Peak Bloom is here and we are so happy to finally have it out in the world and into your hands! But you might be wondering, how did we land on creating an herb-to-gel face mask and what are the details behind it. We wanted to answer those questions so we and sat down with the incredible formulator behind Peak Bloom, Blaire Edwards-Maschotta, and get an inside look at how she took all of our requests and put them in the beautiful jar sitting in your bathroom cabinet! 

What is your background with product development? What led you down this path and specifically to the world of skincare?  

I actually started as a community herbalist, and back in college I had my own line of everything - tincture, teas, skincare, etc. So, my product development actually started there, from the ground up. My commercial product development began after college, when I worked in a beverage consulting firm and got to learn the food science side of things. Thankfully I had an incredible mentor who then helped me branch out into my own consulting business. It is a joy to make things that people enjoy! And one of the things I really like about this mask is its such a vibrant wonderful color and it invites one to just play a little bit! Like, wellness and health doesn’t have to be so serious. It can be enjoyable. 

When it came to creating Peak Bloom, how did you get started? Do you have a process for starting with a problem and creating a solution or is it solution-based first?

Solution-based first. And always look for things that balance each other out and can do multiple actions (for example, astringent and anti-inflammatory).

Mother Nature is wellthy - there are so many different ingredients she has to offer! When you’re formulating, what made you select each of the ingredients that made the final cut for Peak Bloom?

Well, we knew what color and texture we wanted - so I knew I had to include herbs that hit those markers and the structure-function related markers. I also knew we needed to balance the drying clay and astringent herbs (like hibiscus and schisandra) with more moistening herbs, like goji. 

Obviously when we asked you to work with us on this, we knew that we wanted an herb-to-gel approach. Our intention behind that was that we really wanted to eliminate the unnecessary waste that comes from single-use sheet masks and really protect the earth as we used ingredients that come from it. With that in mind, how unique was it to create a product that starts as a dry powder and then turns into a gel with water? Is this tricky to do with only pure ingredients and if so, how did you work around that?

Every project has its own challenges - and an herb powder to gel definitely has a few! Like I mentioned above, it’s about balance. No one wants a face mask that is goopy and sticky - but we do want that moisture and “gel” quality. That’s where the balance between astringency and gel-creation (like with marshmallow, goji) comes into play. 

So Peak Bloom is designed to detox, hydrate, exfoliate, and restore elasticity all at the same time. That’s a pretty tall order for a single product, how did you do it? Did you specifically select ingredients that could multitask? If so, which ones?  

I never formulate with herbs that can only do one thing! Whether internally or externally, and, truthfully, most herbs do more than one thing. With that said, this particular blend was more about balancing energetics than it was multi-tasking. If we had only done clay and schisandra, that would have been way too drying - so I needed to add more moistening herbs, like goji and marshmallow. Like everything, formulation is a balance!

One final question...Do you have a favorite skin care tip that you live by? If so, are you willing to share it with us?

To be completely honest, not picking my skin, no matter how enticing or how much I cannot stand something being on my face, is my #1 skin tip. It never goes how you want, it only makes matters worse, and sometimes things just need to run their course!