What was the catalyst for launching Achillea Beauty®?
I am a very active person, going to the gym 5 times a week and I felt the need for a product to hydrate my skin during workouts as it was getting super dry but also to maintain the post workout glow. I looked everywhere - online and offline but couldn't find any skincare brands dedicated to exercise, so I thought I'd do it myself. I start contacting chemists, dermatologists and skincare experts to ask the question and my current partner and co-founder of Achillea Beauty® who is a chemical bioengineer, really inspired me and sent good vibes.
Tell us about the business – what it is, what it aims to achieve, who you work with, how you reach customers and so on?
We are amongst the first brands to design a skincare product dedicated to the times when a person is active. We are however the only ones who formulated a product that is entirely triggered by the heart rate going up, the blood flowing and the body exercising. We focus on an unique state of the face that only occurs throughout physical activity. And we are fully sustainable. What's very special about us is the fact that we are creating a new niche vertical in the UK's skincare market that sits at the sweet spot between fitness/workouts and skincare.
Our mission is to promote and support an active lifestyle that triggers our environmentally responsible products. To disrupt the beauty market with a product that celebrates sport, sweat, heartbeats and general wellbeing.
We envisage a world where more people are getting active and exercise, look after their skin and also care more about what their beauty products contain and if the companies making them give something back. We are working with family owned small businesses in the UK for our packaging and we have a team of women behind our social media and SEO. My husband is also our most patient CTO (chief tech officer for website related issues) and CCO (chief creative officer for helping with content creation). We are reaching our consumers via social media channels, our website and word of mouth, we are just at he beginning of our journey so we try to do as much as we can organically.
How has the business evolved since its launch?
The business was only launched at the end of October, however we have been working on creating the perfect formulations for our products for over 4 years. From the initial idea we had over 20 iterations of the three products in order to get the absolute best cocktail of intelligent ingredients that would lead to quickly visible, but long term results for the skin.
Tell us about the working culture at Achillea Beauty®?
We are a small but might team of people who really believe in the business concept and are committed to work really hard to growing it. I am a marketer so I am wearing many, many hats - creating the brand strategy, doing SEO, PR, emails, looking after the website, in charge of orders, customers, etc. It's hard but I am loving every second of it! We really believe in this progressive and disrupting brand and in its benefits for customers but also for the environment.
What has been your biggest challenge so far and how have you overcome this?
Firstly finding 100% recycled and further recyclable packaging suitable for our products, we made it our mission to have as little impact on the environment as possible so creating the products in this manner was really hard even in our day and age when sustainability is the hottest topic. Secondly being able to source the best ingredients on the market as a small start-up business as usually companies that make them require huge quantities and only deal with very big brands. Thirdly making it work, finding the perfect formulation especially given the fact that we are the first brand to do it, but we haven't given up!
How does Achillea Beauty® answer an unmet need?
We craft products dedicated to fitness and workouts, that leverage the unique state of the skin during exercise and bring a series of benefits including hydration, keeping pores unclogged and acne at bay and delivering some serious anti-aging actives that also maintain the skin's post workout glow. There isn't any other skincare brand on the market that does that and also in a sustainable manner. Our tagline is Exercise. Trigger. Glow. Repeat
What’s in store for the future?
If this initial skincare routine is well received, we have already developed two variations of the facial spray and the cleanser, plus we can expand into hair and body, as well as merch dedicated to exercise - the sky is the limit!
What one piece of advice would you give other founders or future founders?
Never give up on your dream no matter how hard it might seem at a point in time. You've gotta go through the rain to see the rainbow!
And finally, a more personal question! What’s your daily routine and the rules you’re living by at the moment?
Love this question! I am (of course) starting off my day with exercise - an hour first thing in the morning whist enjoying our motion activated products, followed by a cup of matcha green tea and a bowl of fruits. Work, meetings, creative sessions, photo sessions, etc until lunchtime accompanied by plenty of water. Lunch is usually a soup, followed by a walk no matter the weather to decompress and spend some time with my 18 months old daughter! Fresh air and no screen time really helps! In the afternoon I try to meditate for at least 20 min and carry on with work until I stop for dinner with my family (we love fish and veggies) followed by home brewed kombutcha. I then play a little more with Gloria and finish off the evening decompressing with a book or magazine. I am in bed by 10 am to get my 8 hours of sleep usually making a mental list of things I am grateful for before falling asleep really quickly.
Laricea Ioana Roman is the cofounder & CMO of Achillea Beauty®.
