Natalie White, the “Skin Care Chef”
Natalie’s mother Camille helps out during busy times.
The Best Deodorant (left), so named by Mitch because it is so effective, is their best-selling product and has won multiple industry awards.
The Get Me Started Kit (right) includes the three foundational facial care products of the line.
Natalie and Mitch’s daughter Emma has recently joined the company.
Natalie and Mitch moved back to the area to be near family and say “We are totally in love with Warrenton.”
Natalie White, the “Skin Care Chef”
Natalie and Mitch moved back to the area to be near family and say “We are totally in love with Warrenton.”
Natalie White had always lived a very healthy lifestyle. “Through my childhood, my dad was juicing for us before juicing was cool,” she said. “I made all my kids’ organic baby food, I was never overweight, and I always worked out.” So when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in 2014 while she and her husband (then fiance) Mitch, both Virginia natives, were living in Charleston, SC, she was shocked.
But Natalie had blurred vision, migraines, speech issues, and other neurological symptoms. Mitch knew something was wrong. “I’d been watching her decline, but she’d been hiding it really well,” he said. One day, it got so bad that he had to carry her into the emergency room. After doctors performed an MRI, she was referred to a neurologist.
The Diagnosis
“We followed up with the neurologist two weeks later, and after he looked at the MRI, he handed us a pamphlet that had a list of drugs for multiple sclerosis and told us to pick out two,” Natalie said. “He explained that if those didn’t work, then we would try another. He also told me to pick out a wheelchair.”
Although she was scared, Natalie had no intention of taking the drugs. “Why would you ever take an immunosuppressive drug when what you need to be doing is supporting your immune system?” said Natalie. “It just seemed counterintuitive to me.”
A Search for Alternative Treatments
Although they didn’t know it then, this thought process would be the beginning of a whole new lifestyle and business for the couple.
While the products offered by Be Well are geared toward skin care, they haven’t forgotten the healthy eating part of the equation that their clients are facing. After all, beauty comes from within. A page on their website, called “Feed Your Glow”, is devoted to nutrition, where Natalie shares with her clients the natural superfoods that she eats and her recipes.
“When I was diagnosed, there wasn’t a lot of information about treating MS naturally, but I did come across Dr. [Terry] Wahls, who had reversed her own MS through diet and lifestyle changes,” said Natalie. “I trusted what she was saying, so I bought her book and literally consumed it as fast as I could. I said, ‘This is what we’re doing’, and Mitch was all in.”
Consuming this kind of natural superfood diet takes a fair amount of effort in shopping, planning ahead, and preparation, but Natalie didn’t mind at all. “When my doctor mentioned a wheelchair, I don’t think you could have horrified me more. That was my motivation, so it wasn’t hard for me. We just took it step by step”
By radically changing her life and adopting a clean eating and clean living lifestyle, Natalie says she has reversed her MS. “I have MS. It will always live in my body and I will never cure myself as far as I know, but I am reversing it every day with the choices I make, the products I use, and the foods I eat. All the MS symptoms are controlled, which is key.”
Moving into Skin Care
About a year after her diagnosis, Natalie started to experiment with skin care products for herself because she couldn’t find any that were clean enough, didn’t make her symptoms flare, and that she enjoyed using.
Mitch said, “Natalie designed the products using the 100% natural superfoods powered by probiotics that she used to heal herself from the inside out.” After all, what we feed our skin is just as important as what we feed our bellies. All the ingredients are plant-based, organic, vegan, and toxic-free. They are also all food-grade, which led to her being dubbed “the Skin Care Chef.”
So, in 2017, armed with what they had learned about diet and lifestyle choices, Natalie and Mitch set out to help others live healthy lives as well. They founded Be Well Company, which sells the all-natural, non-toxic organic skincare products Natalie created for her own use.
The Products
Creating products that are not only therapeutic but luxurious as well was really important to Natalie, so her skin care line includes things like face cream, masks, exfoliators, salves, calming butters, and salt baths, all of which are made for pampering.
The Best Deodorant (left), so named by Mitch because it is so effective, is their best-selling product and has won multiple industry awards.
The Get Me Started Kit (right) includes the three foundational facial care products of the line.
The most popular item Be Well offers, she said, is its Get Me Started Kit. “It’s the three foundational products that anyone and everyone can use. These are the first products that I created and that I use every day. There’s a cleansing oil, a probiotic toner, and a nourishing face cream. They feed and balance your face to help you glow from the outside in.”
The second top product is her all-natural deodorant. “It took me years to develop and honestly, a lot of tears. I named it ‘The Best Deodorant.’” Mitch added, “It’s unbelievably effective. The problem with most of the alternatives is they just block pores, mask scent, and dry the skin. Natalie designed a deodorant that balances the responsible bacteria.”
Working hard
Natalie’s mother Camille helps out during busy times.
“We work a lot,” Mitch said of their lifestyle. All the products are made by hand in Natalie’s studio, a second commercial-grade kitchen in their home which her father Sam helped to build. “We don’t outsource any of it,” said Mitch. “We produce it, package it, and ship it ourselves.” The company has a large volume of sales (which double every year), but Natalie said the products are not hard to make, and over the years they have streamlined their processes so they are ultra-efficient.
Coming Home to Family
After 10 years of living in Charleston where they had moved for a business opportunity, Natalie, a Winchester native, and Mitch, who grew up in Northern Virginia, decided to move back to this area in 2020 to be near family. They settled in Warrenton in 2022.
Natalie and Mitch’s daughter Emma has recently joined the company.
This allowed for more family involvement in the business. Their daughter, Emma, has recently joined the company, and during the holidays when things get very busy, Natalie’s mom, Camille, comes in to help. “My daughter-in-law Meagan is an artist, and she does graphic work and other things for us too,” said Natalie. Meagan is married to their oldest son, Tanner, who is in the Army along with their other son, Simon.
The couple is looking forward to sharing what they’ve learned and the products they’ve developed with the people in Fauquier County. “Mitch and I are totally in love with this town. It has that small town feel and the people are just so welcoming,” said Natalie.
Right now, Be Well is strictly an online company, but if the demand keeps growing, a brick-and-mortar store seems likely.
bewellcompany.com
Ingredients:
Directions
To make the creamer, add all ingredients to a glass jar with a lid and shake to combine. Store in the refrigerator. When you’re ready to enjoy, heat and pour the desired amount into a mug of fresh-brewed coffee or over two shots of espresso.
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