A little care to take home.
Farmer's Body makes custom-label lip balm for dental practices and other businesses that want to hand someone something they will actually keep. Our balm is 100% natural and vegan, made by hand in small batches in Vermont, in more than 70 flavors, with your name on the label instead of ours.
I'm Meggan, a practicing periodontist and the founder. Custom lip balm is the heart of what we do.
But it starts a long way from a dental chair.
First, there was a farm dream
I used to dream about a life where I baked my own bread from wheat harvested on my land, made French toast with eggs I collected that morning, and drizzled maple syrup from my own tapped sugarbush over the top. My kids helped in the kitchen in sibling harmony and joyfully cleaned their rooms, too (yeah ok, that last part is far-fetched).
And then I woke up. ;)
Let's face it, cows realistically aren't going to be my next pet (fresh milk, sweet! at 3am, no thanks). And how many of us have access to a wheat field or a sugarbush?
But here's the thing. When I woke up, I got to keep part of that dream.
The barn at Cobb Hill, where Farmer's Body started out.
A fresh batch going into the trays. Every tube starts here.
And so Farmer's Body was born
Farmer's Body began at Cobb Hill, a farm and cohousing community in Hartland, Vermont, where you could live ON a farm without having to BE the farmer.
I didn't milk the cows myself, but I could chat with Kerry, the farmer who did, look out over the lush field of her market garden, and buy her tallow and fresh milk at the on-site farm stand. I knew those people, from their agricultural practices to their dreams, and I trusted them. So I started making soap with what they grew. It gave me a way to make something by hand and gave local farmers another place to sell.
Those relationships are still how we buy what we buy. Our calendula is grown down the road from the studio, and our tallow is still rendered locally.
Our lip balm is a different animal, and I want to be straight about that. It is 100% natural and vegan, built from rice bran oil, coconut oil, cocoa and mango butter, candelilla wax, and vitamin E. Those are not Vermont crops, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. What is Vermont is the making. Every tube is poured, capped, and labeled by hand in our studio, in small batches.
Where we are now
Ten years of making things by hand teaches you to notice what people come back for.
For us, that was lip balm. And then something happened that I did not plan for.
A fellow dentist told me she loved it, and she wanted to give it to her patients. Not as swag. As one of her favorite things, passed along to people she took care of.
That was our first custom label.
After that, more dental offices asked for their practice on the tube. Brides asked for their wedding date. Nobody at Farmer's Body sat down and decided to become a custom-label company. Our customers decided it, and we listened.
So we made a decision: go deep instead of wide. More flavors, more refinement, more capacity, and more lip balm in the studio than we have had in our history. Some of our older lines are retiring as they sell through, and a few have been with us since the beginning, so that is not a small thing to say.
Depth instead of width. It turns out that is what we were always best at.
The one product everything else narrowed down to.
Crafted by a dentist, for dentists
I practiced dentistry for twenty years. These days I'm chairside one week a month, where I specialize in gum surgery.
Which means I have handed out a lot of goodie bags, and I know exactly what happens to most of what goes in them.
Lip balm was different. Patients kept it. They used it. They carried a practice's name around in a pocket for a month.
Which is something my colleague understood before I did.
When you offer a patient a gift, what do you want it to say?
For me, it's this: we're glad you're here, and we thought you might like this.
Which is word for word what the first dentist who asked us for a custom label was doing.
That is the whole job. You pick the flavors, we help build the label around your branding, and your patients get to choose something on their way out the door. We do the same for weddings, fundraisers, tattoo studios, and businesses that want something in people's hands that gets used instead of tossed.
Lip balm is where most practices start, but it is not the only thing we will put your name on. The same custom label goes on our lotion and our foaming hand soap, so you can carry it through to the front desk, the restrooms, and the operatories.
I know what belongs in those goodie bags. I spent twenty years filling them.
My husband, our kids, and a very cold afternoon.
This is us
Hello! Nice to e-meet you. :) I'm Meggan (yes, two g's, blame my parents). I live with my husband and 3-6 kids.
Wait.
You: "Meggan, how do you have a variable number of children?"
Good question! We have 3 biological children and, as a foster family, we help support kids in our community who need a home for a while. We are happy to open our hearts and share our home.
When I'm not chairside or with my kids, I'm in the studio, researching ingredients and developing products. Which is exactly what I wanted to be doing when I was a little girl with a mixing bowl and a flower girl's dress.
Why "Farmer's Body"?
I know. It's a quirky name. The story is worth it.
Loren (my husband) and I spent months throwing ideas at each other. One night, lying in bed brainstorming, I suggested something with "farmhouse," and Loren said, "What about Farmer's Body?" I was immediately intrigued. A little quirky, sure, but more memorable than something generic like "Meggan's Really Great Soap."
What I liked most was that it made me do a double take.
