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The Working Mums Podcast
Teaching working mums mind & emotional management tools so they enjoy their kids, their job & themselves again without all the shitty mum guilt.
The Working Mums Podcast
Ep #43 - From Interiors to Skincare: Yara's Inspiring Path
What happens when a passionate interior designer and working mum decides to venture into the world of skincare? Yara David joins us to share her inspiring journey from crafting beautiful wallpaper designs to founding Lala Lula, a natural skincare brand tailored for teenagers. Motivated by her daughter's early fascination with skincare and a desire to address the growing concern over harmful chemicals in conventional products, Yara sheds light on her mission to empower young people with safe, effective skincare options.
I loved this conversation so much because of the passion this working mum has to create a toxic free, safe & effective skin care product for her daughter which was fueled by the guilt she felt when she learnt the dangers of synthetics.
After a grounding exercise to help busy minds find focus, especially for working mums juggling multiple roles, Yara and I dive into the alarming realities of the skincare industry, particularly the shocking presence of petrochemicals and endocrine disruptors in products marketed to children and teens.
The episode takes listeners on a journey through the labyrinth of clean beauty, highlighting the importance of education and awareness in making informed choices.
As parents, the responsibility of navigating this complex landscape can be daunting, but the rise of clean beauty offers a hopeful response. Uncover the challenges and rewards of creating a non-toxic skincare line that prioritizes natural bioactive ingredients like saffron and white willow.
As we look forward to the launch of Lala Lula, Yara shares the meticulous process behind developing her skincare line, designed to provide peace of mind for parents and confidence for teenagers. With products rigorously tested for safety and stability, and a commitment to avoiding "greenwashing," Yara's skincare kit promises to transform young skincare routines. Join us as we celebrate the upcoming release and the empowering initiative to distribute 200 free samples to curious young users eager to embrace their natural beauty with products they can trust.
Here's the links to connect with Lala Lula and register to be one of the first to try this incredible new SAFE products...
IG - @lalalulaofficial
Web - www.lalalula.com
You can also watch this episode on YouTube with Captions - https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorkingMumsLifeCoach
If you'd like to have a chat about how I can help you further, please don't hesitate to click here & book a time with me, I'd love to meet you.
You can also follow me on IG @NickyBevan_LifeCoach
Hello, hello, hello everybody. I have a really lovely guest with me today. Actually, this is the second time we've recorded this. Only we're not going to go into the reasons why. We're just going with the fact that second time is best. Yeah second time's a charm, second time's a charm. So we have both had a busy day. We're both working mums. We've had a full day, so we are feeling a little bit jaded yara, aren't we at the moment?
Speaker 2:yes, but your lovely face, nikki, oh, using me with energy. Thank you, thank you sometimes.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's fake it till you make it, because what, what, how we talk about things, does affect our mood and our emotions. So, um, but this is going to be a really lovely conversation and before we get going, I just want to start by just grounding us for a second, because you've had a full day, I've had a full day, and for the other working mums that listen to us, this is a really lovely exercise to help kind of focus down the mind on what we're going to be talking about. So are you up for doing this with me?
Speaker 2:it's not yeah, I'd love that. Okay, I'd really love that.
Speaker 1:So I want you to put your feet on the floor for a second and really notice whether they're in shoes, whether you're on carpet, what? Obviously, if you're listening to this and you're driving, don't do this dangerous, but just bring all your focus down into your feet for a second. And what I want you to do, yara, is I want you to rub your hands together and as you rub your hands together, you're going to feel a heat being created and I want you to imagine that that's the emotion that you really need right now, whether it's love, courage, confidence, relaxation, whatever it is. Imagine that building in your hands. What did you say?
Speaker 1:Clarity, clarity, okay, and then I want you to stop and I want you to put your hands instinctively where you feel you need that emotion on your body, and that's totally instinctual. Close your eyes and really focus on the warmth of your hands penetrating your body, and that is the emotion seeping into your body. So you said clarity, I'm going with. Grounded is my emotion that I need to feel, so I'm just going to allow that to absorb my body for a second. Absorb my body for a second and then, when you feel like that's absorbed into your body, you can just come back to me Got it, got it.
Speaker 1:It's just a really lovely exercise. You know, when your mind is so busy and you're thinking about this thing and this last thing and your mind is full, that's just a really quick, lovely exercise. When you know, when your mind is so busy and you're thinking about this thing and this last thing and your mind is full, that's just a really quick, lovely exercise to help ground us back down.
Speaker 2:I love it. I'm gonna use it every day so you're okay.
Speaker 1:So the reason I've been let's introduce Yara. So Yara David is someone I met recently and her story just your story just kind of blew me away. So I invited you on the podcast because you're a working mum anyway, interior designer, wallpaper designer, and then more recently, completely bizarrely, given that you had no interest in this field whatsoever a teenage skin. I'm going to let you explain it, but it's Lalalula. Lalalula is the skincare brand that was created actually off the back of feeling mum guilt, which is something we all experience. But you've taken that emotion and you've gone right. I need to do something about it. So do you want to just tell us a little bit about yourself very briefly, and then we'll go into the story of, about what started this inspiration for a teenage skincare brand?
