Quebec cosmetics: what does choosing a local brand really mean?

Lately, people (you) have been looking at our labels differently. 😇

We want to know where our products are made, what company is behind them, and where our money goes when we choose one brand over another. Buying Canadian and Quebec-made comes up a lot in conversations, and for good reason.

At Shakti... obviously, this touches us.

We are proud to be a Quebec cosmetics brand. Very proud, even. But we didn't want to simply tell you "buy local" with a little Quebec flag next to our products. Because behind Shakti, being a brand from here represents much more than our address.

Our skincare products are developed in Quebec by beauty therapy professionals, formulated in collaboration with specialized Quebec laboratories, and made here. Several of our formulas also make a beautiful place for several active ingredients, plant extracts, hydrosols and floral waters, vegetable and essential oils, extracts and macerates from our territory when their use is relevant.

So if you are looking for a Quebec cosmetics brand, here is a little better who we are and, above all, what really lies behind this designation.

Is Shakti Cosmetics a Quebec brand?

Yes. Shakti Cosmetics is a Quebec company of professional dermo-botanical skincare developed by local beauty therapists.

The products are designed based on the reality experienced in the treatment room, then formulated in collaboration with three Quebec laboratories specializing in organic cosmetics. Our skincare products are developed according to professional manufacturing standards and intended for both the work of beauty therapists and home care routines.

And this distinction is important to us.

Shakti is not a foreign brand to which we simply gave a Quebec image for the local market. Product development, the decisions behind the formulas, and a large part of the brand's ecosystem are truly located in Quebec.

A range born from professional beauty therapy in Quebec

Before the bottles, the labels, and the online store, there were beauty therapists.

Real treatment rooms. Clients. Sensitive, dehydrated, reactive, mature, oily, or simply changing skin. Days spent observing how skin reacts to a treatment and years listening to the same concerns come back.

It is from this experience that Shakti was born.

The women behind the range have been working in beauty therapy for decades. Some have their own institute, others have taught, accompanied professionals, or worked directly in the development and use of skincare products.

This greatly influences our way of creating products.

We do not start solely from an ingredient that becomes popular on social media to ask ourselves how to build a product around it. We rather start from a need observed on the skin and then look for how to respond to it in a coherent way.

This Quebec expertise is as much a part of Shakti as the ingredients in our jars.

Making cosmetics in Quebec also requires real expertise

We sometimes associate the local product with something very artisanal. A small company mixing a few natural ingredients in its workshop, so to speak.

This is not Shakti's reality at all.

Cosmetics is a field where formulation, stability, preservation, and ingredient compatibility require great rigor. A beautiful vegetable oil or an interesting plant is not enough to create a good skincare product.

Our formulations are therefore developed with specialized Quebec laboratories.

Their work consists notably of selecting the appropriate forms of the ingredients, establishing the concentrations, ensuring the stability of the formulas, and producing textures that remain pleasant and consistent throughout the product's use.

We care a lot about the botanical side of Shakti, but we care just as much about the laboratory behind it.

For us, the two go together.

Ingredients that often bring us directly back home

What we particularly like about botanical cosmetics is that we don't necessarily need to look at the other end of the world every time we want to find an interesting plant.

Our territory is incredibly rich.

Depending on the products, Shakti formulations notably use goldenrod, yarrow, calendula, horsetail, nettle, hemp, and cranberry, camelina, sea buckthorn, rosemary, lavender, geranium, charcoal, and maple glycogen, in addition to several other plants and botanical extracts.

The Balance Cream, for example, contains among others goldenrod hydrosol, calendula, horsetail, nettle, watercress, hemp, as well as lavender and geranium essential oil.

In the AYA Hydra-Softness Serum, we find notably yarrow and calendula hydrosols as well as horsetail and nettle extracts.

The AYA Softness Cream incorporates cranberry seed oil, hemp, sea buckthorn, and camelina oil.

These are not ingredients added simply because they have a beautiful local story to tell. They must first have an interest in the formula.

And it is important to us to clarify this.

“Local” should never become an excuse to use a less relevant ingredient. When an active ingredient from elsewhere is the best choice for a formula, we will also use it. Hyaluronic acid, aloe, jojoba, argan, or bakuchiol obviously do not all grow behind our houses in the Centre-du-Québec.

Our goal is not to claim that a professional cosmetic can be composed exclusively of Quebec raw materials.

The goal is rather to value what our territory can offer when it makes sense, without sacrificing the quality and consistency of the formulation.

A Quebec cosmetic can very well use ingredients from elsewhere

This is moreover a nuance we find important in all this discussion around buying local.

A brand can be deeply Quebec without each of the ingredients contained in a product coming from Quebec.

In cosmetics, certain raw materials are grown or produced in very specific regions of the world. Jojoba grows in arid environments. The argan tree is closely linked to Morocco. Shea butter comes mainly from Africa. Several specialized actives are also developed in international laboratories.

Systematically refusing these ingredients simply to display a 100% local list would not necessarily make sense.

What interests us more is knowing where the value is created.

Who imagines the product? Who formulates it? Who develops it? Who manufactures it? Who distributes it? Who recommends it? Who works with the client?

At Shakti, a very large part of this chain takes place here.

Buying a Quebec brand is also supporting everything that is around it

It is probably the aspect we think about the least.

When we buy a Quebec cream, we are not only supporting the company whose name appears on the jar.

There are the laboratories that develop and manufacture the products. There are the companies that print, package, transport, and ship. There are the professionals who work with the range. There are the small businesses that become retailers. There are also all the people who work in communication, photography, web development, training, and the many invisible small tasks behind a brand.

