Unlocking Everyday Joy with NEOM’s Holistic Self-Care Solutions

0:00Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Skin Anarchy. This is Ekta and I have such an amazing brand brand here with me today. I'm the founder of the brand and I know a lot of you might have heard of them. They're very, very heavy in the wellness space. They really harness the power of 100 % natural essential oils to help boost your overall well-being. But there's just so much more to the brand. So I can't wait to dive in and introduce you guys to Nicola Elliott, who's the founder of Neon. Welcome to the show, Nicola. I'm so excited to host you. Me too. We're so grateful that you've asked us.

0:33Thank you. Yeah, no, it's an honor. And I can't wait to learn from you because I really fell in love with the brand when I first tried it. You know, it's, it's a beautiful way to approach, I think, just self care, you know, and you've crafted it so wonderfully. And I would love to learn about the journey of what really made you want to dive into this space of beauty and wellness. Absolutely. Well, first of all, the brand is nearly 20 years old. I mean, we're the biggest well-being brand in the UK. And, you know, we're kind of relatively new to come stateside. And I'll explain why quite late to arrive in a minute.

1:08But I started because started the brand back when I was sort of in my late 20s, early 30s, because I was a journalist for many years. And I absolutely loved that career. It was brilliant. But, you know, it was a time when it was very normal to be working 16, 17 hours a day. And by the way, I enjoyed that. But I was working London hours, then New York hours, then LA hours, because I was doing entertainment and life just was crazy. And I started having really awful anxiety and panic attacks. And again, this is like, rewind for anyone who's old enough listening to this to remember, you know, we didn't talk about anxiety in the way that we do now back then.

1:53there was no certainly in the UK there was no sort of wellness uh group or understanding or community nothing I mean and by the way I'm 28 right so I'm like living on pasta pesto never seeing the light of day not looking after myself in any kind of way not educated but you know also just young and partying and so I think my anxiety now on reflection when I look back was literally just because I was shoving too much into my life and not looking after myself and um and I remember my mum saying you know it's really not rocket science you have to eat good nutrients you have to sleep well you have to you know go outside and walk and see the light of day and and and and and and I and so I did I thought I've got to do something about this I've got to try and and look after myself a bit better and so I went on a journey where I trained as a nutritionist I trained as an aromatherapist I became really interested in I suppose I mean I say wellness we didn't again we didn't call it wellness then but as part of but as part of that I became really interested in blending essential oils and I became really struck by how when I looked around everyone I knew seemed to suffer from either stress and a manifestation of that in some sort of format or sleep poor sleep getting to sleep staying asleep whatever sleep issue or sort of you know hormonal imbalances mood swings or lack of energy and I remember thinking if there was ever a light bulb moment for the brand it was my gosh if you could have those four things in check those four kind of pillars if you like then you know that is the holy grail and and working in in magazines where you know it was very much the time of the cosmeceutical products and and everything was about how you looked I thought forget that if I could just get those one of those four things for me and the friends of mine into a better place then that's that's the most important and so that kind of was the kernel of the idea to create something that was more about how you felt on the inside and was very much about defining the places to start and then as time's gone on obviously the well-being category has grown and I think where we've become really accessible as a brand is it now has become this big lofty space which is great in many ways you know um but I still find people are a bit confused as to where to start I will tell you I I am very much you know aligned with what you were talking about with anxiety you know because I have also suffered from anxiety, you know, pretty much my whole life.

4:43And it's, yeah, it's been, and you know how it is. I mean, it's debilitating, especially when you've got a busy life, you've got a busy schedule and you, you want to do more, but it's like, you know, I think a lot more people suffer from it, to be honest, than they even realize. I think when it comes down to wellbeing, that's kind of truly for me as a consumer, it's also what comes to mind is like, how do I alleviate anxiety and stress and you know just the day-to-day so I think the brand really speaks to so many of us that not only recognize our anxiety and we might recognize our levels of stress but even those that don't yes it's interesting you've noticed that because it's funny when I first came out I was like oh you know has America got well in the sonar we're not and I did this talk in New York and this woman came up to me afterwards and she went I love your brand but you know just a little fyi in new york women would rather just take a pill for this and i was like we are not your brand because we we you know i i very much feel responsible for message and building a community and and trying to encourage people to build a toolkit up for themselves you can't you know make yourself feel the very best with with a with a one-off silver bullet product or pill or anything this is about creating a toolkit that works for you and enjoying making that toolkit and by the way that toolkit will change it will develop as your life changes as the seasons change as your age you know changes and what we really want to do is start off that journey where you You can build that toolkit and educate yourself a bit at the same time and you test and you learn and you refine.

