake up and be an asshole or wake up and be a good human and try to sprinkle your kindness everywhere.

Nate (29:31.074) Yeah, it is a choice. I agree with that. I think that sometimes our subconscious mind prevents us from making the right choice in a lot of cases. And I think that what’s even bigger than making the decision to be happy is understanding why you’re not happy, if that makes sense.

A lot of times our reactions to situations are, whether it be a past trauma or just some sort of a psychological glitch that we have, but it’s the same thing that happens every time. Every time we get in a situation like this, we react like this. So I think it’s really important to take a minute when you get in those situations and say, why am I so fired up about this? What’s going on?

Kayla Childress (30:23.544) Right, yeah. Breathe. I think exercise is another great thing to help keep your mind clear, even if it’s walking. I’m not a big workout person, but I really love to be in nature and walk and be with my animals and be outside. So yeah, I mean, I think it’s different for everybody.

Nate (30:51.566) It seems like it would be impossible to be an unhappy person if you journaled, set time aside every day for listening to music, did a little bit of meditation, did some exercise and then just loved somebody. I think you would be a happy person. It’s that – there’s those ingredients.

Kayla Childress (31:09.836) Yeah. Yep, that’s it. That’s the recipe.

Nate (31:14.594) Yep. So I would be remiss if we didn’t talk a little bit about business development. Obviously you’re in charge of developing relationships with new brands and maintaining relationships with existing ones. What else are you doing to generate business, maybe from a digital marketing standpoint?

Kayla Childress (31:36.686) Great question. Although I’ve been in the beauty industry for decades, being on the contract manufacturing side this last year was new for me. And so your traditional means of bringing in sales is not what I’m used to. I’m really selling a service now versus selling a brand. And so one of the tools that I really committed to at the top of this year was to be more active on LinkedIn.

Oddly, I had not really used it for years to help even in my own business that I had. Just kind of accepted requests and would post every now and then and never really used it to its fullest and then I realized that I had over 9,000 connections. I don’t think I’d ever really looked. And when I saw that number, I said to myself, my gosh, this has got to be a way that I can market. And it’s been incredible.

So I think digitally, LinkedIn is a great tool for sales. I would go about it and not fear messing up or posting something with a typo and not getting bent out of shape about it. Just keep doing it. And I really do try. I mean, some weeks I’m better than others, but LinkedIn has been such a huge tool for us. We do trade shows, we do a couple of them a year. I think that’s really helpful in sales also. We don’t do a lot of social media yet. I think one day we will.

Nate (33:51.148) Yeah, I mean technically LinkedIn would be classified as such and it does seem like probably the more appropriate platform for you guys.

Kayla Childress (34:00.962) Yeah, I think Instagram and some of the others, it’s just not where our customers probably are.

Nate (34:09.260) Right, yeah, you’re more business to business rather than to individual. I was kind of looking at your online presence and number one, I was impressed by your LinkedIn. It looked like you’d been doing it for a long time to me. So it looked pretty well put together. The one opportunity I felt that you guys were missing was on the SEO side of things.

Because if I’m in the process of developing a brand, I’m going to start to research. I’m going to say, OK, how does this work? What do I do if I want to create a perfume or a hair care product? And so kind of curating content around those top of the funnel people that are early in the process would be important. But then once somebody gets a little bit further into the process, they might search for who are the best contract manufacturers for cosmetic products? And kind of getting in front of those searches, I feel would be a really valuable way for you guys to generate additional business.

Kayla Childress (35:23.544) Thanks for the insight. I’ll definitely look into it. We just redid our website. We’re doing some more updates there. So we’re always looking to find ways to be better.

Nate (35:38.306) Yeah, absolutely. And obviously if you need any tips on the YouTube channel that this is going to go on, I have quite a few videos that just talk about the basics of SEO. How do you optimize your SEO titles and how do you get ranked for a given term, things like that. So there’s that stuff, but obviously you’re welcome to reach out to me too and I’ll be happy to help you out.

Kayla Childress (36:05.375) Great. Thank you.

