A small brand made by two people who couldn't find a clean balm they trusted.
We're Jon and Gabrielle. We live on the North Shore, we surf every day, and we started Ritual Organics out of our kitchen.
How it started
A few years ago I went looking for a clean daily skin balm I actually trusted. Something I could rub into my face every morning, made from ingredients I recognized. I couldn't find one. Everything I picked up either felt like a chore to wash off, left a thick white cast, or had a list of ingredients I couldn't pronounce.
So I ordered a few raw materials, melted them down on our tiny kitchen stovetop, and started experimenting. After dozens of failed batches, I landed on something that actually worked. Soft texture. No white cast when you rubbed it in. Made from grass-fed tallow, organic oils, and non-nano zinc.
Then my mom, who eats clean and lives a healthy life, was unexpectedly diagnosed with several spots of skin cancer that had to be removed. That changed something for me. I started paying much closer attention to what I was putting on my own skin every day, and it made me want to keep refining what I'd been making in the kitchen until it was something I'd happily share with everyone I loved.
What started as a kitchen experiment turned into the product we sell today. Same formula, same care, just made in larger batches by a partner we trust so we can keep up with everyone who's found us.
Gabrielle
Why we made it this way
Tallow is the closest fat to human skin. People put it on their faces for hundreds of years before the industry replaced it with petroleum derivatives. We use grass-fed, grass-finished beef tallow from US ranches, and it makes up almost two thirds of the formula. Not a sprinkle on the label. The dominant ingredient.
Zinc is the only mineral active we use. Ours is non-nano, which means the particles are large enough to sit on the surface of your skin instead of being absorbed into it. Our balm is 16.3% non-nano zinc oxide by weight, and we're transparent about that number because most zinc-based products on the market won't tell you what percentage they're actually using.
The rest is organic jojoba, organic rosehip, natural vitamin E, and a small amount of organic lavender oil for the scent. That's the entire ingredient list. Nothing else, ever.
How we make it
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Small batch
Every jar is mixed and whipped by hand. Tallow is heated low and slow, oils are added below 100 degrees so the heat-sensitive ingredients survive, and the balm is whipped overnight to a soft-peak texture. It's a slower process than most skincare on the shelf, and it's why ours feels the way it does.
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Real ingredients
Grass-fed and grass-finished tallow. Certified organic jojoba, rosehip, and lavender. Natural vitamin E, never synthetic. Non-nano zinc. We list every ingredient by percentage on our site because we think you should know exactly what's in the jar.
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Eco packaging
Amber glass jar with a metal lid. Recycled kraft tissue. Padded mailers from EcoEnclose. The packaging matters to us as much as the formula. We've been over every supplier choice and we've stayed with the ones who actually walk the talk.
Just the two of us
Ritual Organics is a two-person company. There's no warehouse team, no marketing department, no head of growth. It's us, our manufacturing partner, and a small community of affiliates and customers who've helped us grow this thing from nothing.
Jon runs the business side, makes the content you see on TikTok and Instagram, and answers most of the DMs. Gabrielle is the formulator behind the original product and the reason any of this exists. We live and surf on the North Shore, and we use this balm every single day before we head out the door.
If you reach out to us on social or by email, you're talking to one of us. There's no team in the middle.
Where everything actually happens
We live on the North Shore of Oahu. Our LLC is registered in Boulder, Colorado, where Jon went to school and where his family is based. The balm itself is made in small batches by our manufacturing partner in Riviera Beach, Florida, using the same formula Gabrielle developed in our kitchen.
We say all of that here because we've been asked, and we'd rather tell you up front than have you wonder.
Try the balm
If you're new here, the easiest way to see what we're about is to try it. We offer a 30-day money-back guarantee on every jar.