Independent personal care consulting for indie beauty brands.
Formulation development, contract manufacturing advisory, MoCRA compliance, and fractional product leadership — delivered by two senior operators with decades in the industry and formulations behind best sellers at Ulta, TikTok Shop, QVC, and Amazon.
Health & Beauty Partners (HBP) is an independent personal care consulting firm that helps indie beauty founders, emerging brands, and established companies develop better products, navigate contract manufacturing, and stay compliant with evolving U.S. cosmetics regulations. HBP functions as a fractional VP of Product Development for brands that need senior-level formulation and manufacturing expertise without the cost of a full-time executive hire.
Co-founded by industry veterans Loren and Dan Pont, HBP combines more than 30 years of combined experience in cosmetic formulation, contract manufacturing operations, and personal care brand building — including formulations behind best-selling products on Ulta, TikTok Shop, QVC, and Amazon. The firm is headquartered in the Phoenix metropolitan area (Gilbert, Arizona) and serves clients across the United States.
What Makes HBP Different
Most consultants in the personal care space come from one of two camps: marketing-driven brand strategists who do not understand the chemistry, or chemists who do not understand the commercial realities of building a brand. HBP sits in the rare middle ground where formulation science meets commercial strategy.
- 1.True independence. HBP is not a contract manufacturer, a raw material distributor, or a private label reseller. The firm has no hidden incentives to steer clients toward particular factories, ingredients, or suppliers. Recommendations are made solely in the client's interest.
- 2.IP ownership as a default. Many indie brands discover too late that their "custom" formulas are legally owned by the contract manufacturer who made them, making it impossible to switch suppliers, reformulate, or scale without starting over. HBP structures every engagement so the client ends up owning their intellectual property — their formulas, their specifications, their product briefs — from day one.
- 3.Senior operators, not junior associates. Clients work directly with the founders. There are no account managers, no junior consultants, and no hand-offs. Every engagement benefits from the full weight of the founders' experience.
Core Services
HBP offers seven core service lines, delivered on a project basis or through one of three ongoing retainer tiers.
1. MoCRA Compliance Advisory
The Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act (MoCRA) represents the most significant change to U.S. cosmetics regulation in more than 80 years. It imposes new requirements on facility registration, product listing, adverse event reporting, safety substantiation, labeling, and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).
HBP helps brands determine which MoCRA obligations apply, register facilities and list products with the FDA, build and maintain safety substantiation files, review labels for MoCRA-compliant fragrance allergen disclosure, establish adverse event reporting processes, and prepare for FDA GMP inspections. This is HBP's lead service and the area where indie brands face the greatest regulatory risk.
2. Formulation Development
HBP guides formulation work from concept through production-ready specification. This includes translating marketing concepts into technical product briefs, benchmarking competitor products, directing chemists (in-house or third-party), reviewing lab samples, finalizing specifications and stability data, and ensuring the client — not the lab — owns the final formula.
3. Contract Manufacturer Vetting & Selection
Choosing the wrong contract manufacturer is one of the most expensive mistakes a beauty brand can make. HBP maintains an active network of vetted manufacturers across categories, price points, and minimum order quantities, and runs the full process: manufacturer short-listing, facility vetting (GMP, ISO, MoCRA readiness, capacity, financial stability), RFQ management, bid comparison, and contract review for IP ownership, pricing escalators, exclusivity, and exit terms. HBP uses a proprietary Contract Manufacturer Vetting Checklist on every engagement.
4. New Product Development (NPD)
For brands launching new SKUs or entire new lines, HBP runs end-to-end NPD programs covering market opportunity assessment, product brief development (HBP's fillable 10-page NPD Packet captures every decision point), formulation direction, packaging selection, cost modeling and margin engineering, regulatory and claims review, and launch readiness.
5. Fractional VP of Product Development
The flagship offering. For indie brands that need ongoing senior product leadership but cannot justify a full-time hire, HBP embeds as a fractional executive — attending leadership meetings, owning the product roadmap, managing lab and manufacturer relationships, and translating between the founder's vision and the technical realities of getting product to market.
