Mac + Mitchell: Where It All Began
written by kelly goodwin, certified aromatherapist and holistic health coach
it started with three generations of women at a kitchen table.
my mom. me. my twin daughters, anna mac and kate mitchell.
we were not building a brand. we were not thinking about skincare lines or ingredient sourcing or retail positioning. we were just making things together. mixing oils, testing textures, laughing at the ones that did not work, celebrating the ones that did. we made products for ourselves and then started gifting them to teachers, neighbors, friends. we needed a name so we could label the jars.
mac + mitchell. anna's middle name and kate's middle name.
my mom, best known as grand, is the one who told me to take it further. she saw what i could not see yet. that this was more than a hobby. that what we were making actually worked. that people wanted it.
the woman behind the name
i have spent over twenty six years in the medical field. thirty years in sales. i am a certified holistic health coach and a certified aromatherapist. i tell you that not to impress you but to explain how i got here.
my background in medicine taught me to pay attention to what goes into the body. my years in sales taught me that people buy from people they trust. and my training as an aromatherapist gave me the science and the framework to formulate products that are not just clean but genuinely effective.
i set out years ago to find a more holistic approach to caring for my own health and my family's health. the more i learned, the more i realized how many toxins were in my home. in the cleaning products. in the skincare. in things i had trusted for years without reading a single label. the mission started there. replace every toxin with a natural alternative. not because it was trendy. because it was necessary.
every mac + mitchell product exists because of that mission. i formulate every one of them myself. i test them on myself and my family before they ever reach a customer. nothing goes to market until i would put it on my own children's skin.
the loss that changed everything
in 2021, my mom passed unexpectedly from covid.
i am not going to dress that up. it was devastating. grand was the one who started all of this with me. she was the one making products alongside me and the girls. she was the one who told me to take it further. and then she was gone before she got to see it happen.
what i learned in that loss is something i carry every single day. life is short. we each have a dash between our birth year and our last year. that dash is everything. it is what we do with the time we are given.
grand made her dash count. she served others with a joyful heart, a contagious smile, and a laugh that could fill a room. her legacy is the one i am living out now. not just for me. for anna mac, kate mitchell, and my son eli.
mac + mitchell is trademarked. it is real. it carries my mother's fingerprints on every formula and her name in every conversation i have about how this brand came to be.
what the brand stands for
mac + mitchell is a clean beauty brand built on a simple belief: the earth already provides everything we need to care for our bodies. there is no need for synthetic fragrances, parabens, formaldehyde, hormone disruptors, or fillers. every ingredient in every product is something you can read, understand, and trust.
i source ethically. i use organic ingredients when possible. i package in eco-friendly glass with biodegradable shipping materials. i formulate in small batches by hand, because that is how you maintain quality and intention at every step.
the crush collection is a complete four-step facial skincare ritual built with rare essential oils and botanical butters. petal + pasture is a grass-fed, ethically sourced whipped tallow that your skin recognizes because its structure mirrors human skin lipids. nightcap is a transdermal magnesium cream that my entire family uses every single night.
every product originated from a real need. mine, my family's, or a customer's. nothing was created from market research. everything was created from love.
why this matters
i show up at fifty three. no filters. no botox. no fillers. just the natural aging process and the products i formulate and use every day.
i am not building this brand to sell it. i am building it to leave it. for anna mac, for kate mitchell, for eli. for every woman who has ever looked at an ingredient list and felt like she deserved better than what was in it.
you are not just a customer here. you are part of this family. and the products you are putting on your skin were made by someone who cares about you as much as she cares about the people she made them for first.
that is where mac + mitchell began. and that is why it exists.
kelly goodwin is the founder of mac + mitchell and a certified aromatherapist and certified holistic health coach with over twenty six years in the medical field. she formulates every mac + mitchell product by hand in small batches using ethically sourced, toxin-free ingredients.
it is not just skincare. it is a ritual.