I had the privilege of talking to one of the two female co-creators of Lark Love. Corrie Bradley, a clinical herbalist, is one of the driving forces behind this company. Lark Love created a lube and moisturizer using only pure ingredients. Romp can be used prior to having sex or they have a moisturizer that can be used as part of your daily routine when having discomfort due to aging. They have created body oils and face care products as well. Here is Corrie in her own words explaining Lark Love and discussing other taboos.
Q. What are some of the obstacles you faced when starting Larklove?
A. The biggest obstacle we have faced is the taboo surrounding talking about our bodies. Even with friends, it has been very eye-opening to realize how shy women are to discuss their intimate lives and bodies. Starting from this place has created a two-part obstacle in getting the word out about our products.
Like any new company, we face the challenge of telling the world about the products that we love, but we also have to find the right way to tell women about them. For example, Facebook won’t even allow ads pertaining to vaginas. There is a real taboo regarding women’s bodies and so our goal is to challenge that as well as let women know about the Lark Love products are formulated for them.
Q. I love that you have products for all life stages of our vaginas. I believe it’s so important to reach women in every aspect of her life. Anything you are excited about or in the developmental stages, you would like to share with us?
A. Ooh great question! We are launching a new organic personal lubricant called “Love” that is formulated to be ultra-sensitive for tender tissue and it will be available in larger retail stores. One of our biggest goals and passions is to destigmatize the use of personal lubricants because it should be an empowering purchase. We have luxurious high-end packaging to promote a buying experience that women can feel free from shame. By placing our products in retail stores we give more visibility to sexual wellness in general and we believe this will help to dissolve the taboo.
Q. Do you see a shift in our society regarding women’s sexual health or other health issues, or do you feel we still have a long way to go?
A. I think younger women are beginning to drive the conversations more and more. There are many amazing companies rising up to talk openly about menopause, normalizing and de-shaming sexuality, and praising periods. We still have a very long way to go for the majority of women to comfortably open up but I think the way is being paved. Millennials are much more open than menopausal women about their sexuality.
Q. Do you think it is important more women should be creating their own health and wellness companies?
A. Yes! Collaboration is the best way to meet the varying needs of women. Having a solution-focused company really helps to highlight the myriad of “problems” that women are facing. As companies are created more conversations are being had. There is no one solution to any problem, no one brand or product is for every woman. The more health and wellness companies that are burgeoning the more the conversations are normalized and women can begin to experience the freedom of the destigmatization of their very important bodies.
Q. How has creating LarkLove impacted your viewpoint on sexual health and wellness?
A. Well, ironically neither myself nor my business partner had ever purchased personal lubricants before we began to formulate our products. I never really saw the need, I used coconut oil on the rare occasions that I needed anything. I honestly never really thought about my vaginal wellness. I was a product formulator for organic skincare before we began Lark Love.
The entire conversation about creating a personal lubricant came up randomly one day and we decided to put our experiences with skincare and produce a vaginal product that rejuvenated tissues in the same way that face serums do. We have a large community of women in every stage of life so we had a huge pool of women to ask to try our products. The conversations that were birthed out of these tests were amazing!
Women began to open up to us for the first time in their lives all about their experience with menopause, vaginal dryness due to their medications, postpartum changes in their vulvas, low libidos, painful intercourse, etc etc. Our flagship product Nourish (now Revival) was changing women’s life by providing relief from discomfort and finally being able to talk openly about something that had been kept lock-n-key.
Through this endeavor, I have come to realize not only that vaginal tissue needs to be nourished by high-quality products but also that women need to talk to one another about their experiences. I have fallen in love with lube now. I keep a bottle next to my bed .and use it every time I have sex. It’s so luxurious and empowering
Q. If you could jump ahead 10 years, where would you like to see your company?
A. I would like to see us in partnerships and collaboration with many other women-led companies in this space. We’d like to be in a place where talking about the personal lubricant choices on store shelves isn’t a conversation that raises eyebrows, it’s just part of caring for our bodies. We would love to continue conversations and build a community around the discussions that empower our lives and choices.
Q. And finally; being that Kiss & Tell Magazine is just beginning to get our toes wet in the world, do you have any words of wisdom to leave with us?
A. Everyone starts at square one. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. Ask your audience what is authentic to them and speak to that. If you’re not seeing the results you are hoping for, always be willing to pivot. The world wants you to succeed and the space you are creating is necessary.
Thank you Corrie for taking the time to talk to me. We applaud Lark Love because they believe there should not be any stigma in having any conversation about the female body. I learned during our Q+A that Lark Love and Kiss & Tell Magazine have several things in common. Both companies started with 2 long-term friends and the desire to break the shame that goes along with women’s sexual health.
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