6:29We don't just talk about our brands. We're a big community where I've just written a book on this, where we talk about all of the other information that we know and we share when it comes to well-being. Because I think, you know, our bath oil, our pillomist, our fragrances work in the very, very best way. but I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't also say hey there's this amazing supplement that you guys should know about or did you know about circadian rhythm because that's like an absolute no-brainer that you've got to educate yourself just for 10 minutes on that or whatever it may be and I feel you're taking a big topic like we are when it comes to well-being that's absolutely the right and the responsible and the rich thing for a brand like us to do so that's become part of our DNA really.

7:20I just brought up circadian rhythm and I feel like we really need to talk about the science here because unfortunately the you know kind of like the the landscape that we're dealing with I think in the U.S. especially when it comes to well-being is either there's stuff out there that's just kind of like hocus pocus or people are focusing on things like supplements you know and there's no like real genuine like okay here is like for example you guys work a lot with essential oils right so there's no no one really talking about that there's a real science here behind this you know the the olfactory sense that we have our whole olfactory system is so highly linked to our stress response our anxiety response all of that neurocognitive stuff that we go through is very much tied to our senses you know and the way that we experience our environment so i would love for you to take a minute to talk about some of the more science heavy stuff First of all, this starts with 100 % natural fragrances.

8:21And the 100 % part is really, really important because as you're aware, I'm sure you'd be aware that so many of your listeners might not be, is that people will say made with natural lavender or made with organic whatever. and that may be true but unless it's 100 % then legally that can be as little as 1 % so all of the science that we know about the essential oils working with our olfactory glands is only going to work if you're using 100 % natural essential oils not if you're using some essential oils and there's lots of and I'm doing this you can't see me but in inverted commas very clever ingredients that you can put into products or candles where you can say again you could say natural sleep inducing lavender based candle um well that could have one percent natural in it um and that could have a whole load of synthetic uh lavender in a whole load of scent booster in so it's made a lot cheaper and it could be a paraffin wax candle again rather than a natural wax candle which you know obviously is not using any petroleum or or paraffin wax which the vast majority of candles in a candle isn't as useful so the first thing is that we only use 100 natural the second thing is that um is the complexity of those blends so one thing that we're really really big on is consumer trials i think this is really really huge because the data and the science behind the essential oils working on the hypothalamus the front part of the brain and how that kind of your your smell receptors essentially are attracted to the chemicals again inverted commas i don't mean uh synthetic chemicals i mean the chemicals in the plants and the things that your body actually need um that that is one thing but the blend of those essential oils together and those working on the consumers that we're trying is for me really testament to how those blends work and then we've got the complexity of the blends that we personally create at neon and they're quite often up to 24 different essential oils so they're very complex blends only use first pressed essential oils so again quality to us is hugely important quite often essential oils will go through four different rounds of pressing so we just get the first pressed the very very very best then they're twisted and blended together as i say in the in the most kind of complex ways and they're tested during that process on consumers and then they're tested as i say the bit that is always really important to me is that they're tested in the specific life situation that for me is really important um plus you mentioned you mentioned magnesium so we've move that much more not just into fragrance but also into all of the different um all the different elements that we can get into products that can also help your well-being transdermally so you know for example uh recent body milk that we just brought out which is gorgeous it's got five fermented essentials and now it's got zinc it's got iron it's got silicon it's got copper copper as well as magnesium as well so we're constantly looking at um the life problem if you like and then the fragrance and the well-being benefits that together can help and then can we can we develop that in conjunction with not just us thinking it smells and feels gorgeous which to me is a hygiene factor absolutely has to be sophisticated but that it's working and we're getting the right decent claims results back from our customers where that's concerned regardless of what you go through you know you have to take a minute and find what works because a lot of times we just gravitate towards okay we might even figure out i want a candle you know in my space that's great cool but not all candles are made the same you know it's like there's this thing that you know you have to find like if something is of real quality like you're going to be able to tell immediately and that's really what I've experienced with Neom is that you know the candles and the the diffuser and the oils and everything works almost immediately you know I'm a huge fan for example of the the sleep collection because I've always had problems sleeping so um you know for me I I've looked for different ways you know to make that happen I'm not really a big person that you know falls into the pharmaceutical category with the stuff but you know when I when When I tried the sleep collection, it was so lovely because I was able to finally relax, you know, and feel my body kind of unwinding.