Nate (36:06.614) Yeah, you are welcome. So is there anything I missed in the beauty space? I think one of the questions we considered was what kind of trends are you seeing in this space?

Kayla Childress (36:19.566) Yeah, trends. I think a lot of trends that we’re seeing are some of the staples. I know that sounds boring, but some of the ingredients that we’ve been using for a long time, we’re still seeing those maybe with a bit better delivery systems or ingredients with them.

So I think your traditional vitamin C, your hyaluronic acid, some of the Ayurvedic, more natural oils like turmeric and trying to think of some others. There are just so many. I’m inundated every day with ingredients. So I just think that ingredients are going to continue developing and having better delivery systems with them.

Packaging’s a big thing that I feel like is so different from years ago. There are just so many cool packaging options and I think that’s just going to get better and better. A lot of sustainable packaging options that we’re seeing that are better than they used to be. Because when you think about sustainability and packaging, it was always cardboard or bamboo, it just wasn’t very elevated. And so now there are just so many amazing options in packaging as well. Too many.

Nate (37:52.494) And what came to mind was the cardboard straws – it’s not cosmetic but it’s like the most frustrating product design ever. It’s like you drink and it’s already sagging on you.

Kayla Childress (37:57.484) Yeah. Like, better hurry up and drink that drink. Yeah. For sure.

Nate (38:08.550) So sustainable products, sustainable packaging, are we talking about materials that can be recycled or bottles that can be reused? What exactly does that mean?

Kayla Childress (38:20.544) All of it, all of it. Our industry, the beauty space, beauty and wellness, we’re one of the number one contributors to plastics in our ocean. So with that said, we need to do better. I always say one bottle at a time. So it’s just figuring out maybe how to have tops and lids and tubes and bottles and how to have more sustainability as a whole. You might not be perfect, but at least you’re putting effort into your packaging.

So there’s just a lot. It’s come very far. Like there are so many beautiful options now that are sustainable, whether it’s recyclable material that can be recycled. There are even materials that are out there now that completely break down – plant based. It’s crazy how it’s expanding into more sustainable efforts in our industry.

Nate (39:32.236) Right. Is there an example of one of those initiatives that you guys have going on right now that you feel is the future or something that’s really cool?

Kayla Childress (39:47.566) I can’t think off the top of my head of any clients that have something really unique and different. One of the things that I see is a lot of refillable. Yeah, I do too. It really does. But let’s make sure that that refillable material is eco-friendly as well.

Nate (39:59.298) Which I love. I mean, refillable stuff makes so much sense.

Kayla Childress (40:13.868) Refill is probably like the biggest thing. I see a lot of brands getting away from sampling. These one-time uses, toss it in the garbage. It’s like the whole concept around amenities and hospitality. Most of the hotels I go into, the one I’m staying here, the West End, have large bottles now on the wall in brackets.

Nate (40:39.692) Yep, yep, I’ve seen those.

Kayla Childress (40:41.666) Yeah, so even hotels are getting away from these one-time use.

Nate (40:46.070) Yeah, that makes sense. I just stayed in an Airbnb and they had these little tiny bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and lotion. And I mean I would go through two of the bottles in one shower. I mean it’s like there’s barely anything in them – what a ridiculous thing. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, any parting words of wisdom for our listeners? Anything we missed?

Kayla Childress (41:11.726) I don’t think so. This was wonderful. There’s a lot of extra stuff we talked about. So this was cool.

Nate (41:17.792) Yeah, yep. I knew it would be a good conversation. Well, I think what you’re doing is impressive. You’re doing a great job there. You’ve got so much experience in the space and it sounds like you found the right home there at Naturich Labs. And I think anybody that’s interested in developing a cosmetic brand would certainly benefit from what you’ve shared today. So thank you.

Kayla Childress (41:46.328) We welcome the conversation.

Nate (41:48.894) Absolutely. All right, Kayla, will have a great rest of your day and thanks for joining Manufacturing Insiders.

Kayla Childress (41:54.028) You too, thank you, Nate.