Everything you need to know about Schorl
Founded in 2016, Schorl ® is a Malaysian brand that offers customers personal and skin care products. All of our products are made by using only carefully selected natural ingredients, meticulous designed and consistency preserved essence. We make sure we are using only cruelty-free and calm formulation in creating our products (No Paraben, No SLES, No Alcohol, No synthetic fragrance and No Artificial Colouring). With that, customers could now enjoy the products without worrying about the effects of unfamiliar and harmful chemicals. We also aspire to create the best travel-ready beauty products that customers could just toss straight into their carry-on or gym bags while looking fabulous no matter where their destinations are! We gear towards providing natural, safe and travel friendly products that are suitable for all skin types.
We, Sam and Jolv are the founders and creators of this homegrown brand. I will mainly focus on product development and sales while Jolv will be responsible in product marketing as well as packaging.
The rising cost and standard of living are one of the reasons that drove us in finding our second source of income besides our full time jobs. To start from scratch, it’s never easy as we’ve think of what kind of business we would like to try, what’s the latest fad and some other considerations. Then we realize the society is getting more and more health-conscious not just about the food they consume but also take note on the products they use or apply especially for our skin!
As a beauty junkie (Jolv), I’m always keeping up-to-date on what’s the latest beauty trends in the current market and trying them to find out what’s the unique selling point of each product. Since my skin is more towards acne type, it’s hard to find the one that works perfectly on me and suitable for my skin. That’s why it inspires us to create our own!
Whether it’s about designing a logo or creating a brand name, we put lot of things in considerations. It is critical to stand out from the crowd in today’s market. And it’s all started and inspired by our debut product which is the handmade candle bush soap. Due to its colour, it resembles a black crystal just like black tourmaline (aka Schorl) to us. Therefore, we decided to name our brand as Schorl!
Female customers definitely made up our largest customer base. Most of them are between 18 and 35 years old. Aside from that, parents group also made up a portion of our base. We’ve quite a number of parents who bought our products for their children specifically those with sensitive skin. Some of them even sent us pictures of the skin condition for product recommendation. That’s when they realize how harmful chemical body wash is and give our handmade soap a try! While those who prefer fragrance-, chemical-free and travel-friendly products are attracted to our twist up cleansing stick. Not only they are easy to bring around, but it’s pretty affordable too!
If we’ve to name one, it’s definitely during research and development phase. There’s a lot to think of when it comes to creating personal and skin care products especially in deciding what kind of ingredients to use, whether to produce fragrance-free or scented products, size of the packaging and even bottle selections. We faced issue when suppliers have limited ingredients for us to choose from and in the end, we’ve to give up our first choice and pick an alternative. A constant push and pull relationship between us and the suppliers which it’s hard to avoid. However, to think in a good way, challenges help us to grow a lot from time to time.
Of course! We are always looking forward to creating more products for our customers and we are glad that the next product will be releasing around end of this year. It’s a face mist which could work as a toner at the same time! With the moisturizing quality in this 2-in-1 handy beauty product, it helps in keeping your makeup looking glowy throughout the day while improving dry skin and locking skin moisture.
We aim in creating products with carefully selected natural ingredients that our skins deserve and crave for. Developing a new product is costly and not as easy as we all think. It definitely takes a lot of time to make sure it’s PERFECT to go into the market. So, stay tuned for more updates!
Besides focus in improving our current products (handmade soap and 1st Malaysia twist up cleaning stick), we are planning to expand our products range and introduce more handy beauty products to meet our customer needs. To do so, from time to time, we would monitor their comments on social media, go through their reviews on our site and provide valuable insights whenever needed. Having business in this competitive sector, we know it’s always important to keep upgrading ourselves while developing new products to compete effectively with our competitors.
Once we manage to build a more concrete foundation and have a stronger customer base, we are planning to export our products to other countries. In today’s world, business cannot afford to stand still. If we are not moving forward, we might be going backwards and being left out. So, exporting would be our next target in coming years!