Elissa Corrigan: What It Really Took to Build Elle Sera | Anniversary Special

Chapters:

00:00 Three Year Anniversary
00:58 Origin Story Message
03:11 From Idea to Launch
06:12 Daily Mail Breakthrough
09:53 Influencers and Authenticity
14:19 Skepticism and Collagen
15:36 Magnesium Explained
18:26 Golden Pill Ingredients
21:46 Libido and Expectations
24:55 GLP One and Nutrition
32:36 Lifestyle and Real Food
38:58 Healthy Habits and Cravings
41:16 Cravings and PCOS
42:11 Awards Are Pay To Win
46:28 Celeb Endorsements Backlash
48:30 Why We Chose Ampoules
51:31 Tripeptides Explained
57:17 Fake Ads and Ethics
01:02:17 Packaging Perfectionism
01:09:23 Gummies and Liposomal Myths
01:13:05 PR Box Misfire
01:16:07 Endometriosis Hope Story
01:17:56 Design Stress and Wrap Up

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About Elle-Sera:

Hormones aren’t JUST anything. They make you who you are and control everything – your energy, mood, weight, confidence, hunger, motivation, outlook, libido the list goes on. The impact of hormone imbalance on our psychology and behaviour has been dismissed – until now. 

Let’s stop diminishing the way we feel because of our hormones, by uttering those three little words: “I’m just hormonal”, and start embracing the power you can have over them. 

Elle Sera supports thousands of women to reclaim their hormones, including myself. Our golden pill is packed with five potent ingredients, carefully chosen to rebalance hormones in one essential daily dose.

Produced by Liverpool Podcast Studios
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the L S R podcast with me, Kelly, and the wonderful Alyssa Corrigan. Today, Mark's a very exciting chapter. It is our three-year podcast anniversary, which is no mean feet. I think what was the percentage of podcasts that actually like last this long?

SPEAKER_00 0:15

They say that only well, most people don't get to put episode 20 on their podcast, don't they?

unknown 0:21

90%.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

90% don't reach 20%. So what we are on, how many podcasts have we done? Well over 150. Yeah. Do you know what's irritating though? And this should be in the T's and C's. Whenever a guest comes on, they should give us a review. 100%. We're doing well for our customer reviews, though. Can you yeah, we are doing well. Can you put a note on the wall, please, Jacob? Have you been on the podcast today?

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Put it on the door. Had a great time today. Talk about it. Whatever, yeah. We've had some incredible guests on. Um, but you know, today is not about guests, today is about you, about El Surrare. And I think what we'll do is a little recap. Three years ago, we sat on this very couch and we did our kind of opening episode, and it was the origin story of El Cerrar, which the mass vast majority of the people that now listen to this podcast already know. But there are still a few newbies that are thinking, what is El Sarr? Where did it come from? Um, and I don't really want you to start with with the normal way that you narrate this. I want to talk about the fact that you went on Facebook the other night and you literally found the message that started it all. Have you got it?

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Yeah, I have got it. Yeah, I can read it verbatim if you'd like. So let's do it. Uh this was from this message got sent to me 20th of the 10th, 2017. At 20 to 7 in the morning. Hi, lovely, how are you doing? Can't really go to eh, we'll beat that name out. Uh, because I'm too embarrassed. But natural female Viagra question mark. I need to get it in more. Menopause is the pits for your sex life. Any ideas?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

And that was the message that catapulted you into Elsa Radom.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Very much so. Even that though that message came through two years before I actually started, you know, doing anything about it. Uh, it always lodged in my head because I was so shocked by one, this person was asking me and two, what she was asking me. I was like, wow, didn't think this person would come to me to ask me this. And I also didn't think, I just didn't think about it. Uh and that there. So then I went away and I researched things and I got back to her about five or six days later. I've still got the original messages I sent to her. And interestingly enough, all of the things I say now are still what I said then. So I must have had it in the back of my mind. I was still telling her to take Macca, I was telling her to look into trib, etc. I was saying, you know, you need to have good vitamin D levels, um, look after your zinc, etc. Uh, and then, you know, do everything you can, right? Live your life in a great way, you know, reconnect with your partner, try and sleep well, blow your cortisol, all those, all those things that we talk about now. So it was in my head from 2017, and I only really the penny there really was a light bulb moment with this. So, and it wasn't until 2019, and I was driving to somebody else's retreat, and I was on this drive, and I don't know where I'd come up with this or this headline or anything. I must have just thought about it again on this drive, listening to some good music, and I was thinking, female Viagra. And then honestly, four hours it took me to get to Kent, and the music must have been good. And I by the time I got there, I definitely had that like excited energy in my stomach where I'd kind of like thought of a lot of marketing ideas and I'd thought of I'd just thought of loads of things on the way down and put like some notes down on my phone. And by the end of that week that I'd spent in Kent, I'd pretty much like found a manufacturer, pretty much put the formula together, um, or a rudimentary form of it before I spoke to like herbal biologists and stuff like that. But yeah, I'd I'd really moved quickly on it within one week, and it just shows you what you can do when you've got time to think and concentrate. My problem now is I'm just a bit flung in a lot of directions, and my brain is not mine a lot of the time. But when I sit down and concentrate, I can move and I can move fast. Um, and that became kind of what was the birth of the business, I suppose. That was 2019. Yeah, didn't actually launch the business until 2020. Uh, I managed to do it because I had a little bit of seed investment from some money I won on a TV show. It was only a tiny amount though, but I needed the rest of it to come from a bounce-back loan. So I got this bounce-back loan in my own personal name. Uh and I spent 37,000 of it on stock, which was the actual pills. This is the other thing where I think people go wrong in business. They just go, yeah, I'm launching a business. Yeah, I'm doing a supplement, yeah. Just got 500 packets for now. And I'm like, well, what are you doing then? Toe dipping. And the best advice I got at that time from Danny was like, if you're going to do it, do it properly, for God's sake, or don't do it at all. Because the problem is with the lead times being so long, if I'd I could have sold 500 in one night, I didn't know. Or in a couple of weeks. The lead time, as we well know, from our manufacturers, they might say, Oh, it's 12-week turnaround. But we know it's more like six months sometimes. So imagine back then, because I had a really big hit in the Daily Mail after the first two weeks, I would have been out of stock straight away. And all that unbelievable great marketing that I did would have been obsolete. So I spent, I got 5,000 bags, which is what people don't really do. People don't back themselves, especially if they've never run a business before, which I'd never. But I'm risky, so I thought, yeah, why not? Whatever. It's only 50 grand, isn't it? Don't know where it's gonna come from, but whatever. I was just like, so what? I'll figure it out. I've always been that kind of person that's like, oh, I'll figure it out somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

But I think what's important is um we didn't have, well, at the time it was just you independently, you didn't have agencies backing you, you didn't have marketing experts behind you, everything that you did came from your kind of journalistic background. And so the Daily Mail piece really was, you know, that was the one that was the one that cat like was the catalyst for people calling El Cerrar the golden pill. At the time it was the empowerment pill, it was the female Viagra aspect of it. Um, where did that come from? What what where did the Daily Mail pick it up from? Who was it that wrote about it and what was their thoughts about it? Because the VMA Viagra is essentially what we were called at that point.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Yeah, well, that that well, you've said it there. So that lady said it then, and that's what came to me on that drive. And I thought, if nothing else, it's a great headline. We're talking marketing about hooks these days, but I think about headlines. Where's your headline grabbing moment? And that is a headline grabber. And truth be told, how did the Daily Mail get hold of it? Well, I wrote it. Um, and you know, listen, in back then, I was just a relentless self-publicist. You've got to do everything you possibly can do to get anything off the ground. So I rang up a journo that I knew who was working at the mail, and he said, Yeah, it's not right for me, but it might be right for female. So I was like, okay, great. So I wrote this piece saying that women were reclaiming their love in lockdown, that um, you know, sales of this golden pill had gone up 400%. That was strictly true. From the day I had launched the business to the day I sold the story, the sales had gone up 400%. Because they had like one sale on day one, and then like, you know, a few more two weeks later. So that was true, yeah. That was that was the headline they went with. Um, and they used a lovely big picture of me, and it was honestly, I thought it was just gonna be something small, but oh my god, it was because they gave it a massive the full page in the daily mailing. Yeah, it's massive, yeah. I'll tell you what, every brand in the world is desperate to get one of those pieces. It's so difficult to do unless you can write a good headline and a new record. So there you go. Uh, and sex always sells, and then a gorgeous picture of me with my breasts, you know, with my product always helps too, which is exactly what I put in there. So uh, so that was the first piece. Oh my god, wake up the next day, there's this massive piece of go and buy the paper, it's all online, it's just bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. You can imagine. I can't believe it. I think, oh my god, may all ring me up again. They want to do a follow-up. I was like, okay, brilliant. I'm thinking, oh my god, I'm a genius. Loads of people rang me then. They wanted to do a follow-up. So off the back of that, they um they rang me and they'd got somebody to do an opinion piece, which so two days later, some woman, Rowan Pellin, I still follow her now, I'll never forget her, uh, rips me apart then two days later, saying, Oh, I hate these products when they come out, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Well, you're entitled to your opinion. What I was really made up with, but you should have seen the picture they printed of me. It was absolutely stunning. It was amazing. So I was like, oh, get in. No, I really don't care what you've written, no one's gonna read it, but I look class in that picture. Thank God.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

