RENDER

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We got tired of reading labels

She read the back of the bottle and threw it out. He went and built the replacement. That’s most of the story.

Debrin Cohen

Debrin Cohen, co-founder of RENDER, standing in the kitchen where the bars are made

I’m a registered dietitian. I spent years in clinical practice, and a good part of that job is reading labels and asking what every line on one is actually doing. Food labels, not lotion. But the habit doesn’t switch off when you walk down a different aisle.

That’s how this started. I picked up the bottle we’d been buying for years, turned it over, and couldn’t have told you what two thirds of it was for. So I threw it out and said we should just make something.

I also run Fleurishe, a nutrition practice for women, which is where most of my week goes.

Jonathan Cohen

PHOTO OF JONATHAN GOES HERE
At the bench, mid-pour or holding a tin. Hands in frame if you’re willing.

I’m a CPA, public accounting. I bring it up because it explains why this company runs the way it does. Published percentages. A scale on the bench. A lot number on the bottom of every tin. Those are accountant habits, applied to a lotion bar.

My skin is dry to begin with, and I lift, so my hands stay calloused and cracked most of the year. I used lotion every day. I bought the expensive stuff too. None of it held.

Tallow I didn’t buy at first. What turned me around was reading how close it sits to the oil your skin already makes, and wanting fewer synthetics than what I’d been putting on. About a week after I decided to try it, I poured the first batch. Every version since, I’ve tested on myself.

Four versions before it worked

The first batch of twenty-four came out too soft to use. Every bar held its shape and that was about all it did. So we remelted the lot and rebuilt it around more beeswax and less coconut oil, then did it twice more after that.

Beeswax and tallow go in first because they take longest to melt. Coconut oil next, then shea. The vitamin E and the essential oils go in last, once the pot has come back down to between 130 and 140 degrees, because heat is what destroys them.

Then it gets poured into two twelve-cavity molds, left to set, and each bar comes out, goes on a scale, and gets seated in a tin by hand.

Batch size 24 bars
Each bar weighed to 33 g
Scent and vitamin E added at 130–140°F
Every tin carries a lot number on the base

Nothing is outsourced

No contract manufacturer, no white-label supplier, no marketing department. If you email the address on the tin, one of us reads it.

That’s a limit as much as a selling point. Batches are small, they sell out, and restocking takes as long as it takes. If that’s a problem, there are larger companies who can serve you better, and we’d rather say so now than have you find out later.