Eureka: Natalie Enslöw on the future of skincare – are microbes the next big thing? 

0:14You're listening to Eureka on Monocle Radio, brought to you by the team behind the entrepreneurs. The show all about inspiring people, innovative companies, and fresh ideas in global business. I'm Laura Kramer. Natalie Anzlo is the founder and CEO of Fior, a high-performance skincare brand built around advanced microbiome science. She launched Fior in 2022 with a mission to address some of the biggest challenges in skincare, the rise of chronic dryness and sensitivity. Born in Singapore and raised between Asia and Scandinavia, Natalie's diverse background gives her a unique lens, merging Nordic minimalism with a global outlook.

0:56In her mid-20s, she walked away from a role at Rolex to build something of her own, and teamed up with a biotech lab in Sweden to create the science behind Fjord. So how do you approach skin health proactively before problems start? And what does it take to stand out in such a saturated industry? Here's Natalie with more on how the journey began.

1:26I grew up in Singapore. I was born and raised there. I am half Swedish and half Chinese. And I went to university in Copenhagen. So a little bit of a sort of mixed bag in terms of experiences. And I moved to London about seven years ago. So when I moved here seven years ago, I sat at the Monocle Cafe. And I remember I had my first sip of my first flat white when I decided to move to London. And I thought to myself, my dream would to be one day be in Monocle. And here we are. I started out my career in advertising and then I moved over to the client side. And, you know, one day I just decided I was like, I think I have to do it.

2:07And I just quit with no plan, no nothing. But I thought if I don't do it now, I will never do it. So I decided to take the plunge and start basically from absolutely zero. I was 25 at the time when I quit my job at Rolex. So I was very young. I knew that there is some level of risk that comes along with starting a startup that early in your career. and I knew that obviously for a biotech to take me seriously, there were certain steps that I need to sort of visibly show. And so I actually built the brand. So the Fjord brand is what you see. That was actually built pre-product, which is usually not how the steps go, but I was also working against time, right?

2:52Because I didn't have very much time to actually invest into creating this. I didn't raise money when I first started. I bootstrapped everything and I put all that money to it I had a finite amount and I was like, if I can make it happen with this amount of money, then I can keep going.

3:13Fjór is an Icelandic word. It means life and vitality and merriment. So it has a very beautiful sort of fundamental meaning. And I think it resonates with sort of whatever wellness thing you could ever really dip your toe into, right? It felt very, yeah, broad. I knew I wanted to be in the business of making people feel good and being sort of more in that health and wellness space. You know, you can even see with the trends, longevity and health and fitness and things have become so important. And I think, you know, we're still learning so much about our bodies and how to look after it optimally.

3:46But you sort of go around and you see how much skin and things like that can actually affect your confidence and affect how you show up for your own future. and I thought to myself if I could be in the business where I could contribute positively to someone's experience then I would have known and I would have had a sort of career that I could look back on and be like wow I'm really proud of what I've done. I really wanted to do something that could play a part potentially positively in someone's life. I also knew that I couldn't do it without a proper scientific background or a product that genuinely could do exactly what I wanted So I partnered with a biotech in Sweden.

4:27Because I had the brand, I presented it to the biotech when I met them the first time. So I said, this is what I'm working on. These are the sort of pillars of what we're looking to create. These are some of the interest areas. You know, do you have anything that would potentially align with the vision that I have? And they said yes. And we harness the patented technology that they've been working on for 30 years. And we put that into our products. And so it's creating something that's truly revolutionary. But at the same time, again, going back to that original mission of, you know, creating something that makes people feel good.

5:09We are a very unique, I would say, skincare brand. We are based on the Hydrolytic Enzyme technology. This is a phenomenal piece of technology. Essentially, what it does is it focuses on the living ecosystem that lives on your skin. So as you know, the gut is rich with lots of different microbes. It's very diverse and we need the diversity. And a lot of people don't realize yet that the skin is the second largest colony of microbes that we have. And it is the clearest marker whether someone will have healthy or unhealthy skin. and we need a rich diversity of microbes that live on our skin as well.

5:52So coming back to the technology, how it works is essentially it breaks the bonds of bad bacteria that live on your skin. So one single strain can't actually take over the skin and it helps other bacteria that's good bacteria to thrive. So if you imagine your ecosystem, you can essentially diversify it, make it stronger so that you have this foundation of immunity that no matter what lands on the skin, your skin can defend itself. And so when we think about modern society, our skin is actually down 84 % compared to our ancestors, which is a scary fact. and that means that we're 84 % weaker in terms of being able to defend ourselves from the rise of acne, eczema, rosacea, dermatitis and these are problems that are happening more and more.

6:47It's exponentially growing and so when you start to look after your microbiome you can actually create a strong healthy environment to achieve the healthiest, glowiest, most wonderful, beautiful, youthful-looking skin that you could wish for.

7:09I would say that skincare is quite a saturated market, but I think given the angle of skin health and specifically looking at the microbiome of the skin, it felt very niche, and it felt like something where we were very much the early innovators, actually, within the space and bringing something quite revolutionary. So, yes, there's a saturated market, but the technology and the products speak with enough cut through that I didn't really sense that fear. And I think considering that we have an incredibly loyal customer base and they keep coming back, it's also a testament that the product speaks for itself and it's something that people are very committed to.

7:52So we have actually stuck mainly online. I think our main two markets are the UK and the US. I think, you know, especially when it comes to the microbiome and I think also the weather aspects, our products really shine in these sort of drier, colder climates. But also because, you know, this is where gut health and I think the microbiome conversation is growing and it's something that's here to stay. It's not so much a trend. I think I'm probably the most excited for product expansion. like product range expansion we launched with literally one product which was our hero product it's the hydrolytic serum it's like our most sort of powerful product and it's an all-encompassing type of product but you know since we launched we've launched also a face moisturizer a body moisturizer which you know people have absolutely loved we do want to complete i would say the full sort of suite of face products for a full AM and PM routine.

8:54But then we also want to look at how we can incorporate this into sort of a more whole body and also actually potentially environmental type of experience.

9:12That was Natalie Enslow, the founder and CEO of Fjord. You can learn more about the brand by heading to Fjord.life. And that's it for this episode of Eureka. We'll be back next week and look up for The Entrepreneurs, available every Wednesday. Eureka was audio edited by Jack Jewers with assistance from Mariella Bevan. Listen again and find out more at monocle.com. That's where you can also join the club and subscribe to Monocle Magazine or follow us and catch up with the archive via your preferred podcast platform. To contact the team, email me at lrk at monocle.com. I'm Laura Kramer. Goodbye, and thanks for listening to Eureka.