I love winning people around though. We've had a few journalists that have quibbled and they've kind of ummed an arding on whether or not it'll work. And a lot of them now, not saying names, are long-term elsewhere customers. Oh, who go and print about it on their own back. Absolutely. And I love that, and it's why I'm still so passionate about, you know, the we we said in our end of year podcast that we were gonna jump into this world of okay, we'll we'll just if you can't beat them, join them. Let's get the influencers involved and we'll get people uh talking about their authentic experiences on social media and stuff. But actually, um, and I know we talk about it in the office, it's quite enraging when you're now seeing people that we know take our parts. Oh my god, it is talking about other people's products and just because we don't pay them, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

And I'm a really you know, this is the other difficulty, right? Because we've got lots of friends in the public eye. So then they're like, well, I don't want to charge you because I'm your mate. So there's the difficulty. So then their agent will then go and do a deal for them because listen, they've got to pay the mortgage, don't they? So they've got to go and get money somewhere, and if they're not doing acting roles, they've got to like promote stuff online. I get it. Do they take the pills? Do they take the products? No, they don't. They don't take these other people's products. Do they text us late at night saying, Hey, can I have a top up? Yes, they do. Yeah, they do. Um, so in public, they promote other people's brands, and in private, they were the ones that they text. Um what was your analogy? We're like the dependable boyfriend. Yeah, I know. I'm like I can't, you know, like in Sex in the City where Charlotte's shagging that ugly fella and she won't bring him out. Oh, is it is it Charlotte? Um she won't bring you to meet her friends, right? You mean Harry, the one that sends my own. No, no, there's another one. I don't know. And uh yeah, you just like someone you keep behind closed doors. But no, it's listen, and the difficulty is it's like they they feel a bit like, oh well, I I like you and I don't want to charge you money to promote the product. And I'm a bit like, well, I'd rather have the conversation with you. If you're gonna go and do a deal with them, you might as well come to us first and say if you want to do that, do it that way.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

But then it just goes back to the thing that we've always said, which is the the quieter conversations, the ones that I had either in like private WhatsApp groups or behind closed doors, they're the most powerful because our customers aren't daft either. They'll be looking on certain people's feeds and knowing that they're just flogging anything. So they've completely lost their credibility off the bat, which is why we are so reluctant to work with any well.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Once I see that, I can't we now can't work with you. Yeah. Even if I would have gone in and gone, do you know what? I'll better the offer. Sorry, you can't work with you now. Yeah. You've been promoting.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

You can't say on a Monday this is the best insert.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

You've been promoting this gummy. Yeah. And knowing full well it's shite, knowing full well it's absolutely shit, and that you've been told to say it by your manager and where they're the your deliverables. Yeah. And then two months later, when you're out of contract, and they literally come to us like, I'm out of contract in two months, don't they?

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

I'm out of contract in a couple months, so like I can promote yours. And it's absolutely I'm just like, well, no, thanks. Because but then maybe we're and my own, like maybe we think about it too much, maybe actually. We clip our own wings because the general public actually doesn't look at these things. They probably don't remember that XYZ person has promoted. We're so close to it, we just see it. I just see it. Well, the thing is, my opinion can't be bought.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

No, it can't. That's the one thing I will back you up on. If you're saying something that is good, you know that it is.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

You actually got mentioned in was it Fabulous magazine for Yeah, and Julian quite rightly said this is a woman who you cannot buy her opinion, which is very, very true. Then the product was uh it was your collagen moisturizer. It was uh omily. Omelie. O'Malley. O'Malley. I like to call it omelet, but anyway, O'Malley. It's a seaweed-based moisturizer, night cream, beauty drops, skincare range, basically. And they sent me some to try ages ago. I and then loved it, repurchased it myself and have been repurchasing it. And have bought it for friends. Um, and I really, really liked it. Danny, you Danny, I literally lose my pots everywhere because I'll go and find them in Danny's gym bags or whatever. He loves it. He's just like, This is me, this is my moisturiser now. Like, this is my moisturizer for life. Uh, really good products, really big fan of the company, their ethics, what they're about, the ingredients, you name it, think they're great on every level. So I gave him a shout-out in fabulous. And yeah, like, because I'd really back the business. Like, and I wouldn't do that if I didn't, like, I cannot be, but that is the one thing about me.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

You're also super skeptical, and which is great because you know, you have to be a little bit cynical, a little bit skeptical in the industry that we're in. Um, especially when, you know, we were or you were looking at the formulation of bringing out collagen or whatever. Um was there ever a moment with our collagen where you were like, I'm super, super skeptical. I don't know if this is worth it. I'm not calling it out.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

When they were explaining these words to me, and these are the first times I'd ever heard glycine, hydroxyproline, you know, proline. I'm thinking, what are you talking about? Tripeptides, how is it different? You know, I mean collagen's collagen, is it? Yeah, honestly. He I even had to, me and Prof. Went for lunch, and he he had these Smarties out on the table trying to explain these amino acids to me, and I was still not really getting it. So I do appreciate sometimes our audience uh might not understand what we're talking about, but what they should know, what everybody should know, and I've just said this to my makeup girl. I was like, if you don't know anything else, right, and I understand how the supplement could be in mind field, do you trust me? And she was like, Yeah. I went, then trust that I have done the work. I have genuinely done the work for you. So if I am saying that this is good or this is better, or this is why, or this is going to mean more bang for your book, I promise you that is the answer. So the one comparison we always get, and this is the one that she did, she was taking a magnesium, it's£10 on Amazon, and it's got three in one on the front, three different types of magnesium. How's it different to ours? So, first of all, they use magnesium glycinate and two other different kinds of magnesium. Magnesium glycinate is brilliant, but they use such a small dose of it. So they can put it on the front, but it's so it's such a small dose, it's not really going to do any of the glycinate things that you need it to do. Then it's got uh magnesium oxide and something else. Uh citrate, maybe, I forget, but I think it's citrate. Something like that. Anyway, so it's three, it could be mallet, I'm not sure, but it's three in one. How's that different to ours? Well, first of all, we use full dose magnesium bis glycinate, which means they're using glycinate, we use blis glycinate. There's two glycine molecules attached together. It is the most expensive magnesium you can buy. Right? So because it's the best. Really gentle on the stomach, really works, brilliant for like sleeping, relaxing. All those things that women struggle with when it gets to a certain age. Not only that, we have wrapped it in liposomes. So if anybody doesn't know what that means, it's like a tiny bubble of fat that we ratch each bisclycinate nutrient in, and then it can travel past the stomach, past the um liver, and go straight into your digestive system, where majority of it gets absorbed. We're talking 90 to 90 to 5%, whereas our three in one maximum absorption on that would be 40%. So yeah, them might be 10 pounds, but you would have to take uh 60 pounds worth to meet our 20 pounds worth or 25 pounds worth of our magnesium, and that's the difference. And magnesium doesn't just do for sleep, it is everything. You need it in your bones, you need it for like your hormonal cycle cycles, you need it for anxiety, PMS, cramping, brain fog you name it, you need magnesium, it's foundation critical. Um that's the difference.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

You've often said if you could only be taking one supplement, everyone should just be taking magnesium.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Yeah, I would, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

And uh it still baffles me now that when I speak to people and they talk about that's the one thing I will say. In the last five years, we were talking about it earlier. Our customer has real has really changed. It used to be that they would come to us and they'd be like, Oh, I don't really take anything. Now they're taking everything to the point where it's probably cancelling each other out or they're just not optimising their supplement routine at all because they are literally working their way through the alphabet of every vitamin that'shroganda. They're throwing everything throwing everything and hoping that something sticks. And a lot of the time you have a conversation with them, you think, well, yeah, you're taking all of these things, but when are you taking them? Are you taking them at the right time? Are you taking them alongside the right thing? You know, if you're on any other medications that might be having a counteractive uh effect. Um, we still only have five ingredients in the golden pill. Will it always stay that way, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 18:39

