We are excited to announce that THIS IS RANGE picked the Wildland story, and included us in their recent article on the Non-Toxic New Guard in adventure skin-care.
We have tons of respect for Range and all they do, and it's an honor to be recognized by them for the work we've put into bringing the highest quality products to the Poison Oak & Ivy Market.
RANGE is a creative consulting agency dedicated to the active, outdoor, and lifestyle markets. They are multidisciplinary creatives obsessed with the intersection of design + culture in the great outdoors.
For Wildland founders, the R&D for their plant-based poison oak and ivy post-exposure products was a crash course in toxic chemical history. One of the largest brands in the market, Tecnu, was originally developed for removing nuclear fallout from the skin during the Cold War (though it was never used). Sound familiar? Another active ingredient in the poison oak and ivy skin cleanser is Mineral Spirits, a petroleum-derived solvent.
“As we learned more about Tecnu’s ingredients, we couldn’t feel great about using those products on ourselves or our familys’ skin. We also came to realize there were better ways to remove the Urushiol (the common oil found in Poison Oak that causes rash) that didn’t involve harsh chemicals,” says Jon Peterson, co-founder of Wildland.
Each of Wildland’s products helps remove the Urushiol oil with different mixes of plant-based, biodegradable cleaning power, activated charcoal, plus naturally soothing jojoba esters, witch hazel and aloe, for fresh-scented healing.
Scanning the “About” pages of these new brands, a similar trajectory emerges: founder has a problem, looks for solutions in the current market, discovers that most of the top players use harmful, toxic chemicals and have ugly, plastic packaging. Founder uses science to develop new plant-based solutions, puts their product in beautifully designed packages and sells it directly to the consumer to provide the most competitive pricing. The consumer gets full transparency about that process through educational articles, art-directed imagery (insert product-in-hand photo), and shows third-party environmental certifications.
You can read the full article on their site here.