Two entrepreneurs promote women’s sexual wellness

A pair of Colorado entrepreneurs are fighting the stigma around women’s sexual wellness through their Jamestownbased company Lark Love.

Rainbow Shultz and Corrie Bradley launched the business — which sells personal lubricants, body oils, perfume rollers, face care products and more — in 2019.

The business idea largely started as a joke between friends. As conversations deepened, “we realized we’d stumbled onto this hugely taboo subject,” 47-year-old Shultz said. “Even the most liberated, feminist, older women would get really embarrassed and shy and quiet about it.”

Americans are shelling out more and more money for sex-related products, creating a highly-profitable national industry. In 2021, the U.S. sexual wellness market was valued at $10.3 billion, and is predicted to hit almost $20 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research Inc., a market intelligence firm.

Much of its growing popularity is attributed to sexpositive movements, access to online shopping, a boost in industry investments and increased U.S. government initiatives around contraceptives. In particular, the personal lubricants segment of the market is attracting older consumers — a trend that Shultz and Bradley can confirm.

“It was not only a product that women really needed,” Nederland resident Bradley said, “but it was actually a space for the conversations that have been fully missed for so long.”

Colorado women who served as testers for Lark Love’s products embraced the opportunity to share their experiences around childbirth, menopause and more. “We learned that women didn’t know anything about menopause — even the women that were in it,” 42-year-old Bradley added.

Members of Generation Z are breaking down barriers around sexual stigmatization, and companies are following their lead, Shultz said.

“We’re kind of trying to bridge that gap by making a product that older women really love and embrace and need, but that is being fueled by this shamefree, sex-positive paradigm that the younger women are really showing us.”

Entrepreneurship is nothing new to Bradley, with her professional experience in product formulation and skin care, or Shultz, chef and owner of the Jamestown Mercantile, an establishment that dates back to the 19th century.