No. We're going to add two more ingredients. And I can't say anyone will notice. We're going to add B6 and we're going to add zinc. And the reason why? Mainly to give us some leeway with the health claims that you can make. Uh, truth be told. So uh in the UK, you'll see a lot of supplements with adaptogens and adaptogenic blends. And you while you don't need to add vitamins to it, you need to add vitamins to make health claims because vitamins are the only things you can make health claims for in the UK. So to direct people to your amazing supplement and the wonderful things that your adaptogens do, then you have to put a whisper of vitamin in there to say, well, this will help with hormonal balance, etc., which is why we're going to do it. Simple answer.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Simple answer. No, but it's still, we still get the question of like, you know, what ingredients are in the golden pill, and you list the five, and they go, well, there must be more. And we're like, no, it's the those five ingredients. So it will essentially be read out the ingredients, they will be.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Uh maca, uh, ginkgo, Siberian gin zinc, tribulus, uh, beetroot, B6, I think. So we're moving up to seven. So still could you eat no, I would say five therapeutics. Could you call, you know what I mean? And I only use beetroot, by the way, because I didn't want to use fillers. Yeah. So that is there. Because you can't have you need the thing is about people who slide our supplements online. I I look at them and I think, when's the last time you formulated a supplement? Do you know understand how these powders get into machines? Because otherwise it can go crunchy in a machine, the powder. So sometimes you need that like lubrication. That's why people use fillers. And I hate the way people who are in the health space go, fillers are bad, they're really not. Can I just tell you right now, fillers and additives are not bad for you. They wouldn't be on sale, they wouldn't be able to be consumed. Things like maltodextrin, yeah, in massive quantities, it'd be horrendous for you. But nobody's having it in those quantities. It's just a lube the powder into the machine. That's it. And people with no brain cells or not in the supplement space, or PTs who basically are just PE teachers, or people who've never formulated a supplement, will go on like they know and they don't know. You don't know. It's mental. And I just think, oh, right, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

But we're still very much quality over quantity. Um, I know the one that is a real bugbearer for us is when people go, Oh, well, I don't need to take um magnesium because I get it from my multivitamin.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Or I get it from, you know, my insert general wellness actual no, you're not getting it in the anywhere near the quantity that you need to be getting it in. So you absolutely can be stacking it. We're not dissing it. If you want to go and take a multivitamin or you want to take something that has 17, 18, 20, 26, what's the one that's got like 79? 79 ingredients. A G1. Yeah, go for it. Um, but are you gonna be getting anything from it? Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

But you might as well just eat a broccoli and an orange, and you would have covered your bases. Yeah, I can guarantee it. That's it. I can't get my head around that.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

No. So Elsa R started with a message about libido, and in the five years we've been operational, libido is still probably up there in the top three things that people designed the product.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Don't forget, it was like. Like that lady messaged me that I was going in with a female Viagra headline. So I was trying to find things that would optimize that. Because I do believe that, oh my God, like look at the girl you were when you were in your 20s. Look at the girl I was in your 20s. Your hormones are raging. You just you're out, you're this, you flirty, you're fun, you're feeling confident, aren't you? I'm gonna reclaim that a little bit. That's all it's about. Um, and to do that, you can optimise yourself in the way that you can tip yourself in in that other direction. Um, you know what I mean? So maca, brilliant, great for fertility, great hormonal balancer, can help lift libido because it balances your hormones out, so oestrogen's not getting too high, etc. Um tribulus, it's main thing for females. It's been studied lots for women with menopause or women with sexual dysfunction. Um, loads of studies on that. In fact, I sent you a whole raft of studies the other day on it, and kind of interestingly to know that uh everybody who took it in clinical trials took it for 90 days, minimum, 90 to 120 days, minimum. Um, so when people take our product for like two weeks or three weeks and they go, it's not lurking, and I'm like, don't even come back to me until you've been on it for four months.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

That is a disclaimer, and it's everywhere on our site, it's every conversation that we have. No one can ever say we are anything other than transparent when it comes to setting realistic expectations from our products. Yes, the Daily Mail hailed us as a female Viagra, but actually, we've always said it's a daily supplement that is meant to be taken consistently as opposed to building the body over time. Everything is based on 90-day clinical data studies. So if you're not gonna give it three months, kind of don't waste your time and don't waste your money. And we would rather it be that you go and find an alternative route because we don't want to say you're gonna get this. We're not that supplement company that says you're gonna lose your menopause or belly in seven days. We're not that we're not, we actually turn people away from buying our product more so than than not. Um but yeah, coming back to the the the libido thing, we're still getting it, we're still getting the same common questions about libido about how long will it take to make an effect. But what I have seen recently, and I do want to talk about it because I think that it's really important, um, is the more people that we're speaking to now that are saying, Oh, I've been taking it, it was having great effects, and now it's not not as uh obvious. And when we get down to it, it's because they've now started to introduce things into their routines, such as GLP1s, they're either on something like a uh a surtraline or an antidepressive, or they're now on you know an additional medication. Why is it that that would affect the effect that LCR has on the libido?

SPEAKER_00 24:55

GLP1, let's that is an appetite suppressant, okay? So you are stopping your body from eating. Now I've been going on about this. It used to be called the skinny jab, right? And I've got a highlight on my page on my personal Instagram because I bought a skinny jab because of when I was a journalist, still there. I keep it on there. I'll just have a look at the date on it. 2020. There I am, there I am for the camera, talking about the skinny jab. And everything I say on that video is could still stands today for the GLP one. So basically, I bought it because I was having to do it an undercover kind of report on the skinny jab, where you could purchase it and who was purchasing it. They weren't supposed to be giving it to people who weren't overweight enough. Look at where we are now, Jesus Christ, everybody's taking it. But um, so I I I was obviously really lean and they sent me into a clinic to go and buy it undercover. Could I go and buy it? Yes, I could, got hold of it. So, uh, and then I tried it. One day, went back to bed, it was absolutely horrendous, threw it in the bin. The whole point of like your body is made up of like, can you imagine like a whole raft of test tubes, right? And you need different nutrients and minerals every day. You need vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin K, copper, manganese, boron, all these different things, right? All in food. If any of these are off and they're low, your body sends out a hunger signal and says, I need some food because I'm low in magnesium or I'm low in vitamin C or I'm low in whatever. So you'll get a hunger signal. And then let's say, oh, I'm hungry. I eat a pie. Okay, nutritionally deficient food, like a pie and a Mars bar and a backup of crisps. There's no like nutrients in that. So I get so then my test tubes, right, that you need from your fruit and veg and everything else are not getting topped up. So you you might so then your body goes, Well, I've just eaten and I've consumed calories, which was all mainly carbs and fat, and no none of the real nutrients that are needed. So I'll send out another hunger signal. That's why you could eat a pizza and a burger and be still hungry two hours later and want to eat junk, and you people who eat junk constantly are constantly hungry because they are never hitting their nutritional profile. So, what happens with GLP1 is you're getting hunger signals and then you're eating garbage food, so pro ultra-processed food, which is nutritionally bereft, like literal cardboard and calories, like loads of I don't know, saturated fat, but no real nutrients in there. If they were eating a nutrients-dense diet, then they wouldn't be getting those hunger signals all the time. So, what they're now doing is they're eating shit and they're thinking, I've put on loads of weight. Stab themselves with a suppressant, so now it stops them eating at all. So now they've got less nutrients than ever. And the body then goes through yes, some fat, muscle, losing water, but it starts shutting down a bit your body if you're not ki filling up your test tubes. And I noticed this myself when I did rapid weight loss on the island very quickly, what happened to my body? So after five and a half weeks, my period stopped. So I know my body's shutting down at that point. If your fertility's stopping, sex drive. What was the last thing on my mind was oh my god, there's a fit fella, I'd go and shag him. No, like that couldn't have been further from my mind. All you're thinking about is where can I get my next meal from? I need to survive, I'm hungry, because your body's that's in survival mode at that point. And this is when you're having a GLP one, of course your libido's not going to be up. You've got to be full and bright and abundant and vibrant for your body to want to procreate. And that's essentially what you're doing. So, again, so you go on GLP one, you're not eating anything, and then when you are eating, you'll go out and you might have a meal in a restaurant which is laden with butter, it'll be mac and cheese, a steak, this. Again, no one's filling up themselves with big bowls of salad, are they? They're just eating more shit in less amounts. Wine, alcohol, so their body's still starved from the inside because they still haven't got all that the nutrients. And actually, if they'd started with a nutrient-stensed diet, whole food nutrient-stensed diet in the beginning. One, you wouldn't get the cravings. And this food noise that people talk about, I would argue is not food noise, you're nutrient deficient. You're not deficient in calories, you are nutrient deficient. There's a big difference in that. And it's something when I did retreats that we used to really teach people, we're like, you are nutrient deficient. Like that's why you can get skinny fat people. People who are very skinny, they're like no muscle tone, no nothing. And again, that the body's just it's just nothing there. Do you know what I mean? They're slim, but they were gonna have a knock-on effect. So they're on GLP ones, just to go back to your point. Uh they've got no libido because their body's in survival mode. It's the last thing they want to do, so it shuts down that kind of like desire. Um and I believe is it JP Morgan or I can't remember, I'm sure it was JP Morgan. They're stopping their staff from going on GLP one because they say that loses their edge. Because obviously, people at JP Morgan, they're known for being very young, hard, aggressive, yeah, usually young men. And if they take GLP1s, you lose that kind of edge to you.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Well, the the there was you probably sent it to me, let's be honest. If there's anything that I've read that's of a document nature, you've probably sent it to me at like half two in the morning. Um, but it was saying about the GLP1 thing that because it is not, it's not just the appetite suppressor, so it's kind of stopping people feeling that kind of like love bubble situation. Yeah, what's it doing to your oxytocin? What's it doing? I don't know. I'd never basically I'd never really thought of it of that way. We're and it's again, full disclaimer, we're not against it, we're not for it. If it's working for people, we have a lot of our customers that are on GLP1, uh, whether it be Wagovi, whether it be Monjaro, whether it be Zembek, they're on these things. If it's doing positive things for them and it's helping them in whatever way or power to them, it's fine. But we're also trying to be, I suppose, caring in the respect where we're saying like you can't out-supplement some things as well. A lot of people are coming to us and having great benefits from our collagen because they're experiencing severe hair loss. The hair loss is, of course, a byproduct of really, really rapid weight loss.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Yeah. So they're going on my hair. No nutrients. You can walk around with a bald head and live a perfectly healthy life. You don't need nutrients in your end of your nails. You do definitely don't need it in your hair. Your hair quality is not going to be good unless you're kind of getting all those vitamins and nutrients in there. You've I've never seen anybody who's starving themselves have great luscious hair. Have you? They're just like, no.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

