A divorcee who launched an independent natural deodorant business from her kitchen with her then-husband has said their motivation to continue working together after their marriage ended comes from their “passion” for the product and their desire to be role models for their two children. Laurie Dawson, 38, who lives in Essex, married Brett Sanders, 37, in 2007 and they have two children together – Tabitha, 14, and Seth, 11.
Laurie said she and Brett have always been interested in “organic living”, given their backgrounds in beauty and fitness, and had created her own moisturisers at home, but when it came to natural deodorants, they struggled to find an effective product. In an attempt to find a solution, Laurie and Brett decided to formulate something themselves and ended up creating a product that they used for several years but did not consider offering to other people, or selling, until much later.
After sharing the product with friends and family and receiving “really good feedback”, the pair decided to launch The Natural Deodorant Co in 2015 with just £500. The couple separated one year later and finalised their divorce in 2018, but the business they continue to run together has gone from strength to strength, with a current turnover of around £600,000.
Laurie said it was “such an organic process”, and despite no longer being married, the mum-of-two said running the business with her ex works because they are both “utterly passionate” about the product and they share the same “vision” for the business and their children. “It probably seems unusual to a lot of couples that have separated, as they can’t imagine working alongside someone who they were married to, and obviously, divorce isn’t a particularly enjoyable process,” Laurie said.
“It’s been a process to find the way that it works best for us, but I think it’s testament to the fact of how well we work together that the business has just gone from strength to strength. We’re eight years old this month, and we were married for a year of having the business, and the whole rest of the time we’ve navigated divorce, co-parenting, and growing a business, an independent business.
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“Having gone through all of the things that we have done, seeing how far we’ve come is absolutely unbelievable for us.” Laurie said she first met Brett when she was 19, while working at a gym, and they initially started out as just friends before dating.
The quest to find a natural deodorant began while Laurie was pregnant with Tabitha, but every product she tried was “completely useless”. Brett’s passion for health and fitness also motivated him to find an effective, natural product.
This led to them formulating their own natural deodorant, which they described as “life-changing” due to its efficacy, and they both used it for years – but one conversation towards the end of 2014 changed everything. “We had a conversation where we said, ‘I wonder if other people would want to use this because it still is better than anything else that we’ve personally found?’” Laurie said.
“We asked friends of ours who had similar interests in natural beauty, organic living, and those sorts of things, whether they would like to try it – and they did. We got really good feedback on this little thing that we’d created, but we didn’t believe this was the start of something bigger.”
The Natural Deodorant Co was then formed in 2015 from Laurie and Brett’s kitchen and, initially, Laurie said it was “a very small-scale, at-home operation” and they only had around £500 worth of “pocket change” to fund everything. The pair “divvied up the jobs” between them and learnt how to set up a website, use graphic software, make labels, obtain safety certifications, and start an Instagram page.
“This was two complete novices creating something that was brilliant,” Laurie added. When the business was still in its “absolute infancy”, the couple was contacted by Triyoga – a yoga studio chain and one of their long-term customers to this day – seeking to stock their product, which Laurie said left her shocked.
“The business was so tiny, we didn’t imagine getting into retailers or anything. But from that point, the business just went from strength to strength, and it grew legs.
“This was quite an amazing little machine on its own, and it appeared to be doing amazing things… and we felt so lucky to have this opportunity,” Laurie added. However, running a business together as a married couple while raising two children started to present challenges, and the marriage broke down in 2016 after the couple grew apart.
Despite this, Laurie said “it never occurred to (them) that (they) wouldn’t continue working together”, as they could feel the business was “destined for bigger things” – but she feels it would be “misleading to say that it had been entirely without conflict”. “Obviously, separating is stressful in itself, because it’s a change, a complete change of lifestyle for yourself and your children,” Laurie said.
“But I think, to be honest, because we knew that we wanted the business to succeed and we both had the same vision for that, and we wanted to share the care of our children, and we had the same vision for that, that ultimately, it was a relatively low conflict situation. Neither of us wanted or needed to feel angry with the other, so although there were those potentially stressful things going on, neither of us wanted the other to fail in any way.”
Their product – which is a 100% natural, aluminium free cream deodorant, offering 24 hours of protection – is now stocked in more than 600 Holland & Barrett stores nationwide, and Laurie and Brett have since expanded to have a team of four and two manufacturing units. Laurie said they wanted the product to be “natural, sustainable, and plastic free, but without compromising on results”, and they have sold more than 600,000 units so far.
To find out more about The Natural Deodorant Co, visit: naturaldeoco.com.
