The journey is long. Keep on walking.

  At Legit Raw we can trace our beginnings back to the early 1990s. We had no way of knowing back then that our work would lead us here all these years later. And what a journey it has been. From working on filling lines to learning how to formulate and batch skin care products in large quantities, you can say our team at Legit Raw has done it all. We’ve seen it all too. We’ve seen so many changes in our industry. Good changes. Gone are many of the harmful chemicals that the industry used to formulate with. Preservative systems have gotten so much healthier for our bodies and our environment. Harsh chemicals and detergents have been replaced with naturally derived ingredients. Dangerous chemicals such as formaldehyde are no longer used. This type of progress makes us hopeful for the future and highlights the importance of moving forward, one step at a time. We learn by doing and as we learn, we grow and do better. We are a better team at Legit Raw today than we were individually so many years ago. Poet Maya Angelous said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” Important words. Always move forward. Always learn. One foot in front of the other, one step at a time. At Legit Raw we have learned to create better formulations. We have learned to create products that are gentle to our skin and gentler to the environment. We use packaging that can be reused and recycled. Our ingredients are natural and sustainable. Our essential oils are chosen specifically for their restorative and calming characteristics. We do better now because we know better. We must be better to ourselves and to our planet. Out of hardship comes strength, wisdom and knowledge. 

Why hand soap? Why now?

  As 2019 came to a conclusion we began to hear terms like pandemic and Coronavirus. We watched the news of this virus heading for our Canadian shores. I think we assumed that when it arrived it might be something that we would have to deal with for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, and then life would return to normal. How wrong we were. Coronavirus became Covid-19 and it didn’t go away by itself. The lockdowns arrived. Masks. Sanitizing all surfaces. Social distancing. An incredible effort to produce a vaccine. Hand washing. Lots of hand washing. Like many people we used whatever was available in the kitchen or bathroom. Often this meant using dish soap as hand soap. For any of you who have done this you will undoubtedly have had the same experience: dry and chaffed hands. While dish soap is great for cleaning and sanitizing our dishes, it is not a good solution for skin care. After a month of constantly washing my hands I was noticing my skin starting to crack and flake. My hands were hurting me. They were always red, as if my skin was being rubbed raw. Now we are not great believers in coincidence or luck here at Legit Raw. Coincidence and luck are the by-products of hard work. Put in enough time, with the right attitude, and good things start to happen. For us it meant a hand soap formula that we had experimented with for some time. However, something wasn’t quite right. It was a good formula that was missing something. Unfortunately in our industry the solution is often fragrance. Find a pleasant fragrance that pleases the customer and all will be well. The problem with some fragrances is they can be triggering for people with hyperosmia (see here for more info: https://www.webmd.com/brain/what-is-hyperosmia). Certain fragrances can also trigger asthmatic responses. Perhaps in your child’s school, fragrances and sprays have been banned? The difficulty with fragrances is they contain many chemical ingredients that can be harmful to our skin. These fragrances often contain phthalates. Phthalates have been proven to be harmful to humans (see here for more info: https://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/Phthalates_FactSheet.htm)

  A chemical fragrance wasn’t going to be our answer so back to the lab we went. How could we make a more natural formula? How could we incorporate natural ingredients? How could we develop a formula that cleanses without hurting our skin? What preservatives could we use that would be safe? Our research and experimentation led us to a number of essential oils. We re-worked our formula many times until it worked. We changed our preservative system to a food-grade system. Do the best you can until you know better. It’s no coincidence that circumstance and need came together. We put in the work and here we are: Legit Raw hand soaps. Our hand soaps are fragrance free. They contain natural ingredients and are scented with essential oils. We use food-grade preservatives. All of our packaging is reusable and recyclable. Our goal is to provide our customer with a high quality hand soap at an affordable price. We believe we've achieved that at Legit Raw. I know that my hands are thanking me. 

In giving, we receive.

As we worked on our line of Legit Raw hand soaps, we began to discuss ways in which we could make a difference. It is important and rewarding to be involved in something greater than yourself. This is what makes charity so important. It is a wonderful reminder that not everything is about us all the time. We have a responsibility to make the world a better place. The environment is important to us at Legit Raw. We are alarmed by what we see happening to our planet. We also want to support Canadian charities and Canadian business. During our research on how best to do this, we encountered the Canadian charity Friends Of The Earth https://foecanada.org/. We admire their initiatives on bee health, water and plastics, climate change and making changes to our legislation to ensure a healthier planet. Our support for Friends Of The Earth will be ongoing and will increase as our line of products and market share expands. 

  Local business and community level initiatives are important to Legit Raw. We are currently exploring ways in which we can partner with local businesses. As we are located in Peel Region, Ontario, Canada, we will be seeking mutually beneficial partnerships with other local businesses and charities. At Legit Raw we believe in local and we believe in Canada. Stay tuned for future updates here in our blog space as we develop these relationships. 

Welcome to Legit Raw. Our blog will feature weekly updates and announcements . We have so much to discuss. 

I'm Carlo Santin, co-founder of Legit Raw. I'm also an educator by day, a husband and a father of two sons. Welcome.