Noshinku
Andrew Zahornacky, CEO
Arie Hefter, CMO
Headquarters: New York, NY
Founded: 2017

What’s your typical workday? We both get in promptly at 9 and leave by 5:30….haha… if only that was true! The typical day consists of constantly balancing various projects, big and small, while continuously weighing knows and unknowns (more so the latter these day)—obviously fueled by a lot of Dunkin Donuts iced coffee and Spindrift. We like to think that running a startup is a giant exercise in time and resource management, which we have definitely gotten a crash course in. The secret for us lies in weeding through the hundreds of things we need to do (and want to do) each day, to really find the five or six that will ultimately make the difference. As a very small and scrappy team, we do everything, from strategizing about new products, to developing fragrances, to managing production facilities, to even calling UPS about a missing package for a customer…

What are Noshinku’s strengths? As we are built on a foundation of skin care, we meticulously curate botanicals like jojoba, rosehip, argan, coconut oil and aloe vera water to not only hydrate, but also deeply nourish skin. These are ingredients usually found in higher end skin care products; putting them in hand sanitizer was practically unheard of. In fact, when we first started out, our manufacturers actually thought we were crazy, but this was something that we stuck to as the formula was designed to be additive to skin, versus something that just strips away….And possibly one of the most important strengths of Noshinku lies in our award winning fragrances…. Early on, we made the decision to never use synthetic fragrances. Despite it being much harder to maintain consistent, we wanted to ensure it was safer for anyone who was pregnant or had sensitive skin to be able to use throughout the day. As such, all of our fragrances are powered through hand-picked essential oils that we infuse into all blends, pushing the boundaries of what natural fragrances can do…

How do you insure sourcing?  As a brand we’ve made a point to never sacrifice on quality—especially when it comes to our ingredients. In fact, early in 2020, we made the tough call to not use an entire batch of alcohol, as it didn’t meet our internal purity standards. That was definitely a tough call for a brand of our size, but at the end of the day we wanted to ensure that our blends are as premium as the hands that use them. Securing the top raw ingredients has obviously been more challenging this past year, given the state of supply chain….As we’ve been around since 2017 though, we’ve worked hard to cultivate meaningful relationships with core suppliers over the past five years to ensure we only get the best quality. As a smaller brand there are definitely major hurdles to contend with, but it really comes down to painstakingly finding the right partners, building out those relationships and ensuring transparency in every ingredient we use rather than fully outsourcing. This is obviously much more time consuming, but it’s something that we, as a brand, are very passionate about, and essential to making the best, and safest product possible. Often though, the ingredients we are securing are very different from the category at large. For example, we only use organic ethyl alcohol distilled from sugarcane which, while more expensive, we see as crucial to our formula…

What’s next for your brand? We have some exciting new developments in the back half of 2022 including some new scents, a new subscription offering for consumers, and new enterprise wellness solutions. We also are branching out into new categories that push the envelope in functional, yet beautiful, natural personal care.