But it is, it's been so interesting over the last kind of 12 months to see people who were taking our products before starting it, or they've taken they're starting taking the products because they're trying to, I don't know, repair an area that's been negative. They've had this incredible weight loss journey and everything's great and really positive in that respect. But, you know, they are suffering with their hair, they're suffering with their nails, their skin elasticity is gone. So they're trying to then fix those areas by supplementing. Whereas what we always say is like, yeah, you it it will help, but you're gonna need to give it that little bit extra now because what you are taking is gonna suppress some of the benefits that you would have, which brings me back to the libido aspect of it. When we're speaking to women now, I do think it is so important that we are setting realistic expectations here because yes, you can be taking the golden pill and it will absolutely be doing you internal good. But if you are also taking other things or you're not getting nutrients, you're not getting great sleep, your partner isn't giving you what you need mentally, never mind physically. Like that's not going to change your sex life overnight.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Exactly. You could be feeling like really flirty in the afternoon and thinking, yeah, I'm I'm up for it tonight. And then, you know, you come home, houses a shit tip, you've had to do, I've literally got a studio on my phone, which I'm about to post on Instagram later, which is all linked to like women's labour in the home, how much they do, just the mental load, picking up the kids. So while you might have been feeling great at three o'clock in the afternoon, by the time it comes to seven, you've done bathtime, you've done bedtime, you're now exhausted. You've made dinner for everybody. Yeah, it places a shithole. You've got to stack the dishwasher, take everything in all the bins out, feed the pets, do this, do that. You're now not interested because you're like, So I get that as well.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

No, but you said it were when we go kind of do like Valentine's Day, and people want to talk about the romanticisme of Valentine's Day and how it can be really, really sexy. Actually, just like make me a brew in the morning. I love that. You know, like give me a kiss before you go to work. I'd rather that than you throw in the moves on at night time and just having an expectation, which I'm not talking about me personally, by the way. I can't I can't. Sean's amazing, but I know that the the other women that we talk to don't feel that way. So take as many supplements as you want, but you can't out-supplement bad lifestyle routine, which you are always going on about. And I wish people would listen more to you because they do get better benefits that way.

SPEAKER_00 34:21

Yeah, well, it has to start with your lifestyle. And I am somebody who genuinely wants to walk the walk. I don't preach it and don't live it myself. Do you know what I mean? Yes, I've I've not been as good or true to myself as I should be. I'm not hitting my 10,000 steps as much as I should be, but you know, I beat myself up more than anyone can imagine about that. Um, so yeah, and I've always been like that though. Even when I was running retreats, I was, you know, so I've always been quite tough on myself. And I I don't want to be one of these blaggers. I couldn't stand here and be a supplement owner and like talking about wellness and health and this, taking GLP one. I couldn't.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

I actually it's the same as people talking about hair gummies wearing hair extension wefts.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

That's there we go. We're into we're into grind my gears territory. Yeah, that was disgusting for me to learn that recently. That actually made me really angry. I was just like, what the fuck? Like lit like the internet is bullshit. I know. I'll just say that both of us, you know, we went down that thing of like, let's preach self-care. So we've both been another blow drive today, and I haven't been into that salon for probably about a year. And everyone's like, Whoa, what happened to your hair? And I was like, that would be the uh Elsa collagen. Well, and also look at you, you look completely different. Yeah, if you were to watch like this this same episode from three years ago, like I, yeah, I'm half the person, like physically but mentally, definitely in a much better place.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

Yes, like a thousand percent. And that honestly, and this is the other thing with GLP one, yes, it's you're still putting in the work. I'm not taking that away from. Can we just remember why it was brought out? It's to stop people from going diabetic. Yeah, it's because it literally you need to pull back now or you're going to die. But territory, you're not a size 12 and you want to be an eight. Like that's not for you.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

But then it's also making this like a negative stigma about it being just for people wanting to lose weight when it's actually doing great work for people who either are diabetic or have a multitude of other issues.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Or they're gonna be like the pre-diabetic.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Pre-diabetics, you know, the the people with um and like endocrinologist issues and things like that. You know, there's there's a space for it. We know people are doing it. We want to be the best support that we can possibly be to them. But I'm also not just gonna stand there and go, like, oh yeah, these supplements are gonna be great for you because of this, but because you you can't. It would be it would be ill advised to do that. There's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

What I would say, when you are eating, eat real food. Yeah. When you are eating, just eat real food, you're gonna feel 10 times better on it, honestly. Yeah, you might I think it definitely can have a positive effect in the fact that when you start it and then you've lost a bit of weight and you're like, right, I want to go to the gym now, I'm not embarrassed to go to the gym. Need it, yeah. And then when you are eating, it's not an excuse to, oh, well, I haven't had a pizza all week, so I can have one on a Saturday. Well, I'm Miss's tough customer. And I'm like, well, no, you haven't eaten at all all week. So where are you getting your nutrition? In fact, I used to say this all the time. And somebody picked me up about on it in the retreat. They said, I heard you say it the other day. Like it wasn't where are we eating, it was where am I getting my nutrients from. And if you think like that, where are you getting your nutrients from today? And if you look at your plate and it's like chips, bread, sandwich, crisps, whatever, I get is that does that look nutrient deficient to you? Yes, it does.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

And you in everyone knows that.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

But I like to be the middle ground on it because you've got people that are saying, do this, extensive weight loss, amazing. You've got the other kind of like the PTs of the world that are just really hitting down on it, it talking completely negative about it. I like to be down the middle and get and accept the reasons that people do it and when they want to do it, but support them in an effective way. I can't believe that there are um companies out there now that are paying like GPs and physicians to talk about it and to sell it, but they're not giving them the education behind it about the nutrition aspect of it. We're sitting there watching people who have turned trialing L Cerrar adaptogenic herbal supplements out because they don't know there's that much data around it. Watching them now literally funneling these kind of weight loss things, but not giving them any sort of advice surrounding what they should be eating alongside it. Or just just put this scoop it, scoop this powder in your drink, and that'll be fine. No, just go and eat some greens.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Yeah, just go and eat some greens.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

You've got to do the healthy choice alongside it.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