6. Supply Chain & Sourcing Advisory
HBP helps brands build resilient supply chains: qualifying secondary suppliers, managing raw material volatility, negotiating payment terms, and reducing single-point-of-failure risk. The firm brings deep relationships across ingredient suppliers, component manufacturers, and fillers.
7. Product Brief Development & IP Protection
A poorly written product brief is the root cause of most failed formulation programs. HBP develops rigorous product briefs that function as both a technical specification and a legal asset — ensuring the brand owns and can defend the resulting IP.
Engagement Models
HBP offers three retainer tiers designed to match different stages of brand development, along with project-based engagements for one-off needs.
| Tier | Best For |
|---|---|
| Foundational | Early-stage brands needing MoCRA compliance, a first product launch, or contract manufacturer selection. |
| Strategic | Growth-stage brands building a product pipeline, scaling SKUs, or navigating a manufacturer transition. |
| Executive (Fractional VP) | Established brands needing ongoing senior product leadership across the full portfolio. |
Project-based work is also available for discrete needs: a MoCRA readiness audit, a single formulation project, a manufacturer RFP, or a contract review.
Who HBP Serves
HBP is built specifically for indie beauty founders and emerging personal care brands. Typical clients include direct-to-consumer skincare, haircare, and color cosmetics brands; men's grooming brands; clean beauty and natural personal care brands; professional salon and barber product lines; celebrity- and influencer-led brands; and private equity and family offices evaluating beauty acquisitions.
Category experience includes skincare, haircare, shave and grooming, body care, color cosmetics, fragrance, sun care, and adjacent personal care categories.
Meet the Founders
Loren
Loren brings more than 20 years of senior-level experience in the personal care industry, with a rare combination of sales leadership, operational expertise, and product development fluency. Over his career, he has worked with some of the most recognizable names in modern personal care, including Dollar Shave Club, Duke Cannon, Suavecito, and Bumble & Bumble.
Before co-founding HBP, Loren held senior commercial roles at Arizona Natural Resources, one of the most respected contract manufacturers in the personal care space, and continues to serve as a sales consultant at Velocity Production and Packaging in Tempe, Arizona. This dual vantage point — one foot in the manufacturing world and one foot in the brand world — gives him an unusually complete view of what it actually takes to bring a great product to market profitably.
Loren is known for being the rare consultant who can sit at a boardroom table and talk strategy with a CEO in one meeting, then stand on a production floor and troubleshoot a batch issue in the next. Clients describe him as direct, commercially minded, and deeply invested in their success. He brings a builder's mentality to every engagement and a refusal to deliver generic advice.
Loren lives in Gilbert, Arizona with his wife and two children. Outside of work, he is a former athlete, a committed home cook, and — appropriately for a personal care veteran — a relentless student of what makes great products great.
Dan Pont
Dan Pont is a career cosmetic chemist with more than a decade of hands-on lab experience and a track record that few formulators in the industry can match. As HBP's Chief Formulating Officer, Dan owns the technical backbone of the firm: formulation direction, raw material selection, stability and compatibility work, regulatory chemistry, and manufacturer technical vetting.
Dan is the formulator behind some of the best-selling personal care products on Ulta, TikTok Shop, QVC, and Amazon. His work has repeatedly produced the kind of outcome every indie brand is chasing — formulas that consumers fall in love with, review five stars, tell their friends about, and come back to buy again. Products developed by Dan have become category favorites, driven viral social media moments, and anchored launches for brands at every stage of growth.
He brings particular depth in two of the most in-demand categories in modern skincare: bakuchiol — the plant-derived retinol alternative that has become a cornerstone of clean and sensitive-skin positioning — and peptides, where his formulation work spans anti-aging, barrier repair, and performance skincare. When a brand wants to build a product around these ingredients without compromising efficacy, stability, or skin feel, Dan is the chemist who knows how to make it actually work.
