CARSON, Calif. — What is clear, loaded with alcohol, and a hot commodity in 2020?
Hand sanitizer.
What You Need To Know
- The U.S. hand sanitizer market is expected to surpass $1 billion in sales in 2020
- Will Parsons and three friends created Sympol Hand Sanitizer
- Creating the perfectly balanced product came with plenty of trial and error
- Their brand is also retailing in select salons, hotels, and grocery stores
Will Parsons has gallons of it, but he does not hoard it — he makes it.
Parsons' family has owned an industrial grade chemical business in Carson, South Bay Chemical, since 1984. Amid the pandemic, the market for chemicals like machinery degreasers slowed as the hand sanitizer market boomed.
“We took hand sanitizer for granted. No one really liked it or ran to buy it from the stores before,” Parsons said.
According to research by Kline consulting agency, the U.S. hand sanitizer market is expected to surpass $1 billion in sales in 2020.
The pandemic has made regular hand cleansing essential to preventing the spread of the virus, causing panic buyers to wipe out store shelves. Eventually the Food and Drug Administration loosened regulations, allowing just about anyone to mix, bottle, and distribute the germ killing gel, as long as it contained at least 60% alcohol.
Sick of all the bad smelling and weird feeling brands, Parsons and three friends created Sympol Hand Sanitizer. The brand combines essential oils with a long-held family formula for hand sanitizer licensed in California and the FDA.
Parsons said creating the perfectly balanced product came with plenty of trial and error.
"One of the challenges we had was making it nice and thick at 80% ethanol," he said.
During quarantine, the only consumers at Parsons fingertips for testing were his neighbors. Seven months in, and four variations of the formula later, Symbol Products has outgrown his garage laboratory and moved into a manufacturing plant.
“I’m a proud Bruin and we supply the UCLA campus along with the physics department, ROTC, and biochemistry departments,” Parsons said.
The brand is also retailing in select salons, hotels, and grocery stores. While his product formula is kept confidential, there is no secret behind this 28-year-old’s small business success.
“Getting local support for a local business is key in order to grow the business. Have strong roots where you start, I think will set you up in the long run,” he said.
As long as locals seek the supply, Parsons' hands and bottles will be filled, meeting the demand.