We sat down with Lauren Pennington, the organic skincare & wellness guru that you need on speed dial. Her clean beauty line is vegan, handmade, and full of delicious ingredients such as prickly pear and yerba manzo. Organic and natural to the core.
What inspired you to start Spiced Sugah?
I’ve always been interested in cooking up ingredients and discovering how herbs react with each other. I’m a little obsessed with the science behind it all. I was always researching oils and their molecular structures to understand how they get absorbed by the skin and hair and found myself testing out all of these natural concoctions like face masks and toothpaste. It wasn’t until friends and family started requesting my products that I realized I needed to start my own line. Now I’m like this mad scientist, getting hit with inspirations at 3 a.m. at night and in my kitchen whipping up body butters and oils.
Where do you get your ingredients?
Most of my ingredients are sourced from local growers but I do have 1 in Arizona, 1 in New Mexico, and 1 in Canada. All of them are small-batch growers dedicated to keeping production small so that the plants don’t get compromised. When plants are grown in large batches, they are genetically modified which is something consumers should be very aware of. Basically, these are plants that have been put through modern processes that ultimately change the genetics of them. GMO isn’t just something you should avoid in your food, but skincare as well.
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Out of all the ingredients that you use, do you have a miracle ingredient that you swear by?
1000 % prickly pear oil. It’s a game-changer. It’s so hard to find good quality oil but I found this woman in Moorpark that presses my seed for me. It’s really fatty so when it’s pressed it’s almost like castor oil so if I love combining it to make it more serum-like. One of my favorite combos is with blue chamomile oil which has a calming element to it and is great at calming any overactivity and inflammation in your face.
My hair has been like straw lately. Are there any natural at-home remedies you can recommend for dry hair?
You want something super light that’s going to be similar to your hair’s sebum like prickly pear, jojoba oil, grapeseed oil, and almond oil. Those should be used to seal your hairs at the ends and where they’re the driest. People always think coconut oil is the best, but really coconut oil, avocado oil, and argan oil are too fatty for your hair. They’ll just coat the shaft since their lipids are too big to penetrate into your hair shaft, so you really should only be using coconut oil as a hair mask that’s washed out.
Do you have any sustainable brands that you absolutely love?
I love Marine Serre! I used to play tennis in college which is why I felt instantly attracted to her line since it has a lot of tight fitted leggings and tops. When I researched her I was so happy to see that she sourced her materials ethically using a lot of upcycled materials, AND she played tennis as well!