13:06A couple of weeks ago, a mother saying her autistic son, you know, won't go to sleep without the pillow mist because he has now understood that that's his signal to go to sleep. The mother whose child who went for a sleepover for the very first time took the pillow mist because, again, that's a signal for them to make sure that, you know, that that's their bedtime routine and just the learning education of a routine and how important that is the people who have written so many who've got ill parents or friends and are using real luxury which is our de-stress and they've said that's been you know the the scent that's really helped them during those difficult times when I get those letters in that that you see the product really fitting into those moments, be they small or bigger, that's when I know, yeah, it's really, really working.

13:59I said to you before, you know, there is no silver bullet. I'm not over, there is no pillar mist that can change the world. But it's quite often a real trigger for people to start building that toolkit, to start educating themselves, to start realising that actually small things, put together can make a huge difference. Absolutely, absolutely. No, I think it's really important, especially when it comes to like habit formation, right? I mean, I think that, you know, we want to do better, like as human beings, we always want to improve ourselves, I think, that's innately in us. But it's the hardest part is forming a habit, you know, and I think we're talking about the pillow mist.

14:42And I'm glad you're bringing this product up, because this was one of the first products I fell in love with in the in the range. And the reason for that because it's so easy to use and it's so easy to take with you wherever you're going I mean for me oftentimes I'm traveling a lot or I'm doing something where I'm not at home so I can take this with me and it does kind of it it is that trigger at the end of the night that allows my brain to understand that okay now it's time to unwind make sure that we're constantly really sort of reinforcing and helping to to start people's journey on that on that routine yeah Yeah, no, it's really fascinating.

15:19And I want to ask you actually, because I know that it couldn't have been easy building a brand, you know, that is so holistic in nature. You know, I think that, you know, what we live in now, like the time we live in now, I see a lot of brands that are hyper-focused on like one thing, you know, like one ingredient or like just one approach. But your brand is so beautiful because it's such a, it's a wide range and it's tackling a problem or multiple problems from different angles. So how was that as an entrepreneur to build something that is holistic and to come up with different ways of delivering options for people?

15:57Well, so many answers to that question. I mean, to start with, I didn't start off as an entrepreneur. I started off as someone who really wanted just to create brilliant, lovely fragrances that had wellbeing benefits to them. So I think had I have started off with a view on making money and building the brand quickly, yeah, maybe I would have focused on just one ingredient or I'll be honest, a quicker way to make money would have been to use synthetic ingredients. I always say, you know, to make candles that smell like chocolate buns in a bright pink vessel would have been 10 times easier because they're cheaper to make.

16:34Naturals can be a real pain because we constantly have a team who are having to find out about harvests and you know the essential oil prices will fluctuate dependent on whether there's been a great harvest um and how much of them there's been they will perform slightly differently they will smell slightly differently very much like if you'd gone to an organic market and you buy oranges one day and then you go back you know two weeks later they might be more expensive they might taste different they might look different that's the problem with naturals And whilst I, you know, absolutely adore and fly the flag for the benefits of those naturals, they, from an entrepreneurial, from a business point of view, you know, it will be much easier to press a button on a synthetic, you know, white flower smell, if you like.

17:24And 100 ,000 of these units all come out identically the same. so that's that's the business answer but the fact is I think brands with longevity are those who have a heart and a soul and you know and a real story a lot of this just felt to me like common sense it wasn't business acumen it was the right thing to do which in turn would make people love us and make people want to come back and therein we're producing good products and building a brand and it becomes bigger and I think sometimes common sense can get lost a bit I'm more interested in the journey than the destination always you know I think something you know of my personality as well but the idea of of enjoying the lovely shower or the bath or making, you know, that evening, creating that calm zone or having that really nice sleep, that those bits of magic, they're the kind of, they're the important things in life for me.

