Revenue blossoms in sunshine at Goddess Garden

BOULDER – Nova Covington refers to the Goddess Garden line of natural sunscreens as her middle child – birthed between her 2-year-old and 9-year-old daughters.

“And just like a middle child, this one takes up a lot of time and is a little more demanding than the others,” she said.

Covington launched Goddess Garden in 2004 with organic skin-care products because her first child had allergies to synthetic chemicals found in traditional bath products.

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“We sold about 50 products to spas,” she said.

“In 2008, though, I could tell that my spa clients were getting shaky, so I looked ahead and made a risky move – a good one in hindsight.”

The move was to drop the spa products and focus solely on a line of organic sunscreens. In 2009, Covington rebranded her company and brought them to market.

With 92 percent organic ingredients, Goddess Garden has made natural sunscreens more usable and, considering the increase in revenue, more in demand.

Goddess Garden has increased annual revenue 395 percent from $303,000 in 2010 to $1.5 million in 2012, placing it No. 3 on the Boulder County Business Report’s Mercury 100 list of fastest-growing companies in Boulder and Broomfield counties for companies reporting less than $2 million in annual revenue.

Goddess Garden sunscreens are made with minerals that naturally occur in the earth: zinc oxide and titanium dioxide. As opposed to the blocking chemicals in traditional sunscreens that absorb into the skin, this one blocks ultraviolet sun rays by bouncing them off the skin.

And instead of needing 20 minutes to be effective, Goddess Garden sunscreens are effective immediately.

Goddess Garden’s products also come in interesting packages.

Last year, the company brought the first natural mineral sunscreen armed with a trigger spray to market. This year, the company introduced another first-to-market innovation: the first natural mineral sunscreen that’s dispensed through a continuous spray.

Along with the innovative product, Covington credits distribution as one of the major success factors for her company.

In 2011 she dipped her toes into distribution in Canada and by 2012 signed on with the largest distributors available there.

“Until 2012 we did all direct shipping in the U.S., and now we use distributors here as well,” Covington said. “It’s really helped our growth strategy and has more than doubled our store count in the U.S.”

She refers to the company’s team as another success factor.

“Our national sales manager came from Starbucks, our director of marketing came from Larabars, and our supply chain manager came from Xilinx.

“My husband, Paul Halter, does product formulation and has a degree in nutritional science and a master’s degree from the University of Colorado-Boulder as well as 10 years with IBM.