Bonny M | April 3, 2025
Red Buffalo skincare is a brand inspired by the need of skincare that could lock in moisture in the extremely dry Kunming climate. Sore, itchy and flaky dry skin was the reality of a family which lived in Yunnan province, South Western China for 13 years.
The frustration from the amount of moisturiser bottles they went through due to the dry Kunming climate inspired founder Cornelia, to create a solid lotion bar with zero plastic waste. Which would lead to the formulation of an intense moisturising skincare range that addressed her family’s need for sensitive prone skin and skin concerns such as sore, itchy and flaky dryness.
As her friends found out about these amazing moisturiser bars, Cornelia started making them for others to use and in no time the range of products grew to include lip balms, deodorants, body scrubs and more.
The name Red Buffalo came from our honeymoon trip in Northern Thailand, says Cornelia. There were water buffaloes everywhere working in the rice paddies, walking in big herds along the roads and some even had little kids on their backs while their mothers lead the buffaloes along the fields.
One day as we travelled, I saw an albino water buffalo whose skin was a striking reddish pink. That buffalo was the inspiration behind my company’s name. The actual image is from the Naxi tribe of Yunnan who do not have a written language but only pictographs. It is one of the last remaining cultures that use a pictographic script.
The Naxi script for a buffalo is the top part of the logo and the symbol underneath is the script for water. This image has now been approved as my registered trademark by the CIPC. It is something to remind me of an extraordinary honeymoon with the man that would be my partner for life.
Red Buffalo Skincare products are made using natural ingredients, and do not use any chemical additives, preservatives or stabilisers to make them. As such, in colder weather they could be harder than they would be in warmer weather. To address this, a variation is used in their recipes to create product stability depending on the season.
To emphasize their commitment to sustainability in using less plastic, their products are either in biodegradable paper push-up tubes, or reusable and refillable glass or aluminium tins. Plastic tubes are hard to recycle and can sit in landfills for hundreds of years, breaking down into tiny harmful particles, while paper tubes, on the other hand break down naturally and don’t leave behind toxic residues.
Because Red Buffalo Skincare products are all made in small batches of about 20-40 at a time, the full control of their products helps ensure quality and effectiveness in their skincare formulations and that their products reach the customer as fresh as can be. In addition their ingredients are purchased from reputable, long standing retailers such as Essentially Natural and Holistic Emporium.
Red Buffalo Skincare has a total of eight products which all aim to hydrate skin with their combinations of oils and butters.
The range consists of:
*Lip balms
*Natural deodorants
*Mosquito repellents
*Solid moisturiser bars and sticks
*Heel scrubs and balms
*Relaxing Himalayan bath salts
Their best-selling products are their lip balms! They are buttery, smooth and have a divine scent of natural cacao and vanilla. These lip balms offer a variety of benefits such as healing chapped and broken lips, while protecting lips against further damage with their natural added beeswax. Recently their mosquito repellents have also become quite a hit.
How do you educate your customers about skincare and choosing the right products for their needs?
I am dedicated in ensuring customers choose the right products for their needs, how you ask? My first question to my customers is always “How does your skin react to store bought mass produced products?” Most often the answer is that customers’ skin become irritated or rashy when using products with chemical additives. So, I absolutely stay away from anything that isn’t plant based other than the beeswax.
Have customer experiences or testimonials influenced the way you develop new products, if yes how and why?
Absolutely yes! My entire range was inspired by customers coming to me with requests for natural products without any plastic packaging. The biggest demand was for a lip balm that would not only heal their dry lips but also protect them from further damage due to the dry climate. Because most of our friends were rock climbers, and we would spend every weekend in the hills and mountains of Yunnan climbing the cliff faces, our follow up product was a natural deodorant. People in our lives were conscious of their health and the impact of plastic waste on the environments we found ourselves in.
What challenges have you faced in growing Red Buffalo Skincare, and how have you navigated them?
The first obstacle has been to educate people about how easy it is to swap to sustainable products, meaning products that do not contain petroleum based ingredients. Petroleum based ingredients do not penetrate the skin the same way natural oils and butters do. The other big challenge has been to try and mainstream the use of paper based packaging, this is not something that has often been used in South Africa and as such people don’t really know what to do when they see a paper tube that reads “Solid lotion stick” or “Natural deodorant” on them.
I have opened a second company dedicated to importing affordable, tried and tested paper tubes from my long standing supplier. I provide the packaging to other makers of natural products and also assist those committed to using paper tubes to get their tubes custom branded. You may have seen the company called ZERO BS recently started producing their sunscreens and deodorants in paper push up tubes, and those have been supplied by my company, Red Buffalo Trading Post.
I am continuing to contact different brands to make the switch to paper tubes because decreasing plastic waste is a very important aspect of making a difference to the problem plastic waste is creating for our climate.
Are there any exciting new launches or future plans for Red Buffalo Skincare?
I am currently in the development phase for a tinted lip balm, due to customer requests. The packaging I plan to have this product launched in will be stunning with little details of golden foil on the tube lid.
Readers can connect with Red Buffalo Skincare through the following channels :
Instagram : @red_buffalo_skincare
Website : www.redbuffaloskincare.com
I share little bits of my life in my instagram stories, and all new products as well as the favourite staple products are on my main post page. In the highlights customers will find information on how to use their products, as well as customer stories and feedback.