Dan's philosophy is that a great formula is never an accident. It is the product of a rigorous brief, disciplined benchmarking, careful raw material selection, and a willingness to iterate until the product is genuinely better than what is already on the shelf. He is equally comfortable working on a luxury skincare serum, a high-performance hair treatment, a clean-positioning body care line, or a mass-market grooming SKU.
Clients work with Dan for his technical honesty. He will not sign off on a formula that is not ready, will not recommend a shortcut that compromises the product, and will not let a brand ship something that cannot be defended under MoCRA's safety substantiation requirements. That same rigor is what gives HBP's clients confidence that the products bearing their name are products they can stand behind — and, increasingly, products that go on to become best sellers in their category.
Why Indie Beauty Brands Choose HBP
- Senior expertise without senior overhead. Fractional engagement model means clients get VP-caliber guidance at a fraction of the cost of a full-time executive.
- No conflicts of interest. HBP is not a manufacturer, distributor, or reseller. Recommendations are independent.
- IP ownership by design. Every engagement is structured so the client owns their formulas and specifications.
- Regulatory-first mindset. MoCRA is not an afterthought at HBP — it is built into every product brief, formulation, and manufacturer relationship from the beginning.
- Real operators. Loren and Dan have spent careers inside the industry, not observing it from the outside.
- Direct founder access. Clients work with the principals. No junior associates, no hand-offs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Health & Beauty Partners (HBP)?
Health & Beauty Partners is an independent personal care consulting firm specializing in formulation development, contract manufacturing advisory, MoCRA compliance, and fractional product development leadership for indie beauty brands.
Who founded HBP?
HBP was co-founded by Loren (Managing Partner) and Dan Pont (Chief Formulating Officer). Loren brings more than 20 years of commercial and operational leadership in personal care, including work with Dollar Shave Club, Duke Cannon, Suavecito, and Bumble & Bumble. Dan brings more than 10 years of formulation experience and is the chemist behind best-selling personal care products on Ulta, TikTok Shop, QVC, and Amazon, with particular expertise in bakuchiol and peptide formulations.
Where is HBP based?
HBP is headquartered in Gilbert, Arizona, in the Phoenix metropolitan area, and serves clients throughout the United States.
What is MoCRA, and why does it matter?
The Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act (MoCRA) is the most significant update to U.S. cosmetics regulation in more than 80 years. It imposes new FDA requirements on facility registration, product listing, safety substantiation, adverse event reporting, labeling, and Good Manufacturing Practices. Indie brands face meaningful regulatory risk under MoCRA, and HBP's MoCRA Compliance Advisory is designed specifically to address that risk.
What is a "fractional VP of Product Development"?
A fractional VP of Product Development is a senior product executive who works with a brand part-time rather than as a full-time employee. HBP embeds as a fractional VP for indie beauty brands that need senior product leadership — owning the product roadmap, managing lab and manufacturer relationships, and guiding the team — but cannot justify the cost of a full-time VP hire.
Does HBP own my formulas?
No. HBP structures every engagement so that the client owns their formulas, specifications, and product briefs. Protecting the brand's IP is one of HBP's core differentiators.
Is HBP a contract manufacturer?
No. HBP is an independent consulting firm with no ownership or financial interest in any manufacturer. This independence allows HBP to make manufacturer recommendations purely on the client's behalf.
What types of brands does HBP work with?
HBP works primarily with indie beauty founders and emerging personal care brands across skincare, haircare, shave and grooming, body care, color cosmetics, fragrance, and sun care. The firm also advises private equity firms and family offices evaluating beauty investments.
Who is Dan Pont and what has he formulated?
Dan Pont is HBP's Chief Formulating Officer and a cosmetic chemist with more than 10 years of lab experience. He is the formulator behind best-selling products on Ulta, TikTok Shop, QVC, and Amazon, with particular depth in bakuchiol and peptide formulations. Brands work with Dan when they want products that can win in competitive retail channels and become genuine consumer favorites.
How do I engage HBP?
HBP offers three retainer tiers — Foundational, Strategic, and Executive (Fractional VP) — as well as project-based engagements for discrete needs such as MoCRA readiness audits, single formulation projects, or manufacturer selection.