When I picture a farmer, I picture a man in overalls and a straw hat. Or I used to. I wasn't thinking about the women farmers, and there are A LOT of them, working hard to carry on agricultural traditions and traditional skills that are otherwise getting lost.
So the name is a play on words. You probably read it as caring for your body, and that is one layer of it. But it is also a tribute to those women, with wonderful, capable, strong women's bodies, who uphold traditional farming values using practices that are better for the earth and the animals. I source from women farmers wherever I can, and I truly could not do this without them.
The name Loren and I spent months discussing, now on the front of the studio.
The quilt behind our logo
Before my grandmother passed away, I sat with her while she hand-stitched a geometric flower quilt in a traditional pattern called "Cathedral Windows." Every piece of it was sewn by hand, and it holds pieces of her life. A bit of scrap from baby clothes she made, a dress she sewed, some birthday jammies.
While she worked, I absorbed the stories she told me, the techniques she shared, and the wisdom she bestowed on me. (That quilt was on my wedding altar when I married Loren ... "gasp" ... over 17 years ago.)
She passed away in the summer of 2021, and the one thing I asked for was the Cathedral Windows quilt. My aunt knew exactly where to find it, and I carried it, and a piece of my grandmother, home on the plane.
It hangs in the studio now. It is a reminder of the love, dedication, and hard work it takes to make something truly beautiful. Something lasting. Our logo was inspired by its petal designs, a tribute to traditional wisdom and the resiliency of strong women.
Cathedral Windows, stitched entirely by hand. Our logo came from those petals.
The team
Farmer's Body is made by a small group of women who run the studio, pack every order, design your labels, and answer your emails.
Meggan and Cassie in the studio.
Lindsey
Joined in 2021 and runs marketing, customer service, and our custom label work. If you have ordered custom lip balm, Lindsey is who you have been emailing. We have been friends since college, back when she was an English teacher in her pre-mom life.
Lindsey's favorite
"The lip balm. I keep one in my stroller so I can apply during walks with my kids."
Cassie
Our production manager since 2022, which means she makes what you order. She came to us from the dental office, where she was my main dental assistant.
Cassie's favorite
"The vegan lip balm in plum."
Katelyn
Started in 2022 and now leads wholesale and fulfillment. She found us through my dental work too. I performed her son's tongue tie release surgery, and a couple of years later we ran into each other at her children's pediatric dentist's office.
Katelyn's favorite
"Foaming hand soaps. With 4 kids, I wash my hands a lot!"
Nikki works in production and keeps our inventory honest, which in a studio making more than 70 flavors is no small feat. Lauren keeps the details straight behind the scenes, so that orders, labels, and records all end up where they belong.
Poured and setting up, tray by tray.
Building a label around a customer's branding.
Thoughtfully produced, ethically crafted
Our lip balm is natural and vegan, and everything we make is made by hand, in small batches, in Vermont.
All of our products are free from phthalates, parabens, triclosan, MEA, DEA, aluminum, sodium laurel sulfate, PEG, BHT, and siloxanes.
We are proudly certified as a Vermont Green Business.
Whether you want one good tube in your bag or five hundred with your practice's name on the front, it is made the same way. By hand, in Vermont, from ingredients we can trace back to people we know.
Thanks for reading our story.
Meggan
Let customers speak for us
I first found this lip balm while attending an Arts and Crafts Festival in Vermont in 2024. I absolutely loved the maple smell of this lip balm and once I started using it I discovered that it was way better than any other lip balm I had. I managed to make it last almost two years! I just ordered two more; one for at night and one for my purse!
I have been ordering from Farmers Body for yesrs. I love their hand soap and the many scents offered.
Excellent
Excellent
Excellent way to try lip balms before you commit. Love these
Excellent product. Very hydrating and a large selection of scents. I purchased the sample pack and will be ordering them.for our business
I have been using this deodorant for several years now. As a breast cancer survivor, I am very particular what kind of deodorant I choose to wear. This product is both safe and effective. Thank you for making such a great product.
I’ve tried at least a dozen natural deodorants to avoid the aluminum. Farmers Body is the only one that works! Orange Fox is my favorite scent. Customer service is fantastic.
Thank you so much for your donation!!
I have tried many aluminum-free/natural deodorants and this one works the best!!
Love this natural deodorant! Just gave to my 2 daughters too.
I am very happy to have found this lip balm. I keep a tube with me at all times.
They smell wonderful and are beautifully handcrafted. Perfect gifts.
We love the custom lip balms provided by Farmer's Body! The custom labels came out beautiful and we could smell all the flavors through the packaging. Super yummy!!! Thank you Farmer's Body! We cannot wait for our next order with new flavors!
.After one use at home, I was so amazed by its moisturizing glow I immediately went online and ordered more! Truly the best scrub I have ever tried.