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Muddy fortunes

Alaska Glacial Mud Co. president Lauren Padawer poses along Alaska's Copper River in this photo from the company. The inspiration for Padawer's skincare product came while rafting on the river. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Mary Pemberton Associated Press
Alaska Glacial Mud Co. president Lauren Padawer poses along Alaska's Copper River in this photo from the company. The inspiration for Padawer's skincare product came while rafting on the river. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Lauren Padawer’s inspiration for a beauty product made of glacial mud struck during a grungy rafting trip down the Copper River.

After days of paddling in south central Alaska, Padawer and her companions needed to get clean. Washing herself in the river’s glacial pools, Padawer looked down at the mud swirling around her feet and saw opportunity.

“You would just lather yourself with this stuff,” said Padawer. “It is about as luscious mud bath quality as you can find anywhere in the world.”

The experience of a mud bath in one of the most beautiful, wild spots on the planet was better than any spa, and the mud was better, too, said Padawer, a 28-year-old from Cordova, a fishing town at the southeastern end of Prince William Sound.

Padawer got an idea. With more than 20 glaciers depositing 100 million tons of glacial silt a year on the 700,000-acre Copper River delta practically in her backyard, why not market the silky mud?

She was equipped with little more than an idea and big dreams when she began developing the Alaska Glacial Mud Co. two years ago. By this Christmas shopping season she hopes to have the company’s signature product – The Glacial Facial – ready for sale.

Julie Keller, editor in chief of American Spa magazine, said Padawer’s timing is right.

“There is an enormous market for beauty products featuring natural and organic ingredients,” she said. “The market is getting increasingly competitive, however, so a product manufacturer with distinctive, quality products and a unique story has a greater probability of finding success.”

Padawer makes ends meet in her town 150 miles southeast of Anchorage by repairing gill nets and making jewelry. If she was going to sell a product, it would have to be a sustainable resource, obtained without hurting the environment or people, she said.

Copper River Delta glacial silt was perfect.

The watershed is about the size of West Virginia and has only about 10,000 people living in it, with no mines, no factories and no commercial farming.

Padawer’s fledgling company is for now a hands-on operation. She’s collected some of the mud herself in 5-gallon buckets. It’s hard work, especially that she’s 5 feet, 5 inches and 135 pounds.

Padawer’s goal is to stockpile 50 buckets of mud, or about 2,500 pounds of processed mud, by October. That way she estimates she will have enough material to fill 5,000 2 1/2 -ounce jars when the company begins production this fall.

For now, Padawer is drying the mud in a friend’s pottery kiln and working with a cosmetic chemistry lab to formulate the final product. She has decided that the final product likely will be unscented and incorporate Pacific Northwest botanicals, such as chamomile, horse tail, elder flower, nettle, seaweed extract and kelp.