Support local, support natural
Aussie company, MooGoo, are powering ahead with their unique range of skin, hair, dental, and beauty products that are made of all natural ingredients, that won’t hurt you or the environment!
Note: a fun and quirky company, that is serious about their products, but not in how they communicate about them, you can expect puns as the norm with their products & marketing!
It all started back when the head of the MooGoo herd came across his mum rubbing a cream made for cow udders, into her own hands, saying it was the best prevention for dry and cracked skin. The udder cream his mum was applying was much thicker than regular moisturiser, and so he decided to create a version of the cream for humans, that was thinner and not so greasy. And so, MooGoo was founded.
11 years later and MooGoo has broken into the international market, and expanded their range into sunscreen, soaps, shampoo and conditioner, lip balms, toothpaste, and so much more. Every product’s ingredients are carefully selected, in order to provide customers with the one of most natural, and environmentally-friendly ranges on the market.
MooGoo care not only about the ingredients and the packaging, but they are also dedicated to providing products for people with conditions like eczema, psoriasis, dandruff, and they even have a range of ‘Oncology Care’ products, for people following radiation and chemotherapy.
Here at lili Life, we are all for local, good, quality products, so we were udderly delighted to be able to speak to the founder of MooGoo, and discover a little more about their strong values surrounding cruelty free products, environmentally safe packaging, and the process of choosing the best natural ingredients.
From starting in 2004, the company has had vast growth in terms of customers and range. Did you always want to take the company to these heights?
I definitely didn't think that MooGoo would be much more than a home-based business. We focus much more on the ingredients we use and how they will work for us than we do on Marketing. But it continues to grow a bit each year thanks to word of mouth and its great now that we are making products here in Australia that we export, rather than importing everything.
Is being so open and upfront with your customers core to your company values?
I think it comes about as I was not originally from a skin care background, so I had fresh (and overly idealistic) ideas about what skin care was really about. It's not only ingredient transparency for therapeutic products, but there is also a lack of any checking of advertising claims. People always think that there is "someone" checking claims such as "Dermatologically-Tested", "Clinically Proven" or whatever, but there isn't. We try and educate people to not assume that someone else is checking for them, but to always check for themselves. The Government is just not resourced to crack down on those sometimes-outrageous anti-ageing claims.
MooGoo always lists all the ingredients of each product, not just the active ones. Do you think companies should be required to disclose their full ingredient list?
Absolutely! There is no reason a sunscreen for example should not be required to show every ingredient they contain, if not on their label, at least on their website. Not having an ingredient list available is dangerous for people with allergies. It also allows cheap ingredients to be used as nobody will ever know. We don't understand the logic of allowing companies to hide the ingredients of therapeutic products such as sunscreen at all.
How has being environmentally focused changed your business practices?
Yes in that it adds another layer to ingredient choice. An ingredient may be amazing, but from a dubious source (for example, Shea Butter is often harvested in countries that use slave labour). All consumption has an impact. One could argue for example that just as Palm Oil (which we don't use) is leading to loss of Orangutan habitat now, Australian Macadamia farms have displaced Koala habitats. Ultimately if we make a product we have to use resources, and so it is a matter of choosing what will cause the least impact. Hence why our office/warehouse is all solar powered. Where we make the creams is mostly solar, uses its own water supply and waste water treatment, and we use recycled paper and cardboard in all our packaging etc.
Moo Goo now has employees, a range of products, international distribution. How do you stay on top of it all?
That's a good question. It does get very complicated sometimes. I approach it by trying not to micromanage my staff. Everybody has their area of responsibility and expectations (I am the only male in the office by the way) and I let them do their job. I tell them to only come to me if there is a problem but also come with their suggested solution. I am sure we could be doing better in some areas, but we are happy most of the time and that is more important than world domination.
Author: Maddie Manwaring_
Images above: MooGoo_
