If you’re thinking about starting your own organic skincare brand, you might have doubts over whether you can do it.
Maybe you don’t know if you can make money. Maybe you don’t have a background in the beauty industry. Maybe everyone around you is sceptical. And maybe you repeat all of this to yourself, quietly, on a loop.
This week’s Green Beauty Conversations episode is for you.
Formula Botanica graduate Khulan Davaadorj started Lhamour in her kitchen in Mongolia, with no business background, no investment, and no roadmap.
She made her first sales from her personal social media accounts. She survived a robbery two weeks after moving into her first office. And she kept going.
Twelve years later, Lhamour is Mongolia’s premier organic skincare brand, with three flagship stores in Ulaanbaatar, a presence in airport duty-free, a warehouse in LA, a distributor in China, and revenues heading towards $1.2 million this year.
If you’ve wondered what life could be like if you started a beauty brand, you need to listen to Khulan.
“Don’t be scared. You live once, and you’ve got to do what creates happiness for you. Nobody else has to live your dream.” — Khulan Davaadorj, Lhamour Skincare
In this episode with Khulan Davaadorj, you will hear:
- Starting an organic skincare brand can completely change who you are, not just what you do. Khulan describes herself before Lhamour as shy, anxious, and prone to people-pleasing. Twelve years on, she says she barely recognises that version of herself. The confidence that comes from building something real, watching it reach people across the world, and proving wrong everyone who didn’t understand the vision has changed her at a fundamental level. She now has a second startup on the go. She has the freedom to work on her own terms and be present for her daughter. And when her six-year-old sees Lhamour products out in the world, her eyes light up. That, Khulan says, tells her she made the right call.
- Starting small and staying lean is not a disadvantage. Khulan started in her kitchen with savings, no investment, and no manufacturing infrastructure. She points out that organic skincare is one of the few sectors where this is genuinely possible. Even now, at revenues heading towards $1.2 million, the Lhamour production team is 30 people working in a facility she describes as looking like a bakery.
- The jump from making products to building a brand is the hardest transition. For the first two years, Khulan pushed products into any retailer that would take them. It was only when she stopped and asked who her customer actually was that things shifted. Once she understood her customer, she stopped trying to sell to everyone, pulled back from supermarkets and random retail, and opened her first flagship store. The tourist destination status, the airport duty-free placement, and the international recognition all followed from that clarity.
- Delegation is not a management technique — it’s a survival skill. For the first five years, Khulan was involved in every detail, right down to toilet paper orders. When she had her daughter and hit the wall, she had no choice but to hand things over — and discovered that giving her team real autonomy made the business grow faster, not slower. Several of the people who joined Lhamour in those early years are still there over a decade later. The Mongolian operation now runs entirely without her while she focuses on international expansion.
- The advice she’d give her younger self applies to anyone listening. Don’t be scared. Khulan says she spent the early years anxious, people-pleasing, and listening to everyone except herself. Looking back, the only thing she’d change is how much energy she spent on the fear. She also notes that in many Asian cultures, failure carries a particular stigma — but her view is that if it doesn’t work out, at least you’ll never have the regret of not having tried.
Meet our guest: Khulan Davaadorj, Founder of Lhamour Skincare
Khulan Davaadorj is the founder of Lhamour, Mongolia’s first organic skincare brand, built from her kitchen after severe eczema led her to create products using the Arctic botanicals growing around her.
A Formula Botanica graduate, Khulan holds an MSc from the Hertie School of Governance and Columbia University and was previously recognised as Forbes 30 Under 30 and Asia-Pacific’s Best Entrepreneur in 2016.
Over 12 years, she has grown Lhamour from a kitchen startup to a brand with more than 70 handmade products, three flagship stores in Ulaanbaatar, airport duty-free placement, and international distribution across Asia and the US. The brand sources sea buckthorn, yak’s milk, rosehip, nettle, and other botanicals from small family farms across Mongolia, and launched Mongolia’s first zero-waste refill corner a decade ago.
Find out more about Lhamour Skincare:
- Website: lhamour.com
- Instagram: @lhamour
- Follow Khulan on Facebook: @hulancka
Related episodes:
- Episode 195: The Birch Babe beauty journey from midlife to beauty entrepreneur (graduate story: Debbie in Canada)
- Episode 185: Secrets of a self-made beauty entrepreneur (graduate story: Dewi in Indonesia)
- Episode 179: From formulator to founder: Leslie Reichgelt of Bella Botanicals (graduate story: Leslie in USA)
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Formula Botanica Green Beauty Conversations podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please share, subscribe and review this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Youtube so that more people can enjoy the show. Don’t forget to follow and connect with us on Facebook and Instagram.
FREE TRAINING
Learn how to become an
Organic Skincare Formulator
FREE TRAINING
How to become an
Organic Skincare Entrepreneur
FREE TRAINING
How to become an
Organic Skincare Entrepreneur
Lorraine Dallmeier is a Biologist, Chartered Environmentalist and the CEO of Formula Botanica, the award-winning online organic cosmetic science school. Read more about Lorraine and the Formula Botanica Team.