18:33And I suppose I'm a bit of a homebody in that way, as opposed to, you know, thinking the Holy Grail is, I don't know, to iron out a wrinkle or whatever it may be. It's about celebrating those life moments. And so I suppose probably it was always fitting for me to launch something that was about celebrating that. And I always thought, you know, the other brands can take those real sort of party moments, you know, glittery eyeshadows and creams that make your bottom tighter or whatever it may be. I want to celebrate that give me the Tuesday night not the dinner party on a Friday give me the Tuesday when work's been a bit rubbish and your boyfriend's dumped you and you are having a midlife crisis let me take that moment and help you hold your hand through those moments and and and that's that's very much where we sit and actually it's a way in which we very much look at you know when we're developing products or developing campaigns or that kind of thing I think you know is this appealing to that Tuesday night not just the Friday which you know yeah I love that I love I love that you said that yeah I I completely agree give me the Tuesday night absolutely you know because those are the nights those are the tough nights that you have to like get that's where we need help right yeah yeah yeah and I and I love that you know I love that you guys have a bath collection because it's like you know I think like for some reason you know I think we've lost over time this idea that you know a bath time is like a sacred time you know it has been for centuries I think over time we've kind of lost that and one thing that I don't see anybody really talking about when it comes to these like shower rituals anymore is this idea of like taking time for yourself you know like really stopping for a minute and saying I need more than just yeah okay you're gonna shave and you're gonna do all that stuff but then it's also about giving yourself a minute to feel better totally i mean it's funny because the states are always you know you guys are not big bath people but we are we're huge and i have a bath every night without fail so i mean we just launched actually a magnesium bath milk which is like a milk that's absolutely based with magnesium which is amazing to relax you know and soothe tired or stressed bodies it's fantastic but something that sells um that's great for shower people is our super shower power body cleanser which is the most marmite product we have in our collection right because it's like zingy with a capital z so if you and i wanted to kind of almost create something that recreated a cold shower for somebody who did not want to jump into an ice bath shower in the morning but gives you that real kind of energy burst and it gives you such a refreshing tingle and gives your kind of mind and body this amazing kind of awakeness so there are bath products but there are also shower products for you know when you want to kind of pre-party or uh you know before a big day at work or whatever it may be um so and i know people generally are either a shower or a bath person and that's fine that's okay um but i do laugh and you know it's really interesting so many of the studies that we have conducted are like 12 minutes in a warm bath is optimum to lower your blood pressure and make sure that the essential oils are really really working so i it's actually becoming a bit more um a bit more of something that you guys are interested in so i we definitely encourage people to try that and sit and breathe in and then the essential oils will work via inhalation and absorption I think that that's something that we all we need a piece of that in our lives everybody and for all of our listeners I always encourage people to really invest you know whatever you're purchasing invest in yourself you know if it's something that's going to actually benefit your long-term wellness like that's the product you need to buy I was Nicola about I love the diffuser in your collection the oil diffuser because I I use it every night you know when I come home from work I turn it on and it just sets the tone for me for my evening it helps me unwind it just it's just a part of my daily life at this point you know and I can't say you know it's true and it's like you know it really becomes this part of you and I love that because I feel like somehow in the world of consumerism, right?

23:20I mean, Nicola, I'm sure you've seen this, you know, people buy so many products, but then like how many of those products can you say that you use every single day? When it comes to shopping and especially right now, it's the holiday season, right? I mean, there's so many people that are trying to find the perfect gift or trying to find the perfect thing for themselves even. I mean, really, you guys, you guys should step back and think, what do I really need in my life? We're in a funny stage where people, women in particular, feel very guilty for taking time looking after themselves and self-care isn't selfish.

23:56And I think this is a way that gives you a very, a very sort of, you know, quite tight moment that you can do something that is sort of almost prescriptive enough that it doesn't feel like, you know, you're having to have a complete life overhaul. but you know just taking a moment and hopefully you can fit that into your day and you can also understand that this is something that doesn't just have to benefit you it can benefit your family as well about your book I've been meaning to ask you if you could tell us a little bit about it the four ways of being so I said to you at the beginning we've created this brand in the UK and And we're such a large platform now with millions of millions of different people.

24:40And I'm so lucky that I have got to interview so many different well-being experts. And as I've kept banging on about, you know, I really believe in a toolkit. You know, I think to get the best out of your life and essentially get your well-being into a good space. You know, there's there's amazing kind of data coming out about brain research. There is some great information about supplements. There's brilliant new information about gut brain access, about to get outside and how to kickstart your circadian rhythm. And this has to come from a variety of voices. And I think because I've been lucky enough to interview so many of those people, I thought, I don't think people know a lot of this information.

25:28And I feel that we should be the conduit for pulling all of that information together. So the book is actually like, I was saying about 20 % of my words, it's 80 % pulling together. And I suppose being a journalist, I felt like I was kind of in the place to do this, pulling together all of the very, very best advice from all the different areas. So you can learn about your, you know, well-being hints and tips that I've learned on my journey. And we took the book out across the UK and it was really fascinating and kind of sad. So many, so much of the stuff that I felt, if I'm honest with you, it's not really democratized well-being information.

26:12And so much of it was just not known at all. And I thought, gosh, this really, this really is information that needs passing on. And as I say, you know, not being overly British about this, but this is not me. This is just the scraping together of all the best pieces of information that's out there. And of course, so much of what has seen the light of day, so much science and data where well-being is concerned, has really only been available to us in the last 10 years. We didn't know about positive psychology before then. We didn't know that you can actually change the way that your brain works and neural pathways.