You have to weight train as well. You have to weight train. You don't want to lose your muscle tissue. Muscle is literally the key to looking young, feeling young, longevity, you name it. I was very impressed with myself the other day. I went for my neco health test. You did? Optimum human being. Like couldn't have got better. What was your cardiovascular? Well, he said it was the best he'd ever seen. Wasn't like I actually I'm not 40, I'm 34. You're 34. And but that's come from my life. I wouldn't say abstinence. I still have a nice life. I still go lovely places, but I make better choices. Tonight I'm going to dish him. I've already looked at the menu. What am I gonna have? I'm gonna have the chicken tandoori, which is just like chicken, and I'm gonna have all the greens. And I'm out for dinner, I'm having a nice time, but I don't need to I don't know. I don't know, maybe I don't know. Maybe I'm blessed with having not got that like I don't know, uh reward mechanism in my head when I eat. Because I just feel bad. If I eat if I ate a burger and chips, I would feel dreadful after it. I'd be really angry with myself as well. I just think it's not worth it. So I d but I know for other people it's not like that. They like they love it. I haven't eaten a burger in ten years. Yes, I haven't.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

Well, I've well edgy. Well no, um I worked on a cattle farm, so I've got my I've got my I don't mind cooking steak and burgers and stuff for Sean and stuff, but I I don't get that. But um even like the sweet, the sweet treats thing coming off sugar was like what I imagined coming off crack was. It was horrible. I'd have it'd be like three o'clock in the afternoon and I'd be like, just turn the lights off and shut the curtains. I just need 10 minutes. It was horrible. It was like my brain was like to me. Um, but no, I I don't crave like crispy cream donuts were my favourite thing in the world. Kelly three years ago would have walked out here and gone, L1, I'm gonna get a Krispy Kreme donut. Um, and I haven't had one of them in a long, long time. And when we were on holiday in Australia, we were like, let's get a donut. And I had like half with uh my little nieces and nephews. And after that, I was like, oh do you feel what did you feel like? I was like, oh, I've done that now. I'm alright.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

You'd think like, oh my god, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

Oh god, it was amazing. Yeah, it was like a vanilla custard donut. It was like the it was like the donut of dreams, it was amazing. But I was like, oh, I've done it now and I'm and I'm happy and I've not denied myself it, but now I also I'm not gonna want to have more and more and more of them. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

I I don't know. I'm just blessed with like even when I was pregnant, I had an ice craving. These people who get cravings for like crisps and stuff, I feel for them.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

Ice spinach, I always crave spinach, I'm always craving spin, but that's because I obviously have really significant head loss of hair because of the uh PCOS and Endo stuff, but um yeah, my my cravings are are and are completely different now. It's literally things like yeah, spinach, and I really love carrot batons on hummus.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Yeah, but if you saw me in work, like I live off carrot batons. I've I actually wrote um some so I feel like we're waffling now. So I'm trying to pull it back a bit. So uh what do you think, Jacob? So like you two are chatting shit. So I wrote down things. I wrote down things that have done my head in recently. All right, okay, go on. So something else that has annoyed me recently about like the supplement, it's not just supplement, it's everything industry. Awards. Can I just say, and this is why I'll never win any of them for what I'm about to say right now, and I don't care because I've won the hearts of my people, and that means more to me, um, than your magazine who I have to pay basically to get the award. So uh we get like offered, do you want to go into this award? Do you want to go into that award? You know, best supplement, best this. And I already know from the work that I've done and the manufacturers that I work with, genuinely when I put my head on the pillow, I know that is absolutely the best supplement we could put out there. I know that. I'm so happy with that that I live a really blessed, really great night's sleep because of that. And I'm not out there to fuck anybody over. So when people then, like we might go in for awards and they'll say, Oh yeah, well, it didn't win it. And I'm like, what? I was one recently as we came second to this absolute non-entity, we'd never even well, I'd heard of them, and Kelly had never even heard of them, and this non-entity product which was just rudimentary collagen powder that Daltons were so big they're not even gonna get in anything, like pointless, like wish hope, chuck it in your coffee, hope for the best garbage. And that beat us to the to the to the award. But to add insults to injury when you read the comments as to what comment from the judges, it was like, well, we'd love to work with your business in the future. You know, perhaps you might want to buy some advertising space, or would you like to support us internally? I.e., pay for some advertising features, send us loads of products in the office. And then no problem, you'll win the award.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

No, I actually meant from the fact that when you read the comments about why the other business had won in comparison to us, it was because the person who was judging it had actually tried the other product and not tried ours. And that was the thing. Yeah, send us a hundred units for for judging. Great. Well, don't be send them now then. No, send them on X date. Well, why would I send them then? Because that's only like a week before the actual awards. Oh, people don't actually try the product before they pass judgment on us. Of course they don't. So what are you doing? It's it's a problem.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

But even if you look at the formula, like you couldn't, there's no there's no body on God's green earth that could unless you've been paid or bribed or whatever to say the other one was better. There's just no way. How can you win an Innovate UK award, right, for our formula, and then oh, some stupid magazine has gone, oh well, you know. Anyway, so that it really did my head in, did a LinkedIn post on anything. But it honestly, these magazine awards, they've make me fume because one, they're not judged fairly or unbiasedly, two, they just want you to buy advertising space. Three, they want you to then pay to use their logo on any of these awards. So I want to say to you as consumers, right? When you see has won this award for this product, I want you to discount that because they paid for that. It does, it's not on the strength of the business, it's not on the strength of the company, it's not on the strength of the products. The person who's awarded that has literally never even tried it. So I just want you to remember that when you see an awards plastered all over an ad online, that it means nothing. Discount all that because you could pay to do it. I'm of the opinion, shall we just pay to do it? But I would obviously when we when they go, oh, it's three grand or it's five grand or it's eight grand to use our logo, I think, well, I'd rather take that eight grand and take out my real customers and have a great time with them. And because they really shout about us and they're the ones who support us and put us in this position in the first place. Yeah. Rather than pay you for your stupid logo of something that you've never even tried, and you have got who are you to judge anyway? What's your qualifications? Well, you sat there and like, I bet they haven't even got a journalism background. They're saying they're journalists, I bet they've not even got an NCCJ. Well, I've got 10 of them.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

So they've definitely not got anything in the way of the nutritional.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

That's one of the things that pissed me off this week.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

Well, on the flip side of that though, the other thing that pisses me off is when you get, and I I I sit there and I vet all of our um Instagram uh comments and messages, people are absolutely vile when they're sat behind that keyboard and they say very nasty things about people who've been on our podcast, whether they be a customer, whether they be a celebrity, and they talk about the experience and they go, Oh, well, this insert has been whatever, talking absolute horrible stuff about them. I bet they've just been paid to say it. Well, let me tell you now, they haven't. That is the other thing as well. Abby Clancy was never paid to say anything about our product. That was actually, we couldn't have paid for that amazing exposure. That was just someone who loved it, talked about it with their mates, pool side, happened to throw it in a podcast with her husband, and then the internet broke overnight. Well, our website definitely did. It was insane when that happened. The same happens with the vast majority of our other celebrity customers or our or people that are in the public eye that are talking about it. We don't pay them.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

And this is the thing. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

This is the thing that happened at the top of the chat, but you know, that's the argument. They don't want to charge us because they love us. So they feel bad, like, oh, I can't take money off you because I love you and you love your product. Yeah. So then the agents do deals with other businesses behind their back. Yeah. And then they would, yeah, it's difficult. I do get it. I can see it from all sides. Yeah. I see it from all sides. But yeah, so you've got so I'm really grateful of the support that all our celebrity customers give us for nothing. But um, I actually did a video on this the other day, and I was like, you know what? We could go and buy a face, we could go and get one. But I spent my money on finding a professor, and I'd rather him be the face. And let's be honest, the product is a celebrity. So, in my eyes, that product is a celebrity. Yeah. And we don't need a face to sell it, it sells itself. You just need the prof and and you need the ampul. I feel like I want to get a massive ampoule made, like a fucking rocket ship.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

Tell us about it. There's a few people that are asking about it because we you know, we we brought it out to market. It was mega, everyone loves it. They call it different things. Some people call it a bullet, some people call it the ampul. It's a unique dose. What is a unique dose? What where's the origin from that? Why did we pick it?

