MY LIGHT BULB MOMENT
Childs Farm founder Joanna Jensen
Joanna JenSen, 49, is the founder and Ceo of skincare brand Childs Farm. She lives in Hampshire with her partner, Jonathan, and her two daughters, Mimi, 13, and Bella, 10.
MY CAREER background is investment banking, so launching a skincare brand has been a steep learning curve.
I took a conscious step back from banking to be a full-time mum when Mimi was born.
My second daughter, Bella, came along in 2010, and she had appallingly sensitive skin. It was red raw much of the time and she had terrible eczema. It was heart-breaking and incredibly frustrating because most skincare products on the market irritated it even further.
As a child, I used to make my own compresses out of hedgerow plants, so I knew about natural ingredients. I decided to create my own formula to help Bella. I experimented, beginning with a list of ingredients I knew I didn’t want to include and ones I did, such as essential oils, plus argan oil and shea butter, because of their moisturising properties.
I worked with a manufacturer to create the formulas for our first six products, which I then tried on my girls as well as on friends’ children to find out what worked and what didn’t.
The change in Bella’s skin was incredible and the feedback I received was fantastic.
I discovered the house we were living in at the time was built for the Childs family and was originally called Childs Farm, so the brand name was born from that.
I partnered with an illustrator to design the colourful labels. All the animals we feature on the labels are our own pets and farm animals, and the girls are my daughters.
My girls help me make decisions about fragrances as well as colours for the packaging. We sit down together and talk about what their favourite smells and favourite fruits are. It’s all about emotion and what memories a fragrance conjures up.
In 2013 and 2014, I received investments from external shareholders, which allowed me to grow the business. Today, we have 50 staff and the products are stocked in stores such as Boots, Waitrose, Tesco and Asda. Last year, we turned over £12 million.
It sounds dramatic, but people have phoned me in floods of tears telling me they’ve had eczema all their lives and now it’s gone. We’re part of that change.