Female Disruptors: Rainbow Shultz of Lark Love On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

Go deep with the conversation. A friend and mentor reminded us that even when discussing business, to take the conversation to the next level whenever you can.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rainbow Shultz.

Together with her partner Corrie Bradley, Rainbow Shultz is the co-founder of Lark Love Revolutionary Botanical Intimate Care, (as well as the chef/owner of The Jamestown Mercantile Café.) The founding women of Lark Love created products that were formulated to honor and celebrate women’s very important bodies. Their personal lubricants and moisturizers were not only made in reverence for women’s bodies, but made to provide a platform for an important conversation that was needing to happen. It is a conversation about feeling proud rather than ashamed to take care of all women’s beautiful, worthy bodies.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I am the owner of a café, I love cooking, enjoying live music and musicians, working with farmers, cooking for our community and creating space for celebration as well as the exchange of ideas. My lube company partner Corrie is a licensed clinical herbalist and has years of experience formulating products for skin care. We were literally laughing about how there are gorgeous active botanical skin care products for every body part except vaginas. After the laughter in the conversation subsided though, we wondered what was that all about? We started a conversation with the women in our community, and found that actually, there was really a need for organic plant based products that were created for women’s bodies. We dove into the history and realized that although personal lubricants have been around for thousands of years, that they have always been applied to women’s bodies without a thought about what ingredients were going onto such absorbent tissue. We decided to create the solution to what we saw as a problem in respect for women’s bodies. We decided to make products that celebrate rather than stigmatize women.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

We decided it was time for women to be the subject rather than the object in this transaction. When we started out on this path, we were surprised to find that even the most outspoken feminist enlightened women in the room had to whisper when discussing the subject of lube. What was it about products made for vaginal health that made us feel like we should be ashamed? We dug into this and continued the conversation with a lot of different aged women in our community. We realized that we had all been taught that women were sexual beings only as the objects of men’s desire. We were made to feel shy about the existence of our sexuality. The younger women in their twenties were really refreshing, however, with their completely candid acknowledgement of their bodies and sexuality. The Gen Z ladies didn’t hold the stigma that the older women held. Lark Love became a product based company with the goal of sharing this discourse between generations. The younger women can lead the way in a conversation about products that really benefit older women’s bodies.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

We entered a pitch slam and really shocked the natural foods community at this particular event. One of the moderators literally fell out of her chair when we said the word “vagina.” I started laughing and lost quite a bit of time in our three minute pitch! Oh well- the fact is that this can be a pretty funny industry to be in sometimes.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

We were introduced by a mutual friend to Deb Luster, who had been the president of Annie’s Mac & Cheese. She was great in understanding our position in the market and also in understanding the products as a woman in our targeted demographic. She really championed our company to friends in her world and has ended up becoming an official advisor to us. Her perspective as a successful woman entrepreneur has been insightful and inspiring.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

As humans, I believe that we share a collective consciousness that is always there, under the surface of our individual thoughts. Once an idea is out there, we share it as a society. Disruptive ideas change the conversation that we have in communities, and most of the time, new ideas are a good thing. I love the paradigm shift that is happening in women’s health and in sexual wellness. Women are finally allowed to take their sexual health into their own hands, and this shift has been really positive. Of course there are always going to be people that take advantage of any new conversation for their benefit. It is one of the pitfalls of capitalism. And when it comes to the concept of sexual liberation, it can get tricky really quickly. We have to be careful that when we change the conversation around sexuality for women that we are really going toward empowerment and not continuing too take advantage of women for the sake of someone else’s financial gain.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Go deep with the conversation. A friend and mentor reminded us that even when discussing business, to take the conversation to the next level whenever you can.

Enjoy the journey. Older entrepreneurs that have been there have been great in reminding us that this is the fun part. We don’t have to be at the end of a successful business to be enjoying building it.

Remember your mission when it gets hard. This has been great advice- money can create challenges to growth and if we focus on how we are going to help more women, rather than how we are going to find more money, then the obstacles get out of the way.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

We love the conversation aspect of this product based company so much that we are hoping to lean into that. Our goals involve making the most of the discussion and sharing of ideas and information that this huge community of women has for each other.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

We do have to work a LOT harder to be taken seriously in any endeavor. We’ve seen it happen more than a few times, where the endorsement of a male colleague has opened doors that were previously closed to us. Of course we are all in community in this place of empowerment, both genders are working for gender equity, but we are definitely still in a place where accolades coming from men can open ears more quickly to listen to our ideas.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

Dreams by Mary Oliver

I’m just enjoying these poems in particular right now. Every day should involve some poetry and music. Everyday should involve a moment to appreciate beauty.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

There should be no idea regarding our bodies that is scandalous or shameful. We are all spirits inhabiting these incredible homes during our journey as humans and learning to enjoy them and take care of them can be a really fun shared experience. Let’s all drop any thoughts that we should or shouldn’t be experiencing anything in this physical form and instead keep the conversation open and candid so that we can all help one another out. We’re all in this together!

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“If you can dream it, you can do it.” That’s Walt Disney, but it doesn’t have to refer to huge dreams. I like to say that every single action and event starts with just saying an idea. I love to discuss ideas with other people and then start with the small steps toward making them happen. We are literally all creating an experience together that we create out of our consciousness. We can all make absolutely anything happen.

How can our readers follow you online?

Lark Love’s Instagram handle is @larklovin Our website is larklove.com And we love to hear from people sharing their thoughts and ideas. Please email me anytime rainbow@larklove.com

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!