Lord of the Flies

Koa is a company built for everyone under the sun and is deeply rooted in the Hawaiian islands.

Check out our interview with the founders below.

All three of you grew up or are from Hawai'i, a place where the sun washes over every corner of the island during all hours of the day. How did your upbringing in the islands Inspire your current ventures into the world of skin care?

Growing up and spending time in Hawai'i gives you the opportunity to connect with nature in a way that’s rare in other places. Everytime you go outside (and even when you’re inside), you’re reminded of the natural world around you. It’s easy to forget about what’s happening to your skin because of all the time spent outside.

With all of the sun and exposure to the elements, sunscreen is critical for keeping your skin healthy and preventing skin cancer and premature aging (a major cause of which is UV exposure). As people from Hawai'i, our lifelong relationship with sunscreen (we’ve tried everything out there!) helped us develop a formula that meets our high performance standards while feeling great on skin.

Hawai'i also has 10 of the 14 recognized climate zones, so your skincare has to be flexible enough to work in a wide range of conditions. That variability was a major driver of our product strategy, as our products are flexible enough to work across environments and climates. Whether you’re surfing or subway surfing, Koa keeps your skin healthy and happy.

With our products we also wanted to capture the feeling of being in Hawai'i. We often say we feel our healthiest when we’re in Hawai'i, not just our bodies, but our skin too. We wanted to share that feeling with customers so when they use our products they get the feeling of being in Hawai'i. We use Hawaiian botanicals like Kukui Nut, Giant Pacific Seaweed and [Hibiscus] which not only smell like the islands, but also give you that fresh, sun-kissed sensation of visiting (our) home.

Walk me through the creation of Koa, how did you all meet and when did you decide to build this brand?

Hiro and Ty met while working together in New York City. They always wanted to try their hand at something entrepreneurial and first had the idea for starting a skincare brand in late 2017. They both wanted to share the skincare knowledge they had from growing up in Hawai'i with a broader audience.

They met Kapono at his design studio in early 2019 and connected over their mutual roots in Hawai'i, that’s really when Koa was born. Koa launched in the summer of 2019 and we’ve continued to build the brand everyday since.

In addition to building great products inspired by our upbringing, we hope that our brand can serve as a platform for people to learn more about Hawai'i, why it means so much to us and how it can add to global conversations about things like sustainability and multiculturalism.

How do you implement pre-modern Hawaiian philosophies into your products and what does that look like for someone who didn’t grow up in Hawai'i?

Hawai'i and its local culture is a driver of the brand in many ways, but one thing we really wanted to incorporate was the heritage botanical ingredients found in Hawai'i and Asia (we all share Asian ethnicities). Many of the botanical ingredients we use currently and are planning to use in future products, have been used by their native cultures for centuries for their health benefits and we wanted to preserve that heritage while also incorporating modern ingredients to boost their efficacy.

Another core part of the brand is our emphasis on being connected with nature and doing less harm to the environment. That has been a key philosophy of Hawaiian culture since its beginning. The ancient Hawaiians understood that we are really stewards of nature and guests on the land, so it’s our responsibility to take care of it, as it takes care of us. In modern Hawai'i, people have a deep sense of sustainability that comes from living on an island and a respect for nature that we try to emulate as a brand.

What are you each responsible for behind the scenes and how do you split the work amongst yourselves and your team?

There is quite a bit of overlap when it comes to responsibilities of our roles, being a small team, many of the workflows and decisions we have to make involve all of us. At a high level, Kapono handles all of the creative and brand design decisions (ranging from packaging and web design, to social media posts and ads). Hiro handles a lot of partner workflows and strategic decisions, as well as being the lead on our website and marketing strategy. Ty works on strategic decisions, as well as managing relationships with retail partners, customers, and handling most aspects of the supply chain (working with our suppliers and logistics team). We all work on product development and major brand decisions.

What are the core ingredients in your products and how versatile are they in other climates?

