From Kitchen Batches to Multi-Channel Success: How Rustic Maka Scaled Simply

A decade-long Craftybase user shares how she grew her natural skincare business from 10-unit deodorant batches to large-scale operations across Shopify, Amazon, and Faire.

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Meet Kasia.

Kasia Rothe is the co-founder of Rustic Maka, a natural body care company she runs with her sister. But before she was formulating deodorants and skincare kits, she was dealing with a problem that most people don't talk about: her body odor.

"This embarrassing problem has been a blessing in disguise," Kasia says. "Creating something that worked in tune with my body was the beginning of something greater than I ever imagined."

That something greater was rooted in her childhood in Warsaw, Poland. Growing up with her sisters, summers were spent picking dandelions in the countryside, and cooler months meant making fruit preserves. Their mother, Anna, taught them to use what nature offered: potato starch and water for dry hands, sour milk for sunburned skin, chamomile water for sensitive skin.

We learned to take nature's gifts and use simple remedies to battle many bodily ailments.

With her mother's guidance and lessons from the past, Kasia spent countless hours researching ingredients and cooking batch after batch in the family kitchen. When she realized she had something that truly delivered results, she and her sister teamed up with professional formulators to perfect the recipes for commercial distribution.

Today, Rustic Maka sells natural deodorants, skincare kits, and body care items across Shopify, Square, Amazon, and Faire. And Kasia has been using Craftybase since around 2014 - making her one of the platform's longest-standing customers.

The Problem: Spreadsheets Couldn't Keep Up

In the early days, Kasia tracked everything in spreadsheets. It worked when she was making 10-unit batches of deodorant. But as the business grew - more SKUs, larger batches, multiple sales channels - the spreadsheets became unmanageable.

Spreadsheets failed under the growing complexity of SKUs and batch sizes. As a small team with many hats, automation and accuracy were critical.

Running a two-person operation means wearing many hats. Kasia needed a system that would avoid redundant data entry, minimize human error, and give her clarity over operations without consuming hours of admin time.

She first heard about Craftybase from another vendor while working in marketing for a bread company. When she started searching for inventory solutions, that memory came back. She did her research - and the alternatives seemed either too expensive or overly complex for a small-scale manufacturer.

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Finding the Right Fit

Kasia requested an extended 30-day trial to make sure Craftybase would work as she envisioned. It did. The decision came down to three things: affordability, simplicity, and fit for small-scale manufacturers.

"Craftybase brought simplicity and visibility to manufacturing and stock management," Kasia explains. It wasn't just about tracking inventory - it was about gaining clarity and control over operations.

How Rustic Maka Uses Craftybase Today

After a decade with Craftybase, Kasia uses it as the operational hub for the entire business. Here's what her workflow looks like:

Raw material tracking: When she purchases or uses materials, Craftybase accurately updates stock levels so she can stay organized and reorder in time.

Recipes and components: She builds reusable recipes and components - using components for both infusions (intermediate products) and finished products for bundling. This makes tracking materials and creating product bundles significantly easier.

Product development and costing: When evaluating a new product, Kasia calculates its manufacturing cost in Craftybase to decide if it's worth launching. The platform helps her project the viability of new SKUs before committing.

Auto-manufacture: With sales syncing from multiple channels, auto-manufacture automatically deducts materials when orders come in. She reviews inventory regularly and adjusts manually when needed.

Craftybase supported the transition from small batches to scalable systems. It's been critical in scaling the business from 10-unit deodorant batches to large-scale, multi-channel operations.

Growing with Confidence

For Kasia, the biggest win has been trusting the system as the business grows. With increasing wholesale demand through Faire and expanding into new channels, she needed a platform that could scale alongside her - without requiring enterprise-level complexity or pricing.

After 10 years, Craftybase remains the operational backbone of Rustic Maka. From tracking raw materials to costing new products to syncing sales across four channels, it's the system that keeps this two-person team running smoothly.

What started as a personal solution to an embarrassing problem has grown into a business built on simplicity, natural ingredients, and the lessons Kasia learned picking dandelions in the Polish countryside.

Shop Rustic Maka natural body care products here

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