SPEAKER_00 48:48

Okay, uh, full disclosure, uh, it got sent to me. And so basically, uh, when we're looking at this collagen product, um, we were looking at what we could do. And I'll tell you right now, I don't like sachets. So I didn't really want to. I knew I didn't want to do sachets, but then that was kind of like the only individual way you could serve it, unless you wanted to do a bottle. And I'll tell you what else I came up with at the time. I was giving Grace some cowpol one day, and I thought, that's it. Do you know? Like I was gonna do a bottle with um have you ever seen the new cowpol feeders? Like the syringes, yeah. You pull the stuff out and then you'd square it in. Yeah. That would have made it cool. I don't know, some kind of gold thing, whatever. I don't know. That I was like, Gareth, I've got the idea, yeah. Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, he'd been to an expo and he was like, look at this, what do you think of this? And I went, I've got to have it. As soon as I saw this French invention called Unique Does, because ampules, glass ampules was the way we were gonna go as well. There's a lot of difficulty with that. People don't want to be snapping shards of glass every single day. I get it. So um, when they found this, I was like, you've got to get it. Move heaven and earth. But the problem was you, the manufacturer would have to then buy the machine to then fill the ampules, and the machine cost so much money. But I was like, just get it, just get it. I was like, please, please, we need this because the what I didn't want to do sachets, I really didn't want to do that. I wanted to elevate the product away from that market. I don't like Sashage anyway, they're not very environmentally friendly. But then you just bring it out, everyone would kind of like class it as the same thing, and it's completely not as a dry peptide. We'll kind of just say that we're up here. And if anybody who's just listening to this, I've got one arm by my bum and one in the air. So yeah. Visual aid. Uh a visual aid. So um we've created like a whole new category, and that's what was important to me to kind of differentiate ourselves and elevate ourselves away from that. And I believe that is it's so convenient, they're cool, they look good, they're also recyclable, which is also something I was important it was important to me. They're recyclable, not in like, you know, your supermarket rubbish, it's in house rubbish. Yeah. So we've got so people can just put it in their recycling bin goes away and gets recycled.

SPEAKER_01 51:15

We're a massively sustainable business, but I don't think we ever really shout about it.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

Just honestly don't think consumers care. Just know that again, one of these things that I've done the work.

SPEAKER_01 51:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

Just know that we've done the work, so you don't have to. That's all you need to know.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

You just said then we kind of opened up a new category. Um, a lot of people are still not understanding the concept of like what is a tri tripeptide in terms of kind of molecular.

SPEAKER_00 51:37

It's the only bit of the collagen that works. So when you're taking your 8,000, I don't know, grams of collagen or your 10,000 grams of collagen wherever in a sachet, number one, it's a really big molecule, 3,000 doltons. The only way your body can absorb it is if it's under 500 doltons. It's already too bulky. And how is it? 300 to 500 maximum. Yeah. So if you had like 10,000 just for easy maths, 10,000 milligrams of collagen, of that, you're probably absorbing less than 1% of the tripeptides. So to get the same amount as ours in one tube, you'd have to have 26 sachets a day to get the same effect. And even then, what you absorb, which wouldn't be your gut would have given up by the time after that's the 10th sachet, it would have been overloaded and it would actually have net negative effect now. So that's that's the difference. And I just explained that to the makeup girl as well. She's like, Oh right. And I was like, and if it's a 5,000 scoop, you'd have to be having 52 scoops a day, which again, you just you do overload yourself. You couldn't even go with that. You'd overload your liver with collagen so much that it would be like horrendous for you. So you just could never do that. So the only part of the collagen that really works and is actually going to do something, there's a that's the signal is the tripeptides. And if it hasn't got hydroxyproline in that tripeptide, it's got no chance of working because that's the only thing that opens the door to the cell to let it in. So it's like the difference between this is my greatest analogy. Imagine Oasis are doing another tour and everybody wants tickets, right? And somebody's trying to get online with the hope of getting tickets. And the difference with ours is we've got a backstage pass with security, straight backstage, like straight up with the brand. Like that's that's that's how you get into them. Like, literally, you've got your full security team taking you through the crowds, straight to the stage, straight up to the band, or somebody who sat at home on the computer trying to get tickets. That's the that is the analogy I love.

SPEAKER_01 53:48

People are trying for general admission, you're giving them golden circle straight away.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

Not even golden circle, you're literally on stage with the band. You are oasis at this point. Um you're literally holding Liam's tambourine. That's it. That's the difference. They have guaranteed it's gonna work. Do you think the professor sat there for four years and not made sure that this is airtight, that this is going to work? Like, what's he doesn't fuck about? He doesn't stop until he's got to the actual answer of efficiency. And he's got teams of people around him, also scientific, also proving things around him, that if he, you know, like they're not gonna let him get away with not making it perfect. Like, what what planet are people on? Like, that's all, but I've I just go back to it. All you need to know is I've done the work for you. And I should say that obviously before my life in health and wellness, which I've always been interested in, I was a journalist. And this was I was a journalist before Chat GPT. I also have a degree in English and history, which means I can read, and I don't just mean I read words. I read. I used to read critically, read between the lines. So, what is this author saying in this? What do they really mean? Read between the lines. And that is what when I started this business, I was reading clinical data. That was a skill that I had that not a lot of founders had or could have, because there's no chat GPT to check everything, there's nothing skimming through everything. It was me sat there researching, highlighting, and I still have all my notes by the way, from that. I've got big folders of them like early L Sorr, which I'll dig out one day because it's a funny. But yeah, and I'm highlighting everything. So there was no AI there, and it was just me researching everything. And because I'm a journalist, I was always just you know trained to ask why, question why. So I don't just hit manufacturers at face value either. I go and I ask them why. I'm not, we're not L S R and our products aren't just oh, you already make a magnesium, we'll put El Sorr on it. Which is I get I get so many slide decks sent to me week in, week out. New ingredients, new formulas, new this, new that. Yeah, you can make this, you could make this, you could put El Surr on it. And I'm like, no, it's got to fight for its life for me to spend money on it and got to be best, best in class again. This is my money, this is my reputation and my fucking ego. Let's be honest, it's got to be the best.

SPEAKER_01 56:17

Yeah, geez, do you know what I mean? Well, five years in, we're both now our prime customer age range, realistically.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

You know, mid-30s and and 40. And you've always said that you are customer number one, you make it so that you want to be taking the very best product. So you think, well, may as well be one that I've created myself. You've taken the guesswork and the hard work. Your Oasis analogy is great, but I prefer the pan and for gold one. I think that the pan and for gold one is is brilliant, especially when it comes to the collagen. It's essentially like you've gone in, you've sifted through all the shit, and you've just got the gold left. The gold left.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

And that is And we've bottled the gold, whereas everyone else is just picking up shit out of the river and bottling that.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

And yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:59

You don't know if you've got gold in or not. You might be panning for days with that, but you're definitely getting gold with us. Yeah. No, you um yeah, you're I'm just gonna consult my list of other things that have annoyed me.

SPEAKER_01 57:12

Go on, consult your list of things that annoy you.

SPEAKER_00 57:14

I mean, this is the other thing as well. So funny, I should be saying this on the podcast. So uh I see a lot of ads getting thrown out there. I feel for the audience, I feel for people who are online and they're getting hoodwinked by these things because AI is getting so good now. But people who are setting up, well, first of all, before they were doing it with AI, they were doing it with actors. So there's loads of supplement companies out there who hire actors and they put them in white coats, and then they set up fake podcasts to then discuss these products on a fake podcast with a fake actor in a white coat. Now I'm somebody who spends£24,000 a year alone on this podcast, adding my hair and makeup on top, and we're nearly at£30,000 a year on the podcast. And I do that because I'm authentic about what we do, and I get real guests in to talk about expertise and genuine information. I don't need to do that when I do do that because again, I'm not here to bullshit anyone. Where are my ethics if I want to do that? I don't get actors in white coats. I go and work with people who genuinely wear white coats day in, day out. So we work with genuinely real scientists, not oh yeah, we've paid you 50 quid in this hour, put that on and just sweep these lines for us. And I think that's super important as well. And there's lots of companies out there, they probably do a three-in-one magnesium who are doing that. I just my my point is I get so exasper exacerbated about these things because we I do everything right. I don't have to spend that kind of money, and I do, because I want to do everything right so that people know that yeah, in every area of my life, I I am being authentic and trying to walk the walk. And then you've got faceless companies with founders who don't care, who are scale, scale, scale, who are absolutely they're turning over 150 million this year, and that's what I'm up against, you know. But I don't think consumer cares. That's my problem. I think should I just care less? Should I just do the podcast from home, get rid of Jacob, and uh and not invest all this money in actually bringing great information to the audience? Should I do that? No, because maybe I go and spend that£30,000 on getting, I don't know, someone off Curry to say it's good. You know what I mean? And a load of actors in white coats that go, yeah, this is the best thing I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_01 59:49

No, it's it is super frustrating. I show you on that one. I know exactly the ad that you're talking about, and you know my exact feelings on it. We've spoken about it on previous podcasts. It's and it's preying on people too.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

