FAQ

We agree! Cold does seem like common sense, and we often get this comment from customers immediately after they discover us. It's usually followed by something like "I just don't understand why no one else is doing this..."

After all, we all use a fridge for our healthy foods, we all know potato chips and other shelf-stable foods are by their nature less nutritious than those that aren't shelf-stable. It's for this very reason that the outer walls of a grocery store are where we get the healthiest foods. So what's the deal?

The short answer is because what we do is hard. The full answer is a bit long, but if you have a moment here goes:

There's a good chance you already know about skincare fridges (aka beauty fridges). If you search Amazon you'll find hundreds of models. Some skincare brands even offer them on their own websites as part of sets/bundles. Just by offering fridges at all those very brands are validating what we all know: cold matters.

But cold can't reverse decay, it can only inhibit it. That's why we tell our customers they don't really need a skincare fridge, what they need is to receive fresh products and then use them in a timely manner. That's the secret to potent products and great results.

But the thing is it's actually not easy for a brand to chill all of their ingredients and products. Most beauty brands don't actually have control over their own production, but instead outsource to production houses who without exception do not offer cold preservation as an option. Even beauty brands who refer to "our facility" or "our studio" are generally using the term in the sense of "the facility/studio we hire," and as a result have little real control.

Making matters worse, most brands want to sell on Amazon. But Amazon only offers chilled storage for food products, and this rule is strict (we know because we've tried). But if you want to get traction on Amazon, you really need to use their own fulfillment services, as this is what their algorithm rewards. But in order to use Amazon fulfillment centers, you have to agree to all of your inventory being exposed to 155° F for extended periods. You read that right: 155° F. (If you're curious why you won't find Wild Ice on Amazon, now you know.)

And then there's the problem of retail. How do you go into retail if your products have to be chilled on display? You really can't, unless the store is willing to use a special display just for your brand (which we do require, it's called the Iceberg, but that's another story). But if they do accept it, they're seeding the idea in shoppers' minds that all of their other products are subpar due to not being cold-preserved (a notion we agree with). So not only do you need retail to agree to a display fridge, but they also have to be ok with undermining all their other brands.

So you end up with a situation where everyone knows cold matters, and we can see this validated by all the beauty fridges that even many of our competitors are offering. But at the same time, production houses aren't equipped to accommodate it, ditto for fulfillment centers, and ditto for retail display.

That, dear reader, is why no one else offers what we do.

1. Peruse the rest of the FAQ to find answers to other common questions.

2. If you haven't already, read through our Why Cold page to learn what makes Wild Ice special.

3. Take our quick three-question Skin Type Quiz. Once complete, you'll receive an email with your personalized routine cheat sheet and recommended first steps.

4. When you place your first order, keep in mind that if your first purchase includes at least Cryo-C, D.B.T. Baba Yaga, and Gaea's Gala, you'll be eligible for our brand new selfie rewards program where we'll pay you for your before & after pics.

If you use your skincare right out of the box, you do not need to chill it. With typical use it takes about 90 days to go through a Wild Ice product which isn't enough time for meaningful decay.

If you plan to wait a month or more before you start using your products then go ahead and put them in your kitchen refrigerator.

Refrigerating your Wild Ice skincare will never harm it, but freezing it could damage the bottle.

If you accidentally freeze your skincare, check the bottle for damage and remember to shake vigorously after thawing as some ingredient separation will have occurred (this is nothing to worry about).

Our advice is to skip the mini fridge. With skincare, most decay happens well before a product gets into your hands.

And while cold stops products from breaking down, it can’t reverse decay that’s already occurred.

What matters is that the products you use arrive in their most potent state, and that you use them promptly and frequently.

If you feel that you simply must have one then that’s fine too – it certainly won’t hurt. In the event that you accidently freeze a product just be sure to thaw and shake before use.

The industry norm is to outsource production to one of a very small number of specialist agencies.

In fact, there's a good chance that any two competing brands on a store shelf were made under the same roof by the same agency.

