Skincare Sisters
Four entrepreneurs talk about creating plant-based skincare products with a lasting impact
Susanne Kaufmann
It’s pretty humbling to think I started out almost 19 years ago, and it was only ever with the intention of creating product to use in a hotel in Bezau. For the first eight years I just followed my instinct. Luxury for me has always been about integrity and quality of products, not excess; naturally sustainability become the cornerstone of the brand.
Then people started to ask if they could sell it. Of course, I said yes and there was never any pitching involved. Selling to those who like what we are doing grew increasingly as consumers definition of luxury has slowly shifted, with sustainability coming to the fore.
As a brand, we have continued to build on our founding principles, researching the latest developments in ingredients and responsible packaging; our focus is to minimise our footprint.
We have researched and founded new ingredient complexes sourced from the nearby regions of Austria and Switzerland. For example, our Eye Rescue Serum is now formulated with an increased number of local ingredients that reap the same benefits. Customers today prioritise product efficiency and sustainable practices. These small updates to our formulas have resulted in closing the gap between the ingredient source and production facility.
Our packaging has also undergone a sustainable refresh and now features contemporary designs made from recycled glass. Plastic labels have been eliminated; they are now printed directly onto 100 percent recyclable glass with sustainable inks, thus ensuring packaging can be endlessly recycled.
We use locally sourced Alpine ingredients inspired by the flora of the Bregenzerwald region in Austria and every product is developed at our eco-production facility so we can ensure manufacturing is environmentally friendly.
Constance Laperche, Relaxayvoo
Relaxayvoo is about using the best nature has to offer and bottling it efficiently. This means carefully selecting ingredients at their optimum and respecting a culture of no waste. Our products only have natural preservatives, which means they don’t last forever on a shelf and are best used within 18 months of production. Hence, we produce seasonally. The labels are designed by my partner Fernando Gutierrez.
Consumers definitely pay more attention to what they consume, including the ingredients listed on cosmetics labels. They have a greater understanding of how products are formulated. Customers priorities have evolved towards a more conscious way of spending, supporting small ethical brands. I am of course aware I’m up against the marketing giants who can reach a far greater audience but Relaxayvoo customers know that my principles remain stronger than ever. The focus will always be on the quality. I started small and slow growth means I get to reflect on each careful decision along the way.
In the future, sustainability and natural ingredients will be central in wellness. Big companies will have to adjust the way they produce to survive. Bringing sustainability to a company is an education in itself. There is so much information and research to digest and for every article saying one thing there is another dictating the opposite. This is when I get to rely on my gut instinct. I always choose what feels the right way to progress. I don’t get it right all of the time but as I learn, I change.
Valérie Grandury, Odacité
When I launched Odacité in 2009, I came to market with a fire in my soul and a determination in my heart to shake the status quo and push the boundaries of skincare. My vision was clear: I would create a line of high-performance formula with zero toxicity and sustainable packaging.
We pioneered what is now known as the clean-beauty movement, and the fastest-growing segment of the beauty industry.
Our formulas are born from a fusion between raw nature and clinical actives. This fusion can only happen because we own our lab, which enables us to invent proprietary formulas not available anywhere else. Behind each formula, there are years of research, carefully selected ingredients, and months of testing. As a result, we obtain formulas powered by a fusion of the healing power of plants, the latest innovations in clinical grade actives, ancestral medicines such as ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine and the power of aromatherapy.
Ninety-six per cent of our packaging is glass; caps and pumps are still made of plastic. To counter our plastic footprint, we are certified plastic-neutral. Every year we eliminate as much plastic waste from nature as we create.
One-hundred percent of our paper is FSC, meaning certified to be made of responsibly sourced wood fibre. Eighty percent of our ingredients are organic grown without environmental-damaging chemicals, pesticides, or fertilisers and 100 percent are non-GMO.
Over the last two years we have been working with an amazing scientist on growing very rare endemic plants in a sustainable lab environment, while increasing their active compounds. From our first harvest, we extracted a very active plant complex and are currently finalising our first formula. We could not be more excited from the clinical studies and are aiming for a launch date in a year from now.
Louisa Canham, La-Eva
I created La-Eva as a form of self-remedy. I started my career as a clinical psychologist specialising in adolescent mental health working in hospitals, schools and prisons. At the end of a very challenging day of dealing with mainly trauma, autism and eating disorders, and with young children of my own at home, I would soothe myself by making soap. It was my way to ‘wash away’ the day.
Over the course of time, self-led, trial-and-error learning slowly paved the way towards the evolution of bespoke recipes and a strong personal aesthetic. Eventually, after many twists and turns and with a small, faithful customer base nurtured in settings such as Spitalfields Market, psychology took a back seat and my studio morphed into existence in 2014 as a maker’s space. Later in 2017, with both progressive knowledge and clarity of intent, La-Eva was organically birthed. Roll on 2022 and La-Eva has been selected as a leading brand for the much-anticipated relaunch of the new Claridge’s spa and the opening of the spa at the Maybourne Riviera.
La-Eva is a brand that is at the forefront of the changing beauty and wellness landscape, with complete transparency, 100 percent authenticity and aligned with changing consumer desires that include not just personal wellbeing but planetary wellbeing. It is a brand centred on ‘less is more’, ‘buy fewer, buy better’, for instance, championing the re-fill approach.
I have long thought of myself as an unlikely candidate for this job of founding and running an organic beauty brand. If I take a step back, sewing it all together is a deep-held interest in, and engagement with, the continuum of wellbeing. The theories and practice that apply to the understanding of unwellness are as relevant to the other end, that which deals with health, self-care and beauty.
This article originally appeared in Billionaire's Healing issue, Winter 2022/23. To subscribe contact