There's another supplement company not too far away from us that they tell you to take their supplement on the start of a full moon. I'm fucking doing 30 million. 30 million quid. By the way, we're not doing anything like that, but why aren't we? When we do everything right. And I believe it's me. I believe it's me in this mentality that's not pushing us forward, isn't it? I'm so picky about our customer, I'm so picky about the information we put out that it halts growth because I'm like, that's not right, that's not right, that's not the right colour. You spelt that wrong. This and I'm so have to be across everything. And maybe I'm a control freak, or maybe I'm just like, if you're going to do it, do it properly.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

It doesn't help though when we have the, you know, gentlemen with the name beginning with C that come and talk to us, and they are from either advertising standards, MHRA, governing bodies, trying to get adverts out there about things that people need to know about hormonal health and well-being. It's not, it shouldn't be a taboo subject, but you're we're constantly having our wings clipped by people for you know not being in line with laws and legislation. But then we look around us and we just think, well, hold on a minute, how the fuck are they getting away with it?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:14

Because how are they saying? They run ads from separate websites, that's what they do. So we run ads from our actual website, they run ads from separate websites that don't even feed back to them. And then so what, if they get a bollockin by advertising standards agency, there you go, take it down. Well, we'll take it down then, okay, no worries. But then they've run another 15 at the same angle, slightly different in another area. Do you know what I mean? Like but they're spending like two million a month.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:39

But it's it's morally, it's like you say, because it's you're in a business and you're the front of it, you have to be able to put your head on the pillow and sleep at night.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:46

And I don't think we could if we did the I couldn't go to nursery, I go to kids' parties, I turn up there and people stop me in the street and say, I take your pills. You know what I mean? I genuinely, we were in turquoise the other night. We saw one of our customers. Everywhere I go, I see a customer. Everywhere I go, people stop me and say, You're the girl from Elsa. Now I couldn't do that if I knew I was literally robbing these women blind. Do you know what I mean? Putting out shit, putting out things that weren't right. The amount of stress I have, honestly. I mean, over this new product, Jesus wept. Like I'm the most worst enemy sometimes. Because I was talking to our marketing girl, Harriet, last night, and she was like, Oh, well, I take this version. I was like, look at that disgusting packaging. I I personally couldn't put that out. No, me knowing me, Emma Leo, whatever. I love like things to be great, glamorous, and I believe in your supplement routine should be memorable, a bit of a ritual, make it habit, beneficial, all these things. I couldn't even photograph what she was showing me last night. I was like, I couldn't even, I can't bear it. And I could have had this product out last year if I'd just wanted that. Yeah. Where's the effort? There's no effort that's gone into that. I was like, no, I can't do it. So I'm putting myself under enormous amounts of stress to the point where I'm going to fly into Italy. Probably we'll have to go to China as well, just to sort out the finer details on it. And even then, I'm going to struggle to get it out in the time that we need to get it out for. Even she was a bit like, you're cutting it very, very fine. If you think that our manufacturers take 12-week turnaround, yeah. To electroplate anything takes eight weeks. Yeah. Switches with the electroplating to dry. So the electroplate for people who don't know is like our gold decanter is glass, but it's electroplating in gold. And that takes that process of that painting, drying, etc., takes eight weeks, especially when you're doing it en masse when you're doing it for thousands. So that takes a long time. Then they've actually got to get the mould right on whatever you're making. Then you ship it. Do you want favourable shipping terms? Now we've got a war on in Iran, which affects everything. It's also affecting the cost of materials. Uh, so that's gonna go up. So all these things, right? Knock on effect. So, you know, I've been stressing about this very much so since January. We're now into March, and I'm still no closer on nailing a design.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:14

But it's so funny though, because I remember really early on in my journey with you working alongside you, you were just like, nah, you've got to just get things out there, worry about them later. If it, if it, if it, if it was perfect when you put it out there, you've waited too long in doing it. And it's really funny to me because I'm sitting here listening to you and I'm like, okay, okay, okay. Should we just should we just get it out? Should we just get it out and see? And then you're like, no, it's gotta be right.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:40

So the difference is with this one, right? It's like not a unique product. It's something that everybody should be taking, right? So fine, great. How do you elevate it away from how do women want to buy it? Why do you want to buy this one over that one? I'll tell you right now, it's that packaging. It's the only way. I'm telling you right now. Otherwise, why like fucking hell? Yesterday I'm in Dior yesterday. She's trying to like bullshit me about some serum. It's better than injectives. I was like, yeah, okay then. Luckily, I'm a bit savvy with these things. I know about Dalton's size, I know how things are gonna penetrate skin or not. And this is complete nonsense that she's talking about. And I'm thinking, well, you're not even a good salesman, but whatever. Um, and why are people spending£640 on a 30 mil serum from Dior? Because it's looks great, looks great.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:33

And it's your phrase is reassuringly expensive.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:36

Well, we are your assuring expenses. Do you know why? Because I am doing those checks and balances. It's being made in a carbon neutral facility by a professor of nanomedicine. Not only that, he's got a team of scientists that also check it, check every single thing. Like the checks and balances that our products go through are unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

And you've also got me, who is the most demanding. Customer that else or I could ever have. And it's to do with marketing as well. I can't market some shitty plastic bottle. Right? Because then you're up against the shitty plastic bottle market in Holland and Barrow. Well, I'm not, I don't want to be there. I'm not even interested in what you're doing over there. Because I'm interested in what Dior are doing. That's that genuinely. Like, what are you doing? How'd like uh how do you kind of what's the mystique around it? How do you build brand? Do you know what I mean? I love that aspect. You can see it. You can see that it was always based on French fashion houses elsewhere. It's that luxury, it's that ritual. It's that this is a treat for me. Not this is a functional practical utility. It's not that. And I do believe that product comes first with me. So technical, technically brilliant product, absorption levels off the chart, has to be that. Does it taste good? Yes, it does. Especially if it's a if it's a liquid. Secondary to that is does it look good? And they are not mutually exclusive things. You could have a really great product in a crap packet, uh, and it's not gonna fly. You can have a really great pack, you can have a really great product in a brilliantly looking packaging and it is gonna be amazing. And then the marketing's done for me. It walks into the pages of Vogue, it walks into the pages of Grauzia, and I've not even had to say anything. The journalists want it. I've not even had to have a battle with them. Do you know what I mean? Because they wanna they wanna see it, they want to try it. And that bit of effort in the beginning pays dividends at the end.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:36

You say reassuringly expensive though. I still think that we try and make it as cost-effective and accessible to people that we possibly can. Had this argument, well, it wasn't an argument, it was just an exchange with a customer the other day on um Instagram because they were wanting to add the the collagen to their routine, uh, but they, you know, were thinking, oh, it could be a bit pricey. And I was like, listen, in five years, I know from a logistics perspective how much more it now costs us to get an L SRR product to a customer. The manufacturing's gone up, the packaging's gone up, the shipping fees have gone up, everything around us has gone up. But we have never, ever actually, the only time we've ever changed our price is we actually lowered the price of our magnesium because we got a more favorable rate because of our orders and we laid it straight back out to that customer and we made it so that they could get it cheaper. We've never, ever changed the price of our product. And so for anybody that does say, oh, it's expensive, I go, right, how many Starbucks do you have in a week?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:36

It's not even that. Well, then I just say, well, yeah, well, maybe not the company for you, because maybe then you want to go and buy some non-absorbent stuff from magnesium, like like from Amazon, go for it. And I don't mean that in like a bad way. I just mean that when you see the manufacturing process of what ours goes through, like when we went down to the manufacturers, they're literally hand finishing these things. They're mixing it in a machine that's almost by hand, and then they are hand finishing each single capsule. It's then weighed, it's measured, it's lasered, it's this, it's that. Everything that it goes through in the clean room where the air is changed every 20 minutes in there to make sure it's the most perfect product ever. It's not imported from anywhere. It's incredible. Do you know what I mean? The highest standard you can get. So, and it is what it's saying it is. The stuff you're buying, like you're creating gummies. Well, just don't even talk to me about gummies anyway. And if anyone's saying anything about gummies, I'm just like, we're not on the same page.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:33

No, I people will be listening, so I think that you touch it, you're there. Gummies, why are they bad? Because people do need to hear it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:41

It's a sweetie. It is a sweetie. There's nobody who knows anything about health or efficacy really, who's going to put a gummy out there. If I I guarantee you, like, if I got you there's there's gummies on the market, like creatine gummies, I'll take as an example, where they will be this big, size of a wine gum, let's say. And then if you got five grams of creatine and put it next to it in powder form, they're telling you that it's got five grams of creatine in it. How? The volume of powder is literally four times bigger than the actual sweetie. We haven't distilled it down and made it into anything. It's creating this creatine. They've also like mixed it. Well, it's not it's not even mixed in, it's like sprayed on. A lot of these vitamins are actually just a sweetie and it's sprayed on top of it. So, like a lot of vitamin D gummies and things like that. They also the material of it, it doesn't encapsulate like the nutrient, so it evaporates out as well. So even let's say by some stretch of the imagination, the ingredient might have been there at time manufacturer. By the time it gets to consumer, it's not even there.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:50