26:52We knew nothing hardly about the gut-brain axis and the importance of your mood when it comes to looking after your gut when it comes to your mood. You know, we knew very little about all of these pillars that we really want to help people with, about getting better sleep, about stressing less, about boosting your energy, lifting your mood. and so I just felt very very responsible having this huge platform having spoken to all these brilliant people to bring all of this data together in a very easy user-friendly pass-on-able way and and so that's what the book is should be really getting behind sharing really really good solid data that um that we we're seeing the light of day we did this amazing sleep study at Neon with this guy who was fascinating, but he'd gone into the vaults of Oxford University, which I don't know if you guys have heard of, but it's one of our most prestigious UK universities.

27:52And there was all of this information, brilliant, brilliant scientific information on sleep. But he said, you know what, when a lot of this science gets sort of found out, or it sits in a university vault, and it takes somebody very different, a very different skill set to get that information out to the public I thought god yeah of course that makes total sense if I'm a scientist and I figure out you know latest data on gut health for example I'm not the person who's also going to explain that or publicize that or or get that out to the masses I'm I'm a scientist for goodness sake so there's a real kind of disconnect between information that's there and sharing it editing it making sure that the right information the right context gets to the right people and so I feel kind of quite passionate about about you know as being able to be part of that that's so cool yeah I've heard about actually I've heard that Oxford is um very on the cutting edge of uh sleep like understanding sleep you know and the research into sleep I spoke to someone just the other day and he was talking to me about how he started off in that area of medicine at Oxford and then he moved into longevity science so I think I need to look more into this because definitely so my I did this work with this guy called Nick Witton and actually I just I've lifted all the work that we did and put it in the book we did it as a separate sleep study and we were talking about it very much around the sleep products and how they can be used and how they can work as part of that toolkit but I lifted the golden rules that he had given me and put them in the book and you know some of them I don't know it's hard I think oh some of them you would know of course you would know not to drink caffeine after 12 o 'clock or that caffeine has a half-life for example but some of them people just have never heard of you're right there's a lot of knowledge that's just not I mean we think it's out there and we think that people understand but truly general public does not because it's not taught anywhere it's not taught in schools it's not taught in even formal training you know i know for me you know in my medical training i had maybe what one or two hours total about sleep i mean we didn't even learn about sleep it was it's crazy to think about that and how especially something like sleep that impacts your whole body everything you know and we don't learn about it in medical school like that's crazy so I mean I think it's very important absolutely I agree with you everyone wants to feel their best right that's all anyone wants out of life it's to feel their best and be able to have the ability to get the most out of life whatever that looks like for them and um yeah it is crazy that that's not taught so let's yeah let's start a revolution absolutely absolutely Let's do it.

30:54I love that. I absolutely love that. No, I'm such a fan. You know, Nicole, I cannot express, you know, my complete like infatuation with everything that you've built with this brand. I mean, it's so wonderful. And it's so such an essential part. It becomes such an essential part of your day. And for anyone listening, if you're looking for that next level of really that self care next level, you have to get into well being. and you know understand what does that mean for you you know and what are the products that are gonna help you get there and I think that Neom is just a brand that there's something here for everybody I don't say that lightly I think when you explore the collection you're going to very quickly notice that the products are so like there's such a wide range first of all and then also everything is just you know something that you can relate to it's a very relatable brand it's total oxymoron in my world if it's if if it's not something that you feel comfortable to get involved in and there's not a sort of warmth and a and a friendliness around the brand and the way that we talk to you and the way that people in stores would approach you I have this funny thing where anyone who works in the store I'm like the kind of the question I always have is if you had a problem would you want to sit down and have a cup of tea with them and tell them your problems and that's like that's kind of like my you know my my hr question which of course everyone else who was that's ridiculous can they can they explain products and blah blah and i'm like no no it's got to be that because if you can't you need to be able to open up and talk to us about you know about quite big issues i know you guys are available in ulta as well i didn't even mention that to our listeners so if any of you are looking um in the us if you're looking to shop the brand make sure you check out Alta stores Neom is available in Alta stores so check it out I would love to hear from any of you that have tried the brand that are new to the brand please chime in share your story and your feedback but Nicola it's been such an honor to host you and to learn from you thank you so much for your time oh I'm honest that you've asked us I really am thank you so very very much hey guys so I hope you love that episode please make sure to hit subscribe if you're tuning in to us on any podcast platform.

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