Blog 

It has been 13 years since I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in February 2013. Before my diagnosis, life was going great. I had just finished college and started working as an auditor at Deloitte & Touche LLP, one of the big four accounting firms, and I was really looking forward to building my career there. Shortly after completing my first “busy season,” however, everything changed. While at work asking for some documents, I experienced a small seizure. That experience eventually led to my MS diagnosis.

After my diagnosis, I began researching MS and thinking much more carefully about my health and the direction I wanted my life to take. I eventually decided to leave the accounting firm and start my own pet care business in Manhattan. About two and a half years later, my MS symptoms began to develop more noticeably.

I have always been a very meticulous person, so naturally, I had a lot of questions. I was particularly concerned about the potential side effects of certain medications and wanted to learn as much as I could about the different approaches available to me. I remember feeling discouraged, sad, and even hopeless at times, especially when I saw other people struggling with MS. But those feelings also motivated me to become more involved in my own journey. I remember telling myself, “Well, it looks like I’m going to have to put on my thinking cap.” I began researching different lifestyle changes and exploring ways that I could become more intentional about my everyday routine and overall well-being while living with MS.

Lifestyle Changes

The first changes I made were to my everyday lifestyle and personal care routine.. I started experimenting with things like shea butter and cacao butter to make lotions and deodorants. When making these changes the biggest thing on my mind was that there has to be something causing my immune system to have this negative reaction. These things just came in a sequence. One thing led to another and the list just kept building up.

·         Ingredient conscious.

o   I started to read every ingredient in every product. I started researching any ingredients I did not know or understand. As I read through the ingredients, I kept asking myself, “Are all of these ingredients really necessary?”

·         Artisan lifestyle

o   After becoming more ingredient-conscious, I told myself, ‘I think I can give this artisan thing a try.’” I then started making lotions, lip balm, body powder, essential oil mixes with oil warmers, soaps, and diffusers, etc. The list goes on.

·         Nutrition

o   Nutrition was another big change that followed. I began eliminating highly processed foods and paying much closer attention to what I was eating. With time, my research continued, and I kept experimenting—eliminating certain things and adding others to my lifestyle. There have always been ups and downs. What can I say? We are a little like infants: we learn by falling, getting back up, and trying again. As I combined these changes in nutrition with my increasingly ingredient-conscious and artisan lifestyle, I felt that I was becoming more intentional about my overall well-being and the way I approached living with MS.

Introducing The MarvelouSkin Experience

After years of trial and error, I’ve come to see every mistake as a form of progress—each one teaching me something and bringing me one step closer to getting it right. That journey has become an important part of the MarvelouSkin philosophy. It taught me to pay closer attention to the choices I make, the ingredients I use, and the products I bring into my everyday routine.

This is one of the reasons I believe MarvelouSkin is different: what we practice is the very same thing we share with our customers. These aren't products created simply to be placed on a shelf and sold. They are products that became part of my own lifestyle and personal routine. It began with one person living with MS, creating and testing products for himself. Then came family and friends—and eventually, a vision to share those products with the world.

How MarvelouSkin Actually Became A Business

My journey to MarvelouSkin began in a place you might not expect. What started as a personal interest in creating my own skincare products would eventually grow into something much more.

What was the first product I made?

I started off making lotion. I experimented with different ingredients, including various oils and butters, and eventually began using shea butter and cacao butter in my formulation. Of course, the first person to try it was me, followed by my siblings.

Around that time, it was my aunt's birthday, so I decided to give her some of my lotion as a gift. She had never tried it before, and because she is a very picky and straightforward person, I remember thinking, ‘This is a great opportunity for me to get some honest feedback.’ She loved the lotion—and to this day, she still buys it.

When did you realize other people actually liked what you were making?

I began realizing that other people liked what I was making when I started receiving compliments about my skin. People would ask what skincare products I used, and when I told them that I made my products myself, they were surprised. Before long, some of them wanted to place orders so they could try the products for themselves.

Why did you decide to sell it rather than continue making it only for yourself and family?

As friends and family began trying my products, I received encouraging feedback, particularly from people who were looking for products for dry-feeling or easily irritated skin. That was when I told myself, “Okay, this is the confirmation I needed to start getting the word out to the public.”

Where did grass-fed beef tallow soap enter the story?

As I began incorporating grass-fed and grass-finished beef tallow into my own eating regimen, I became interested in learning more about it. As part of my nutrition research, I began looking into differences in the fatty-acid composition of beef from cattle raised on different feeding systems. That research sparked another idea: if I was already experimenting with different fats and butters in my handmade products, what would tallow be like in soap? I remember thinking, “Wow, I've got to try this for soap making.”

Before experimenting with beef tallow, I had already made soaps using ingredients such as cacao butter, shea butter, and coconut oil. But after making my first tallow batch and using it myself, I loved the way the soap felt on my skin after showering. My siblings loved it too. That experience ultimately led grass-fed beef tallow to become an important part of the MarvelouSkin soap-making journey.

Listening to Our Customers

A customer recently asked me whether MarvelouSkin could offer a particular discount. It made me think about how I could make our products more accessible to people who genuinely want to incorporate them into their everyday routines. So I decided to introduce a special promotion that I hope our customers will appreciate.. We are running this promotion from August 28, 2026 to September 8, 2026.

Promotion:

·         All Soaps 20% off

·         Body Butter 18% off

·         Deodorant 15% off

·         Lip Balm 10% off

YOU ASKED, WE LISTENED