Some of the key botanical ingredients in our products are things like Yuzu, Kukui Nut, Giant Seaweed, and Green Tea. We chose our botanical ingredients for their heritage and health benefits, and we paired them with modern ingredients to make sure they perform regardless of the climate.

For example, our cleanser removes oils and buildup without stripping skin of natural moisture, something that can be an issue in arid climates. Our moisturizer is a light-weight formula that isn’t too greasy in humid regions, but also works in drier environments due to the hyaluronic acid we include to help skin retain moisture.

Our SPF is an all around great pick for the zinc oxide protection it gives (which is much better for humans and the coral) and its high SPF and UVA protection ratings. It’s really designed to be a mineral SPF that you can wear comfortably everyday, without really feeling like you’re wearing SPF.

The preconceived notion with skincare for men is often looked at as something that “emasculates” them. How did you all shatter this perception with your personal values and line of products?

We think of ourselves as a non gendered skincare brand, because everyone has skin and we believe it’s important for everyone to think of skincare as an essential part of daily health (like brushing your teeth). Men are definitely a little more hesitant to jump into skincare until it becomes an issue (i.e., they start to notice the aging effects), but we’re really working on framing it as a preventative step to maintain your skin health. A lot of guys don't want to add more steps to their routine, but once they try it, they realize it really does make a difference in how their skin feels. It isn’t just about looking better, but feeling better too! Sustainability is very crucial in today's world and it seems like ‘Living Koa’ embodies the principles that surround this.

How have you enforced the importance of sustainability into your brand and what steps are you taking to improve?

Sustainability drives a lot of key decisions we make as a brand. From a brand building perspective, we spent a lot of time learning about supply chains and their impact on the plant. We made sure to seek out partners who share our views on sustainability and made an effort to minimize our carbon footprint as much as possible (and offset the rest with carbon credits). A few examples are using manufacturers with non-fossil fuel power sources, closed-loop water systems to prevent runoff and contamination, and using recycled paper or FSC-certified paper for all shipping packaging. We also use USPS for delivery as they have one of the lowest carbon footprints per package of all mail carriers and we are testing carbon-free local delivery methods in the near future!

That being said, we are far from perfect and are always trying to improve in terms of sustainability. Things we’re working on now include moving our packaging from virgin plastics to aluminum and post-consumer recycled plastics. We initially chose plastic because it’s lightweight (lowering its carbon footprint associated with transportation) and durable (fewer wasted components), but as we grow as a brand, we always want to explore better alternatives and improve how we do things.

I saw that the company itself donates 1% of every purchase to a non profit organization of the customers choice and that’s incredible. How do you curate the organizations that your customers get to choose from?

Previously we donated 1% of our proceeds to ocean preservation efforts, but felt like it would be great to open up the giving opportunities to more causes we care about. For our new giving program, we partnered with Beam to find and vet the organizations we donate to. We plan on growing this list as time goes on, but really wanted to give customers the opportunity to direct their donation to the causes they care about most.

The current giving options we offer customers to choose from are: Stop AAPI Hate, Alu Like (Native Hawaiian opportunity creation), The O’ahu Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation (ocean preservation), and Reclaim (LGBTQ+ mental health).

How do you all plan on expanding your brand in the nearby future?

We have a lot of things in mind for the future, including a product line expansion planned for later this year! One thing we always are mindful of when thinking about new products is making sure we aren’t putting them out for the sake of having new products. The cosmetics world is full of fad products, so we try to make sure we are making what our customers want and not just adding things to the world for the sake of it.

Another exciting thing we’re working on is a continuation of our ‘Living Pono’ (in Hawaiian pono means ‘good’ or ‘righteous’) collaboration program which we’ve been testing on a small scale. For the program, we partner with fashion brands to use their leftover fabric that might have otherwise gone to waste, and repurpose it into useful objects. Our first test of this program was a collaboration with Chromat to create hold-all bags from their leftover swimsuit fabric. We’re working on our next collaboration with two great Hawaii brands now, so keep an eye out for it soon!