Cordelia Smith is the founder and creative director of Formulary 55
What is Formulary 55?
Formulary 55 is my line of modern bath, body and home products. A lifetime lover of fragrance and a bath devotee (I take one nearly every day!), I began making soap in my Seattle apartment kitchen in the early 1990s and selling them at local farmer’s markets. After nearly 20 years of designing and manufacturing self-care products, I founded Formulary 55 in 2012. We’re now based out of Pueblo, Colorado.
We are dedicated to offering the finest handmade products with the highest quality vegan and cruelty-free ingredients, and we are known for our scents, which are a mix of essential oils and phthalate-free fragrance oils. The Formulary 55 product line includes soaps, bath fizzies, candles, skincare, home cleaning products, men’s grooming and more. Over the last year we’ve introduced facial mists (including one that’s perfect for cooling down post hot yoga), several new scents inspired by the high desert, and soy wax candles in reusable packaging, all of which you can find online and in 800+ retailers in 17 countries, and counting! My mission is to create products that elevate everyday beauty rituals, giving new meaning to self-care, while doing it in a way that’s earth-friendly.
What does sustainability mean to Formulary 55?
To us, sustainability means feeling good about what we send out into the world and knowing that we are not creating excess waste.
How do you implement sustainable practices?
We prioritize sustainability in every step of our production process, from where the ingredients are sourced to selection of shipping materials. We only buy our ingredients from companies who care about the environment as much as we do. Our product packaging is either reusable or recyclable, and we are always looking for ways to make it even more sustainable. In 2020 we plan to change our Shea Butter Hand Créme packaging from plastic tubs to aluminum tubes. We recycle at all of our manufacturing and production facilities. And I’m proud to share that our Pueblo-based employees even played an instrumental role in starting the first recycling company in town!
We saw that you are 100 percent vegan and certified cruelty-free. Why is this important to Formulary 55?
Animal testing is extremely cruel and unnecessary, and we want no part of it. We simply can’t imagine making a product with ingredients that have been formulated in a lab that is full of fear and suffering.
What do we have to look forward to in the future from Formulary 55?
We are expanding! Our current production facility is 1,600 square feet, but we have quickly outgrown it. We’re in the process of renovating an old restaurant supply company and will be moving all of our production and offices to this new space. It’s a big upgrade to 6,800 square feet, and it will allow us to fulfill larger orders, install new equipment, and most importantly, have a little breathing room in our ever growing operation.
