A business relationship that started two decades ago is moving to the next stage as Ironwood Clay Company hooked up with three major local firms to create all-natural skin care products.

Company president Rodger Upton first hooked up with Ilyang Pharmaceutical in 1992, but due to poor marketing, the stars did not shine on both parties and Upton’s Nena skincare product exited the country only to be replaced by Nu Skin’s own clay masks.

“We are the only certified organic skin care company in Canada,” he told The Korea Herald while in town recently.

Within the next two months, Ironwood Clay Company is expected to make huge a splash after LG, Amorepacific and Ikyoung take the clay and clay-based skincare products into Korean homes.

“Amorepacific is going to functionalize our water and use it as a base for their skincare foundations and hopefully it’ll be a stepping stone to integrate our other products and technologies with them,” said the president of the company.

Upton’s company has discovered a process that extracts and transforms the 70 distinct minerals and elements into a clear, water-based solution that can be added to shampoos, eye creams, toners and so on.

The clay itself is a rich and complex, indigenous and pure, hydrating and nourishing compound found in one unique geological area in the world ― along the Northern Shores of British Columbia, Canada.

This particular clay was formed by the convergence of mountains and ocean water in a protected area where the minerals were able to merge with the ocean over many thousands of years.

While 90 percent of Ironwood Clay Company’s business comes from the manufacture of private label products for skincare brands, Ikyoung will introduce Upton’s house brand Nena through an integrated marketing strategy that employs social networking and home shopping before appearing in certain retail shops.

“They are good people. I have dealt with people all over Asia, these groups are the most sincere, they are very thorough in their paperwork and structure and very methodical in their introduction,” he said.

“I have been working with these three companies almost two years now before we get to a launch, so I’m very confident that this market will be huge for us especially how it relates to home shopping networks.”

Projected estimated profits for the sale Ironwood Clay Company are in excess of $10 million annually as at least two of the three companies will expand their sales of the clay-based products into other markets like Japan and China.

But this is just the beginning as Upton is also working to introduce his organic agricultural products, also based from the same clay, into the Korean farm system.

“MinerALL will get the ginseng farmer a secondary and tertiary crop from the same location, hereby eliminating the cost of moving,” he said.

By Yoav Cerralbo (yoav@heraldcorp.com)