Today we’d like to introduce you to Carolina Lavanderos.
Hi Carolina, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
After having lived in 7 different countries for nearly two decades, we chose Houston as home 11 years ago. For a multicultural family like ours with deep Latin American and Indian roots, we were happy to find a blend of our cultures here.
My journey with Fed and Balanced has been shaped by my own health challenges and started with my personal mission to find better ways to care for myself. As an Electrical Engineer, I am analytical by nature. When I could not find adequate answers to some of my critical health concerns, I decided to dig deeper myself. My research led me to the world of holistic health and nutrition, and subsequently to become a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner.
I learned to appreciate the interconnection between my physical and emotional health with lifestyle choices such as food, movement, sleep, mindfulness and environmental factors. This was lifechanging for me and for my family, but I wanted to do more; so, I initially setup Fed and Balanced to help others in their quest for wellbeing through balanced nutrition and lifestyle choices.
While coaching people on balanced nutrition, I realized that the importance of clean ingredients is not limited to food. It also extends to our personal care products. In fact, unlike our digestive system which has biological filters to protect us, any toxic, unclean product on our skin reaches our blood stream directly and causes harm that can go undetected for years.
In early 2024 I started making skin care and personal care products using beef tallow as a base ingredient. Beef tallow is rich in specific fatty acids that closely resemble our skin’s natural oils, is rich in vitamins, softens and smooths skin, helps lock in moisture and repair skin barrier. Due to my obsessive focus on clean, non-toxic ingredients, I ensure that every element I use, starting with the tallow, comes from the cleanest source available. For my tallow I source suet from grass-fed, grass-finished cattle from farms in the US that follow regenerative practices. Today Fed and Balanced line of products include whipped tallow face and body creams, lip balms, deodorants, soaps, shampoos and even soothing diaper balms for babies!
Every product I sell is handmade personally by me from core ingredients. Through my products my customers support regenerative land practices in the US, sequestering carbon and water and restoring soil health and biodiversity.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Honestly, my two biggest obstacles are putting myself out there and figuring out how to grow without losing what makes my brand special.
Marketing has never come natural to me (I’d rather just let my products speak for themselves), but I’ve had to learn that people can’t connect with something they’ve never heard of.
And scaling is a whole other challenge. Everything I make is tied to my personal story and the trust I’ve built with my customers, so I can’t just hand things off to anyone. The person who works with me would have to have the conviction and passion that I have. Not just the process, but the why behind it. They’d have to care as much as I do, hold the same standards without me having to remind them, and never cut corners just because no one’s watching. That kind of person is hard to find, and until I find them, I’m ok with growing slowly and keeping it real.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I make handcrafted non-toxic skincare and personal care products, I take pride in doing everything from scratch, even slow rendering my tallow at home from an excellent source, to ensure a high quality product.
How do you define success?
For me, success is when people genuinely love what I make with my own hands, when they keep coming back because they trust it. Knowing I am making small but real difference in people’s lives by offering them cleaner, healthier options for their skin and body? That’s everything to me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.fedandbalanced.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fedandbalanced
