Taking care of your skin is so important, and cleansing it every day is paramount for making sure you have healthy, clean skin. But are you washing your skin correctly?
Amanda McIntosh has answered that question, and it’s likely no. But not anymore! After discovering that you need more than just a basic washcloth to truly treat your skin right, she created Take My Face Off, a great business with a mission to bring washcloths into the 21st century. You must check it out!
The backstory behind Take My Face Off is so inspiring! The brand was born out of a love for skincare and makeup, but McIntosh realized washcloths can get really gross after washing off your face at the end of the day, every day. Who has the time to do laundry that often?!
Enter her amazing idea to recreate the washcloth. After trying out creating many different options and hundreds of fabrics, using many sewing machines, seeking lots of legal consulting and attending tons of trade shows later, the Mitty was finally born!
What is a Mitty? Pictured here, Mittys are next-generation washcloths that will elevate your skincare routine, and you’ll notice the difference from the first time you use it. They’re ultra-soft, really effective, adorable (they come in so many colors!), don’t get stained and will last for years. The Mitty fits on your hand (or finger) to help you thoroughly cleanse your skin while being easy to clean and reuse the next day. If you need help taking you off your lip stick, face makeup or the most stubborn mascara (raises hand), you must try out the Mitty. It will revolutionize your cleansing routine!
Beyond the Mitty, there are more products from Take My Face Off that are beautiful, convenient and effective. They will 100% convince you to ditch your disposables and convert to reusable cleansing products that are better for both your face and the environment. Huge win-win!
If you’re not already convinced to try Take My Face Off products out, there’s more to love! The brand gives back by collaborating with and donating to organizations such as the Ocean Conservancy, Heal the Bay, the Pollinator Partnership and the Trevor Project. Amazing!
I had the honor to ask McIntosh about her journey creating Take My Face Off and the plans for the future of the brand – it’s looking very bright!
RMN: Can you describe the inspiration for starting Take My Face Off? Did you see an unfulfilled need in the market for skincare products with environmental benefits?
At first, I wasn’t trying to save the planet. I just wanted to fix my oily skin. In my early 40s, a friend convinced me to try oil cleansing, which means massaging jojoba oil into dry skin and wiping it off with a washcloth. It worked great, except that the washcloths felt like sandpaper. All I could find was terry cloth, muslin, bamboo, or microfiber rags, which were all scratchy and bad at cleansing skin.
I eventually found my way to the garment and fabric district of LA and asked, “What fabrics do people use for skincare, other than terry cloth?” The answer was, “nothing.” I started buying and washing my face with any fabric I could find.
Around the same time,I learned that:
- It was normal for people to buy a pack of wipes per week
- Wipes are a full-on environmental disaster
- Cotton balls are too absorbent—they soak up and waste tons of product
- Growing and manufacturing cotton for cotton balls is ALSO an environmental disaster
Creating a washcloth was fun, but the findings fired me up and I thought to myself, “what if I could create a washcloth so great that it helped people kick their wipes habit, and made cotton balls obsolete?”
RMN: What were the hardest barriers to get through while creating Take My Face Off?
Ooh. So many. First, no one could figure out how to sew my favorite fabric into a small, geometrically balanced shape. It was too slippery and hard to handle. Also, the garment/fabric world is not a nice place. I couldn’t find a factory that had the right equipment, that followed the laws and treated workers fairly.
I finally found a reputable place, and I was working with them on prototypes. Then one day, the factory owner just went off about how my idea was the dumbest thing he ever saw, and how he didn’t have time for losers like me.
I was so mad at that awful man that I bought my own industrial sewing machine and taught myself to use it. Long story short, that led to a breakthrough in how we sewed the Mitty—I found a way to make it faster, cheaper, safer, and with fewer errors. If that man hadn’t blown me off, I might not have decided to figure out the pattern on my own, and I might have quit, believing the people who told me it couldn’t be done.
RMN: Did you learn any important, or unexpected, lessons while overcoming these challenges?
While it’s important not to give up, you have to manage your effort. There are too many problems, too many choices and too many opportunities. Additionally, you can’t just hire people to handle it all for you. Unless you have a lot of experience hiring people, you’re going to hire a lot of the wrong people before you hire the right people. There’s a balance—don’t give up, but don’t fire on all cylinders all the time. Your destination is constant, but your speed goes up and down.
RMN: How do you hope your customers benefit from using your products?
I got this email yesterday—“I just ordered some new Mittys because I gave several to my sister. I still use the ones I ordered three years ago! I can’t live without my Mittys, and I haven’t used a cotton ball in years!” I hear this a lot, and it always makes my day.
I want my product to be so convenient, effective, and so fun to use that people feel like they can’t stand to use anything else. Every once in a while, I forget to take my Mittys on trips, and I hate it. Washing my face without a Mitty takes longer, I feel like I splash water everywhere, and it doesn’t feel as thorough—splashing water on my face doesn’t get everything off (and as you can imagine, I’m not going to put a hotel washcloth on my face).
RMN: Do you have plans to expand Take My Face Off or other business ventures in the works?
When I started Take My Face Off, I had a really hard time finding marketing partners. I needed someone to help me build an overall game plan. It was easy to find website people, or email marketing people, or social media people, or digital advertising people, but no one who could help me look at the whole ecosystem. Last year, I started a side business that does this—it’s the kind of customized, small business marketing agency I needed when I started. For Take My Face Off, the pandemic put the brakes on a lot of my new product ideas. I’ve got some product updates coming out in early 2024, and new products later in 2024.
RMN: Lastly, what is your favorite part of running Take My Face Off?
I really love looking at the world through my customers’ eyes. They’re busy, but they want to take care of their skin. They care about the planet, but they don’t have time to research every purchase.
How can I help them simplify their lives? How can I help them take care of their skin? How can I make it easier for them to care for the planet? It took me a long time to get out of my own head and to really consider how things look to my customers, but I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.
The post Q&A: Meet Amanda McIntosh, Founder of Take My Face Off appeared first on The Real Deal by RetailMeNot.