New Faces, New Places: Family owned Terra Supra Skin Care opens in Saskatoon

New Faces, New Places: Family owned Terra Supra Skin Care opens in Saskatoon

'There are no preservatives, no toxins. We're really careful about what we put in our products. And we really are conscientious too about our packaging.'

New businesses and non-profit organizations open regularly and move in Saskatoon. Today, The Star Phoenix talks to Corinne Cadre, who recently opened Terra Supra Skin Care along with her brother and one of their cousins, realizing a long-held dream to open a family business.

Terra Supra has generated a lot of interest in Saskatchewan and beyond, including from Kevin Harrington, who was one of the original “sharks” on the TV show Shark Tank. Harrington’s company Shark Discoveries contacted the Saskatoon-based family business to let them know they were impressed with their products. Now Terra Supra is working on commercials with Shark Discoveries that will air in the United States.

 

Terra Supra has generated a lot of interest in Saskatchewan and beyond, including from Kevin Harrington, who was one of the original “sharks” on the TV show Shark Tank. Harrington’s company Shark Discoveries contacted the Saskatoon-based family business to let them know they were impressed with their products. Now Terra Supra is working on commercials with Shark Discoveries that will air in the United States.

Q: What made you decide to open Terra Supra Skin Care?

A: My partners are my brother Dean (Cadre) and then our cousin Chad (Lutz), and growing up Dean and I always watched our dad. Our dad was very creative — he tried to invent things. He was very entrepreneurial. My dad’s brother, who was also very entrepreneurial, and my dad always wanted us to have a family business.

Unfortunately, my dad died just over 20 years ago, so he never got to see our business come to reality, but that was the inspiration. But the opportunity came along and Dean said, “Hey, this is an opportunity to have a family business, what do you think?” We said, “Let’s do it! Let’s give it a try.”

It is a tough industry. Skin care is tough to break into for sure. But we believe really strongly in our product.

Q: What are your products?

A: We have three clay salt exfoliants. They are natural salts and have no fillers. Their main components are sodium, calcium, magnesium and potassium. We have two salts that are infused. One is infused with organic matcha powder and the third clay salt is infused with organic lavender powder. We try to source as many of our ingredients as close to home as possible. The salts come from Saskatchewan.

We also have three organic flax seed oil occlusive moisturizers. Those also come from Saskatchewan. And we have two that are infused as well. One is infused with organic sweet orange oil and the other is infused with organic lavender oil — pure and toxin-free — just ingredients from nature and they provide excellent skin care results. We’ve had lots of really good feedback from customers about our products.

Q: How do the exfoliants and moisturizers help people?

A: The exfoliants remove dead skin cells. They’re gentle enough to use on the face. You mix a little bit of the clay salt with just a little bit of water to make a paste, almost like toothpaste. And then you just gently massage it into your skin for about 20 or 30 seconds and then rinse it off with warm water and pat dry. It makes the surface of your skin really soft and smooth. The skin actually will have a glow. While they’re gentle enough for the face, they are effective also on the harder skin of elbows, knees and feet.

And then our oils are great right out of the shower on damp skin. Our occlusive moisturizers are a barrier moisturizer. What they do is they form a protective layer over skin to seal in moisture. And they’re also great as the last step in your skin care routine before bed because they’re a barrier, they just keep all of the other skin care products sealed into the skin.

Q: What makes your products stand out from other similar products?

A: Our products are different from other mechanical exfoliants in that they are very fine-grained. Other mechanical exfoliants can be made from crushed up nutshells or from coffee grounds, or larger grain sugar, or even larger grain salts. And our exfoliants are clay salts, so fine-grained, and they don’t abrade the top layer of skin. Sometimes mechanical exfoliants can cause micro-tears in the top layer of skin and ours don’t do that. So they’re very gentle, but they do their job.

Q: Where are your products available for purchase?

A: Our products are available in Saskatoon at SaskMade, Dutch Growers, The Little Market Box, Novo Esthetics Studio, or online at www.terra-supra.com .

Q: Do all your products use only natural ingredients?

A: Yes, all natural. There are no preservatives, no toxins. We’re really careful about what we put in our products. Our clay salts just have four main ingredients that everybody’s heard of. They’re just mineral-rich salt. And we really are conscientious too about our packaging. We don’t have zero-waste packaging, but it’s minimal waste. We have resealable, stand-up pouches for our salts. And then we have little liquid pouches with a cap on them for oil. We try to be as environmentally conscientious as we can.

Q: Are all your products from Saskatchewan?

A: Our main ingredients, absolutely. But our essential oils — we don’t grow oranges in Canada so we have to get our sweet orange essential oil brought in — they actually come from Spain. And then our organic matcha powder comes from Japan. But we chose as much as possible to get all our ingredients for our skin care products as close to home as possible.

Our next launch of products will be glacial clay face masks, and that glacial clay will come from British Columbia. We should have that probably by the end of March.

Q: What are you currently working on with Shark Discoveries? 

A: After they tried our products, they said they’d love to work with us to do two TV commercials. I just got the first drafts of the script recently. Kevin Harrington, one of the original sharks on Shark Tank, will do an intro on our 60-second commercial. So we’re really excited about that. We’ll get to select which networks, and which cities they will air in. The 60-second commercial will be on network television, and the 30-second commercial gets to DirecTV. They’ll go to air at the end of March.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Terra Supra Skin Care

Owners: Corinne Cadre, Dean Cadre, Chad Lutz
Phone: 877-422-3436
Address: 1019 Rempel Way
Hours: 24 hour access online
Email: corinne@terra-supra.com ; dean@terra-supra.com
Website: http://www.terra-supra.com
Check: Facebook , Instagram , YouTube

 By: Don Rice, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Saskatoon, SK, Canada