About Us

Company Profile

History

The Team

Links

 

 

Company Profile

Go Native New Zealand is New Zealand's premium online supplier of mainly raw, natural and organic skincare ingredients.
We stock essential oils, vegetable oils, cosmetic butters, waxes, fragrance oils, raw materials, ready-to-go bases, and more.

We've been in operation since 2001 and in our present form since 2007.

We’re a small, close-knit, mainly family team and are committed to finding the finest ingredients from around the world. These ingredients must be ethically sourced and where possible we buy direct from the growers, so we can establish a relationship with them and get to know their lives and businesses. Often, countries we deal with have no systems in place to be able to stamp their products with Fair Trade or Certified Organic logos, but since many of our suppliers are family or village enterprises, we feel comfortable with their conditions.

We are customer focused and really like to hear what our customers have to say about our products and service and what ingredients they would like us to provide. This feedback enables us to improve our service.

History

Go Native New Zealand was founded by Elinor McEwan in 2001 and is based in Auckland, New Zealand.

We started as Go Native Soap Company making handmade soaps and then began to contract manufacture handmade soap.

Having always been an animal lover, Elinor then made shampoo bars for dogs which are available throughout NZ in supermarkets, pet shops and health food shops. Fans  suggested we make a liquid shampoo which led to our first range of five Ecopet handmade shampoos, all named after former & current loves of our life: Ben, Pola, Suzie, Sheba, Tumbles.
The next generation of dog shampoos, Ecopet Organics, is contract manufactured and was launched in 2006. It is distributed throughout NZ in pet shops and health food shops and is now available in Hong Kong.

By 2007, we decided there was a need for a good supplier of raw, natural and organic skincare ingredients. When starting out making skincare products, it is very hard to source the ingredients, and especially hard to source them in small quantities.
So, we organised a new website and late September 2007 set off in a newish direction.
We import ingredients from around the world and are continuously searching for new, genuine suppliers.
2010: We sold Ecopet Organics and stopped our contract manufacturing of soap so we have more time and energy for what is now our core business: ingredients' supply.

The Team

Elinor McEwan

Elinor started Go Native New Zealand in 2001 after almost a lifetime of making her own skincare products.
Because of her husband's chronic psoriasis, Elinor started making soap and produced a fine range of retail soaps and pet shampoos, only to realise end-products were not her forte.

Loathing the publicity that has to go with being successful in that field, she eventually turned to supplying the ingredients to make the end products. Let others take the limelight! Elinor just loves being in the background organising, refining the systems and researching the world for supplies.

Elinor is married to a very supportive, generous and delightful man who prefers to remain anonymous. They have three children, Chelsea, Harry and the late Jane.

Chelsea McEwan Millar

Chelsea is an actor (Under the Mountain being the largest project to date). As with most actors she needs a day job so gave up making coffee in 2009 and joined Go Native  to help fulfil orders and help with marketing. A vegetarian all her life, we are delighted with her enthusiasm and ideas for new projects within the company.

Harry McEwan Millar

Harry is our health and fitness fanatic, has been a vegetarian all his life and works as a personal trainer. He holds a boot camp here every morning at 6 am for anyone who wants to join in. Harry is absolutely passionate about football, running, fitness and nutrition and keeps us all on the straight and narrow. He is into marathon running and also helps us with fulfilling orders and warehouse control.

Links

www.ecopet.co.nz: shampoo and conditioner for dogs
www.biopet.co.nz: natural remedies for animals and fish
http://www.lizziebee.co.nz/category.pasp?categoryid=30: soapmaking classes
www.facebook.com/jeremyhollisdesign: graphic design maestro