Shakti is today distributed in more than 50 beauty salons in Quebec.

These are as many beauty therapists and small business owners who use the range in the treatment room, recommend it to their clientele, and participate in keeping a local professional expertise alive.

When you choose Shakti from your beauty therapist, this local dimension therefore goes much further than our company itself.

Why choose Quebec cosmetics?

There is obviously no moral obligation to fill your entire bathroom exclusively with Quebec products.

We ourselves use things that come from elsewhere.

However, when a product made here meets our need as well as an imported product, the question deserves to be asked.

Why not look at what exists here?

Quebec has formulators, specialized laboratories, extremely competent beauty therapists, and cosmetic companies capable of developing very interesting professional skincare products.

For a long time, we sometimes associated large international brands with more expertise simply because they were big, visible, and present everywhere.

This is not necessarily a guarantee of superiority.

A Quebec brand can have access to specialized ingredients, advanced formulation technologies, and rigorous laboratories while remaining much closer to the people who actually use its products.

It is precisely this proximity that we want to preserve at Shakti.

A range designed for our reality, right down to our climate

There is also something special about developing skincare products where they will be mainly used.

We know what a January in Quebec is like.

We also know what July can do to skin that was completely different a few months earlier.

Indoor heating, the cold, the wind, humidity, major temperature changes, and our way of living with the seasons all influence skin comfort.

This does not mean that a Quebec cream magically has an advantage because it has seen snow. That would be a bit of an easy shortcut.

However, when the people who develop and use the range daily work with the same realities as their clientele, this experience inevitably ends up informing discussions around textures, needs, and ways of using the products.

Once again, proximity matters.

How to recognize a real Quebec cosmetics brand?

With the growing interest in buying Canadian and Quebec-made, we see many more flags appearing in advertisements and on websites.

But a flag does not necessarily tell the whole story.

If the origin of a product is important to you, it is worth looking a little further: where is the company located, where are the products developed, where are they formulated or manufactured, and who is behind the brand.

We can also look at whether the company clearly explains its story and process rather than simply relying on a local aesthetic.

At Shakti, we want to be transparent about this. We are a Quebec cosmetics brand developed with local beauty therapists and laboratories, while using Quebec and international raw materials according to the needs of each formula.

It is less spectacular than claiming that everything comes from a field located five kilometers from our laboratory, but it is much more faithful to the reality of professional cosmetics.

Quebec, Canadian, and truly proud to be

Right now, our way of buying is changing a little.

We look more at the label. We check where a company comes from. We sometimes discover that a product we ordered elsewhere actually has an alternative made much closer to home.

And at Shakti, this awareness makes us particularly proud of what we have built here.

Not in a logic where we would have to reject everything that comes from elsewhere. That is neither realistic nor desirable.

But in the idea that we can also recognize what we know how to do here.

We have in Quebec expertise in beauty therapy, botany, and cosmetic formulation that deserves its place in our bathrooms as much as in our professional treatment rooms.

Shakti is part of it.

And yes, we are pretty proud to say it.

FAQ: Quebec cosmetics and beauty brands

Is Shakti Cosmetics a Quebec brand?

Yes. Shakti Cosmetics is a Quebec cosmetics brand specializing in professional dermo-botanical skincare. The range is developed with local beauty therapists and formulated in collaboration with three specialized Quebec laboratories.

Are Shakti products made in Quebec?

Shakti skincare products are developed and created in Quebec in collaboration with specialized laboratories. The brand promotes Canadian production and development deeply rooted in Quebec.

Does Shakti use Quebec ingredients?

Yes. Several Shakti formulations make use of active ingredients, plants, hydrosols, oils, and extracts present or produced in Quebec when their use is relevant. Among the botanical ingredients used in different formulas, we find notably goldenrod, yarrow, calendula, horsetail, nettle, hemp, cranberry, sea buckthorn, lavender, rosemary, geranium, and much more.

The formulations also use ingredients from elsewhere in the world when they are the most appropriate for the skincare product.

Where can you buy Shakti cosmetics in Quebec?

Shakti products can be bought directly online as well as from a network of more than 50 partner beauty salons and professionals spread across several regions of Quebec.

Is Shakti a natural cosmetics range?

Shakti defines itself as a range of professional dermo-botanical skincare products formulated mainly with organic and natural-origin ingredients. The brand's approach combines botanical actives with the rigor of laboratory formulation.

Are Shakti products used by beauty therapists?

Yes. The range was developed with beauty therapists and is used both in professional treatments in the treatment room and in home routines. Shakti is distributed to a network of partner beauty therapists across Quebec.

Why buy Quebec cosmetics?

Choosing a Quebec-based cosmetics brand can help support local businesses, laboratories, professionals, and suppliers. It also allows you to discover skincare products developed with the local environment and climate in mind.

Of course, origin should not be the only criterion for choosing a cosmetic product. The quality of the formulation, your skin’s needs, and the product’s suitability remain just as important.

Choosing local, but above all, choosing consciously

We will never tell you that you should buy Shakti simply because we are Quebecers.

We want you to choose your skincare products because they are right for your skin, because you like their formulation, and because you trust what is behind the brand.

But if, on top of that, knowing that the product was conceived here, developed with local professionals, formulated with local laboratories, and helps sustain a network of small Quebec businesses makes that choice even more appealing...

You’re certainly going to enjoy the little extra that comes with it.

And these days, we feel it is particularly worth saying.