Khulan Davaadorj returned to Mongolia 12 years ago after studying in Europe and the US. Going from one climate to another triggered severe eczema and allergies for the first time in her life.
The havoc this created for her became a catalyst for founding Mongolia’s first organic skin care brand—Lhamour. In turn, Lhamour transformed the lives of hundreds of nomadic herders.
Having previously been a renewable energy professional, Khulan switched gears and became a skin care formulator, testing ingredients in her kitchen for eight months straight. “I was not eating in the kitchen anymore,” Khulan says. “It was just like a bombarded test place.” The explosions and failures weren’t deterring her—they were teaching her the complexities of organic formulation that would later become her competitive advantage.
When doctors recommended mild, natural skin care products nonexistent in Mongolia, Khulan saw an opportunity hiding in plain sight. “Mongolia is just so vast. … It’s five times bigger than Germany, but literally only has 3.6 million people. So you can imagine the vastness of nature. … We have all these amazing ingredients literally at our convenience”" Khulan says.
The country’s nomadic herding culture offered access to ingredients like sea buckthorn, rose nettle, yak milk, and goat milk—some of those resources, like yak milk and rose nettle, are rarely used for skin care. After eight months of kitchen experiments to cure her own eczema, Khulan made a decision: “I felt if it is amazing for me, then there should definitely be one other person that will like it as well,” she says.
In launching Mongolia’s first organic skin care company, she relied on the incredible local resources surrounding her and knew that, coupled with her relentless pursuit of perfection, she could create something special.
Building community before the business
Instead of seeking investors or business partners, Khulan turned to social media. “Social media has been a vital part of our journey because, literally, it’s free,” she says. Khulan began documenting her journey on Instagram and Facebook, posting daily updates about ingredient sourcing, formulation processes, and branding decisions.
“I was just posting every single day, in a very friendly way … like, ‘Hey guys, so this is now what I just finished’ and ‘Hey, I’m buying the ingredients’ or ‘Hey, I’m working on the branding,’” she explains. Her transparency did more than build an audience—it created a community of people invested in her success. Documenting your journey in real time can create engaged followers before you can have paying customers.
Friends and family became the first testers, and their positive feedback gave Khulan the confidence to formalize her products. After this small sample size of alpha testers, she moved from her kitchen to a small production room and office, launching Lhamour as an official company.
Creating an entire ecosystem
What makes Lhamour unique isn’t just its organic formulations—it’s the entire ecosystem Khulan created around it. Lhamour keeps everything in-house, from processing the raw material to packaging the finished products. This choice was driven by both quality control and social impact. Maintaining ownership and control can ensure that growth directly benefits her entire supply chain.
“Lhamour wasn’t really just one company. It was literally like a whole ecosystem,” she explains. The company now works with more than 70 suppliers, mostly from Mongolia, and employs 30 people, including 10 women in production who have been with the company for a decade.
The decision to work with nomadic herders proved to be both the most challenging and most rewarding aspect of the business. “These people don’t live in the city. So they don’t have what we have and they don’t have the same mindset. Doing business is a totally different concept,” Khulan notes. When entering new communities and markets, success often requires a learning curve and investing in education rather than expecting immediate results.
“We had to literally work with them, like taking their hands, making sure they have their finance booklets,” Khulan says. The challenges were substantial, since price fluctuations were common, and sometimes suppliers would disappear for family gatherings, leaving Lhamour without raw materials. Despite these hurdles Khulan persisted with “very open, honest, authentic communication” until her suppliers understood that success would be shared.
Scaling through authenticity and innovation
Lhamour went on to launch four flagship stores in Mongolia, establishing an extremely loyal customer base. Khulan set her sights on global expansion next. This transition required learning entirely new skills. “We don’t really do ecommerce in Mongolia because we have our own stores … but definitely ecommerce in the States is so huge.” She embraced platforms like Shopify, treating the learning curve as another challenge to master.
The expansion strategy focused on education alongside sales. Khulan used social media to educate consumers about the benefits of natural ingredients and how it could help address certain health concerns, like eczema. “The educational part and the ecommerce part go together,” she says.
For the US market, she streamlined her product line to focus on bestsellers like the Rosa facial oil, which combines rose hip and sea buckthorn. By narrowing options she could effectively reach new customers without overwhelming them.
Treating sustainability as strategy, not an afterthought
Khulan’s background in public policy and renewable energy deeply influenced her approach to business sustainability. She integrated sustainable practices from day one—a strategy that gives brands like hers a competitive advantage and eventually will net operational efficiencies down the line.
Seven years ago, Lhamour created Mongolia’s first refill stations, allowing customers to bring their own containers for body oils and facial oils. The company was also the first in Mongolia to commercialize recycled paper and even use recycled cow dung for business cards. Lhamour has proven sustainability can be woven into business at various levels and doesn’t have to compromise the brand experience.
“We are literally just a bridge creating something in a modern form that anybody in the world can use,” she explains. Today, Lhamour operates warehouses in Los Angeles, ships globally, and continues expanding throughout North America. The company has received numerous awards across Asia and maintains its commitment to handmade, organic formulations.
But perhaps most importantly, it has proven that businesses can drive economic development in unexpected places. Khulan is creating employment opportunities for women, providing additional income streams for nomadic families, and showcasing Mongolia’s natural resources beyond traditional industries like cashmere and mining. With her leap of faith investment in Mongolia, Khulan has shown others that they too can reshape entire ecosystems.
No matter what growth the company experiences, Khulan remains grounded in the philosophy that named her company: “Lhamour … it’s love,” she says. “So our philosophy is love yourself, love others, and love the environment.”
Listen to the full Shopify Masters interview to hear how Khulan manages the day-to-day operations and continues to uplift entire communities along her path to success.