We're not typical. How could we be? In order to cold-preserve all of our ingredient and product inventory we need complete control of every step.

So no, we don't outsource formulation or production. And, as you can probably tell, we're pretty darn proud of it :)

Our products never contain any unlisted, questionable, or dangerous chemicals such as parabens, sulfates, phthalates, dyes, GMOs, formaldehydes, BPAs, synthetic fragrances and perfumes, synthetic colors, petroleum, mineral oils, propylene glycols or DEAs. We only use high quality, natural, organic or wild-crafted (when available) and sustainably produced ingredients.

If you’re a skincare nerd like us, you may have read that colored glass protects your skincare products from UV light. So why did we opt for clear?

To put it simply, colored glass blocks sunlight, which we recommend you keep your products out of. (Heat will damage your skincare.)

Artificial lights—like LED lights—are what your skincare is most likely to be exposed to, and this light is so low energy that it won’t damage your skincare.

With that in mind, we chose transparent glass because it enables you, our darling customer, to see the contents of our products before you buy them.

Additionally, clear glass allows the beauty of the contents to shine through. We believe having products that look good on the vanity or shelf is of real value and a treasured part of the skincare experience.

Before launching Wild Ice, our brand was called Ladyloved. Ladyloved featured a line of wonderful products whose formulations have been updated under our new name: Wild Ice!

Along with our new brand, we’ve updated the names of our products.

Absolutely not. We have never (and will never) test our products on our animal friends. Apparently this means we will never be sold in China -- so be it. We test on our (willing) human friends instead.

Absolutely, our products are always vegan. They never contain tallow or any other animal fats or animal by-products.

Don't roll your eyes! Believe it or not we get this question all the time.

We feel that adorning your space (rather than merely existing in it) is a tangible benefit that demonstrates our respect for you. Plastic bottles or basic round glass just don't strike us as particularly edifying.

Besides, our enclosures are our one chance to manifest our values in physical form. Wood over ice-cubed glass seems to whisper "wild ice" even if there were no label.

With all that said, rest assured that your next order will be just as ornamental as your last :)

Bottom line: go ahead and recycle the glass. The wood should not be recycled, but disposing of it contributes to carbon sequestration, so you can throw it out guilt-free.

First, it’s important to know we source ingredients from all over the world to create the most potent skincare possible. Many of the specialty plant species we use in our products don’t have USDA Certified Organic suppliers anywhere on the planet.

But just because an ingredient doesn’t have an organic certification doesn’t mean it’s not organic! Many small farmers – some of whom we source from – are too small to qualify for organic certification. Or they simply can't afford it. Other products only grow in a country with no certification agreement with the USDA.

Keeping these issues in mind, you can see the dilemma facing companies that prioritize the USDA Organic Seal: “Do we leave out this exceptional species that can’t be sourced from any USDA Organic supplier, or do we replace it with this inferior but certified species in order to upgrade our USDA Seal?”

We chose the former.

We do not want our brand culture or formulations to be driven by marketing, but to be driven by what is best for customers.

We continue to actively consider the pros and cons of certification, and we continue to monitor changes in USDA policy.

In the meantime, please feel free to peruse our products' ingredient lists to learn which ingredients are certified organic, keeping in mind that many species simply cannot be obtained with organic certification.

We generally ship on Tuesdays and Fridays. We ship from just outside Pensacola, Florida via USPS Priority or (for smaller orders) First Class Mail. Most populated areas should receive products within two business days of shipment.

We prefer USPS because they are by far the greenest shipping carrier for domestic parcels.

Think of it this way: Between FedEx, UPS, DHL and any other competitor, who is going to come by your place each workday virtually no matter what?

It's not UPS, DHL, or FedEx. It's the good old blue-and-white mailman. And since he or she isn't going off their route to get to you, it isn't taking any extra fuel to deliver.

That means that shipping via USPS adds relatively few emissions to the environment. So you can shop eCommerce stores like ours guilt-free.

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If that's not convenient, head over to our Contact Us page for other ways to get in touch.