We were saying this the other day about certain powders as well, collagen powders in particular, they can get made on day one or whatever, and literally it can be that when it's stored away, they're losing.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:03

No, this is um liposomals. So uh there are companies out there uh that are making liposomal products again at time of manufacture, they might be liposomal, but as soon as it's put into the bottle, it's degrading over time. So they're not stable. Because again, with our collagen, it took two years to stabilize to check that it was going to stay stable, so it had a shelf life of two years. So even if that product sat in our office, which it wouldn't do for two years, the it would still be as perfect as the day it was made. In fact, the prof's got one in his cupboard that's for like nearly four years old now, it's still as perfect as the day he made it in this stability chamber. It's not a cupboard, but it's a big stability chamber. I've seen it.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:47

So it's just like cracking, just cracking out a lamp your laptop. Yeah, kitchen cupboard.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:51

You should see this place, it's unbelievable. So um, yeah, but there are people on the market who are making liposomal products or saying they are on the label, but they are not. So you're paying for a high-priced product, but when you you haven't got the tech in there, so it might be on the shelf somewhere. I don't know. Hollandabar, let's just use game as an example. By the time you've got it into your hands, it's all gone. So the nutrients go in, the liposomal. So the absorption factor that you think you're paying for it's not there. The other thing, the problem with it is there's a lot of companies that use like lots of glycerin and the high glycerin isn't too good in a liposomal, it's not also not good for you, especially in a kid's product. So it's like not very good for the gut. It if loads of glycerin in the product can go straight through you. So any of the nutrients that it does have, let's say magnesium, if it's in a lipomal which's got loads of glycerin, it's going straight through you and having the opposite effect again. So what are you paying for? Something be to just run through you, basically. You don't want that for your children.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:55

Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:56

Or anybody or adults or anybody.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:58

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:59

Um, you got anything more on your list? Oh my god, something else that made me like go on, go on. Um, like we've been sending PR boxes out, haven't we, to journalists?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:09

I know exactly what you're gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:11

I know exactly what you're gonna say. I'm one of them absolutely backfired, right? So it's because I really like this girl. It could have happened to a worse person, but so I really like this girl, follow her. I think she's good. I think the she does a podcast info she puts out is really good. So we're like, okay, let's go like a little bit further with her PR box. Let's make it really super special. So rang one of the girls in the office who comes and helps sometimes. I said, Can you do me a favour? Get a picture of her, and then make and it was like at Christmas time, wasn't it? So I'm just kept seeing these ads for like wrapping paper. So you could put on like your faces on wrapping paper. And I um uh Danny's uncle did it for me and the kids and stuff. I thought, oh, that is so cute. And I've kept all the wrapping paper. I thought it was the cutest thing in the world, right? I thought, oh, he's gone to so much effort to do this. Do you know what I mean? So I said, let's do this for her. So we send her this PR box, it's wrapped up, right, with like this wrapping paper which has got like her own paste on it. Well, fucking hell. She didn't like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:14

I was like, she's like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:16

I said, did you get your PR box? She's like, yeah, I did. And uh I found it very strange. I was like, sorry. Uh it's just like, well, yeah, it's like ripping it over my own faces. I was like, well, we went into a lot of effort for that. Do you know what I mean? We had to go and get like just like custom made happy paper for her. And I it's just like, yeah, well, it's a sweet idea. But she said, uh, you know, I just uh, you know, what do I do with it now? I didn't want to throw my own face in the bin. I was thinking, maybe reading into a bit too much of it. But um also I get where you're coming from, but like just uh general population wouldn't see it like that. I don't I certainly wouldn't. I wouldn't go, oh my god, that's so cute. Look at that the effort they got too.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:01

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. You've got to look at the stuff that we get to the office for us, and we're thinking, oh my god, that's the cutest thing ever. That's so kind of someone you. I would never receive someone from some I would never receive something from someone. It's malice in it. Yeah, I would just be like, oh my god, isn't that lovely?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:15

What a nice gesture. They've gone the extra mile or didn't need to do it. She was like, You didn't need to do that. I was like, I know, but I was really trying to impress you, and now you hate it. And then not heard anything promising. That is just absolutely hysterical. I'm like, fuck's sake. I was like, I don't know. It's just doing a go for a coffee. Like, I'll stop trying to impress you, but do you want to low-key and I won't even take you anywhere nice, I'll just take the cost of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:40

Yeah, don't read into anything I'm trying to sleep because I'm taking you to Daphne's.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:44

Oh god, I couldn't believe it. Anyway, listen, if you're listening, uh, you know, it was it was meant with the best of intentions. Uh we hope you like the products.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:54

But on the flip side of it, anything else that we've ever sent to anyone has always been gratefully received.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:59

Everybody goes, wow, I love your packaging. I literally I just thought, well, why do I bother?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:03

Oh no. I um I want to show you this. You might have already seen it, but I I want to share it because it's what while we're filming this, we are in the month of March. March, uh, which is Endometriosis Awareness Month. I like to raise awareness to it. I've lived with it pretty much all my life. Um, but we had lovely news from our customer Abby, and she is expecting, and I wanted to show you this picture because I just think it's their cute and I'll share it to the screen. This is Abby. For anyone that can see it, can we do a zoom in on that one, Jacob? Do you reckon we can zoom in? He can lay it over the top of this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:39

For anybody who's listening, it's a picture of Abby. She's got a bra on and her tummy out.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:43

And she sat on her oven because she's got a bun in her oven, and it's just the most beautiful picture ever. Abby's been with us for a while and was basically told she couldn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:53

They were telling us she needed to have a hysterectomy.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:56

Yeah, she was and she's only in her 20s. Yeah, she's only in her 20s, and she was basically told it it wasn't going to happen for her naturally. Hysterectomy was on the card, she struggled such a long time. I am not saying in any way, shape, or form that El Sarara is responsible for this, but if you asked her, she would probably feel a little bit differently. Um I just think it's always nice to have a little look at where these are the sorts of people that we have in our customer base that you know she rang us up and told us personally. Yeah. And I just I thought that that was lovely. So for anybody out there that has endometriosis that is suffering, please reach out. We've if it's not for us, we've got plenty of resources that we can signpost you to. And um, yeah, Abby, congratulations because she's having a baby girl, which is gorgeous.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:39

I wonder if she'd call it Elle. It's gonna be nice, isn't it? Or Alyssa.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:46

Or me. She could call it Kelly because you're in your name. Um, but yeah, no, it's it's always nice to end on. Have you and have you got any other nice news that you want to end our podcast with?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:56

Um, uh, you know, if I get word from the manufacturer over my new design for my new product, I would be happy. I'd be honestly over the moon. Christ alive. You know it's been 12 months hard slog. And actually, interestingly, I'm back to where I began. I'm back to where I began on the design that 12 months ago I'd designed, and then I've gone round the houses. I'll share this all the journey with my WhatsApps, with everything. I have had these packaging designers run ragged over, you know. I was sat there with Blue Tack trying to explain to them on Zoom how I wanted this lid, you know. Honestly, with like silly putty trying to fashion it on this bottle. And then only to be told, well, the head that you want can't be done because it's too misty. I was like, but great, okay. So now we're back and square one. Anyway, if that happens, I'll be really happy. I'll be really, really happy. It needs to happen in the next two weeks, though. If I get back from Italy and I'm still no close to the day that I left, I'm going straight to China. Yeah. No joke. Can you do that right now? I'll find a way. I don't know how you could some and someone I know has just gone to Hong Kong, but they went through Finland.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:12

There's ways of I'll find a way, but I'll get there.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:15

Where there's a will, there's a way.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:17

Where there's an Alyssa.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:18

I'll find a way. Of course I will. Private jet. I know. Anything else you want to conclude for today? No, no. I hope everyone's enjoyed the podcast today. Um, any questions? You know where to direct them to? Uh yeah, I feel like customer at lhypensaral.com. Yeah, or we're available on multiple platforms, sometimes too much. Uh but yeah, sometimes I'll go, I'll get back to you later. I'll never get. Um, but yeah, no, three years, yeah. Can't believe it. And the podcast's going from strength to strength. How do you feel about it, Jacob? We're a longer standing customer.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:54

Great, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:02

Fabulous. Great. Well, here's another three more years. Thank you very much, everyone.