From Accidental Business to Boutique Wonder

“It was an accidental business,” Kay Hoyt says of Northwood Naturals, the thriving natural skin care product company in Northwood that she and her husband David started 8 years ago. 

Kay owned a tanning salon and David owned a fitness club when Kay decided she wanted to offer her customers a lotion with natural ingredients. When she couldn’t find one she liked, she spent two years mastering the formula and then sold it at her salon. When David became seriously ill and sold his business, they took the lotion to farmer’s markets to make money.

Today, the business is thriving. Northwood Naturals has more than 50 products sold in 250 stores in the Northeast, including Whole Foods stores in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, NH and Rhode Island. Its diverse wholesale clients also include museums, art galleries, a theater and even a butcher shop.

While the product line grew, Northwood Naturals remained committed to using natural and certified organic ingredients, and not parabens (a preservative), mineral oil, alcohol, or artificial fragrances. Northwood Naturals uses bee’s wax and raw honey, raw goat milk and organic herbs from New England farms in its products, which include soaps, facial cleaners, lip balms, skin creams, hand and body lotions, poison ivy lotion, natural deodorant and scrubs. “It’s not a business or job for us. It’s a lifestyle,” Kay says.

While the couple does not publicly discuss revenue figures, David says sales have doubled annually during the past four years. “We’re turning business away. We don’t have the manpower to do it,” Kay says. “We had a California company that wanted to do a private label with us. They wanted five million bars of soap. I can’t do that.”

The couple wants to export its products overseas. “We have the opportunities and connections to get there. We don’t have the capabilities,” Kay says.

Northwood Naturals sells more than 100,000 units annually of its products, which retail between $2.50 for lip balms to $25 for facial creams. “We never had a business plan for this,” Kay says. The couple is seeking to expand the business (now run out of their Northwood home), add automated equipment and hire their first employees. “Our biggest challenge is finding employees,” Kay says. For more information, visit Northwoodnatural.com.