tal damage could have reached $2 million. Police said the “brazen and risky” attack appeared targeted, but lacked a motive.  The fire could have caused far more damage, save for a firewall within the warehouse, which protected a number of other brands from destruction.  Yours Only wasn’t so lucky. The entirety of its product inventory was lost the day before founder Ashli Templer’s hen’s weekend. Templer took the weekend to think about what to do, before starting the process of rebuilding from the literal ashes.  “It’s been a long road to get back to where we were. I obviously lost money having not been able to make sales during that downtime, which I didn’t recoup, and then it cost me more to restock what we lost than we would have gained by selling what we had, since there are minimum order quantities,” Templer told Inside Retail.  “I put my entire life savings into this brand. It was a big [financial] hit.” Templer said she reduced her own salary substantially after the attack to keep the business running, and had to learn a lot about insurance very quickly. While Yours Only’s product was insured, Templer hadn’t taken out disruption insurance, which would have covered a period of time following the attack where normal operations were affected.  Throughout the course of rebuilding, Yours Only has moved to a new warehouse and has taken out disruption insurance on the off chance there is a second attack. Despite the difficulties, however, and due to the business’ niche target market, it had the full support of its customer base throughout the recovery period.  A reaction to reactions Yours Only focuses entirely on creating and formulating skincare products for people with ‘dramatic’ skin and body issues, inspired by Templer’s own battles with issues such as eczema and asthma growing up.  “I remember as a kid, I wasn’t allowed to play outside because my asthma was so bad,” Templer said. “[And] I’ve dealt with my fair share of eczema, but I know what triggers it now and I haven’t had [a flare up] for a long time.” Most of Templer’s health issues come from the fact that she has Hashimoto’s disease – an autoimmune condition in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the thyroid gland, and reduces its ability to create thyroid hormones.  This condition has led to a lifetime of food and skin intolerances for Templer, and caused her to dive into what was causing them so she could create something that would cater to customers in similar positions.  These customers, having had bad experiences with other brands, became central to Yours Only’s recovery. “[Our customers] were really supportive. A lot of them were emailing us for any product we had left, because they rely on it so much. I had some personal stashes at home that I was able to drop off for some people, or send them by mail, because people were desperate,” Templer said.  “That was really all we could do though [in terms of product]. They were just dying for it to come back.” During the six-month interim, Templer took the opportunity to deepen the brand’s connection with its customers. The business asked its customers to share their stories around their own allergies and skincare experiences, and used them as a means of communicating with its broader audience.  And, over the past six months, the business has returned its products to market one by one, buoyed by customer demand for its products and the need in the market for non-allergenic skincare.  Despite catering for that niche, however, it is a misconception that Yours Only is an all-natural brand.  “We get so many people telling us they love that our products are all natural – they aren’t. If they were, I wouldn’t be able to use them,” Templer said.  Because the business is trying to cater for multiple skin and ingredient intolerances, it has had to cut out many natural ingredients that are potential triggers: sulphates, parabens, salicylates, amines, to name a few. Instead, Yours Only is formulated to be as safe to those with allergies as possible, which means using synthetic ingredients where necessary. What’s next? Now that the business is back on track, Templer’s plan is not to flood the market with new formulations and products, but to further deepen Yours Only’s current relationship with its customers and improve the pipeline and availability of its six core products.  “A lot of our customers just want the same products but in different sizes, so I’m creating travel sizes and refill options, and basically allowing people to use the products that we do have in the way they want,” Templer said.  “I kind of want to perfect what we do have, and then maybe work with our community to see what else they really need. Because a lot of our customers have their own skin conditions or health issues, we really want to develop products based on that.”