Speaker 2:yeah, so, as as you and I have discussed, I am an interior designer and when we met, I think I just launched my first wallpaper range and my own website for that. But quite quickly after that, in fact, very quickly after that, and perhaps almost just as that was starting, just as that was coming to fruition, I was about ready to launch it Something kind of happened in my world, as it were, in my mothering world, and I kind of thought actually I need to pivot sideways. There's something that's much, much more important to me, but probably more important to other people than what's on their walls which is, which is very important.
Speaker 2:Your house is very, very important, but there are other wallpaper brands they could use. Whereas I didn't feel this was being dealt with, this area was being dealt with, so do you want me to go into that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so tell us, tell us like a brief story about what. How did this story begin, basically?
Speaker 2:Okay, so the genesis for starting a natural team skincare line was the fact that two years ago it must have been April 2023. Oh no, not two years. Even now, now it feels that long, it's about 18 months now.
Speaker 2:Uh, april 2023 my daughter had become completely obsessed with skincare. Bear in mind she was 11 at the time, so very, very young, and not something that I had even considered being an area that she might have any interest in, because when I was young it was just makeup. There was no. You know, it's difficult to get us to wash our face, let alone, you know, have a routine. But now they're all on social media. She it's.
Speaker 2:One of the ways the um, the influencers, were starting to gain following was by getting people to follow their skincare routines, and partially also because the makeup trend of the period at that time, and still is was very natural kind of glowing skin. So the most important part of that is a lovely skin and well looked after skin. Um, and so what was trending at the time was all these um I guess you could call them not just influencers, but celebrities. Kids were doing their own skincare routines and they had obviously huge followings.
Speaker 2:The one I remember was I think she's called I can't remember her name, but she's Kim Kardashian's daughter. Anyway, she had a TikTok, had a tiktok site, uh, or an instagram site, and she was doing her get ready with me and my skincare routine and all the products that were in it were. These were products that then became hugely popular. They went viral and my daughter wanted these products anyway. I don't know anything about skincare. I hardly even put anything on my face. I certainly haven't stepped into any kind of you know kind of skincare emporium for years and years and years, because it's just too expensive and normally I just use actually something that my, that a girl.
Speaker 2:I go to for massages had made herself. So I knew it was very natural, but I wasn't. I didn't really think that was important, I just liked it anyway. So I just used something. So it's essential oils and that kind of yeah, um.
Speaker 2:Anyway, tallulah, this is my daughter. Uh, she said to me it was coming up to her 11th birthday, so she was even 10 at the time. She was 10, um, and she said there's this product I really, really want, I want to show it to you. So we were out shopping and we went into um boots, I think it was at the time we went, had a look at this stand, that of this, this you know very, very popular brand, which was called drunk elephant, and I'd never heard of it, um, but I was immediately quite excited by it because it had really really lovely packaging and that's kind of my bag, my, you know, visually very, very keen on what something looks like. And then when she showed me this serum that she wanted and I tried it and it was really, really lovely, I was like, oh yeah, that's really nice, but it was 56 pounds and I was like you're not seriously thinking of spending that sort of money on this serum, but that's what she wanted and I've always, you know, with her, I've always said if it's her money, she can spend it on what she wants, as long as it's not something that's illegal or bad for her.
Speaker 2:So we didn't buy. She didn't buy at the time, it wasn't yet her birthday. But after her birthday, when she had her money shopping again, and we went, we were going with the express purpose of buying, specifically looking, looking at all the skincare brands that she was interested in, but probably buying this specific um, this specific serum by joan kellyford. Um, anyway, we went into a store and we happened to uh, bump into the assistant manager of the store and she said, oh, what are you in for today? And I said, oh, she's after this product and I didn't, you know, I knew nothing about it. So I was like, oh, I think it's by a brand called Drunk Elephant and her face just fell and I was thinking that's, that's odd.
Speaker 2:And I was like, ok, danger ahead and ahead. And she just said, look, we're having a complete nightmare. This brand has gone completely viral, um, totally erroneously for this age group, and we are inundated with kids coming in looking for products from this brand. Uh, not just the, not just the serum that I talked about, that, that absolutely everything. She said it's totally inappropriate. It's an adult brand and therefore all the active ingredients in there are trying to, you know, minimize wrinkles or reverse the signs of aging, that kind of thing. And I said, yeah, okay, you know feeling pretty abashed, but I said, yeah, okay, I understand it's not going to do anything for her, but you know, she knows that we both know that kind of thing. And the woman was like, well, that would be fine actually, but that's not the issue. The issue is that actually, it's probably going to damage her skin and it's going to prematurely age it, which would be, like the, you know, complete opposite of what you might want.
Speaker 2:And the whole point of Tallulah getting this amazingly expensive brand was not just so that she could say she had this brand, but because it was a really, really lovely feeling. She thought it was really good, you know, um, and it was a high-end brand, very, very high and beautiful packaging, anyway the one thing. So, so just to continue that story. So I then said to this girl I said, okay, we get it. Tallulah was amazing about it. She totally was like shocked, but really, really interested. I said, fine, okay, not that brand, what can she have? And the woman was just like we're in here but nothing, there is nothing for her. She cannot shop in this shop at all. Um, so I was really shocked by that because I thought I know, fine, well, there are a lot of brands in here that I know are trending on TikTok with her demographic and nobody seems to have any clue that this might be inappropriate or or a problem. Um, so that was one thing. So, anyway, we left the store, we didn't buy, we didn't buy anything from that brand.
Speaker 2:But it's kind of got me thinking. I was thinking, well, that's really interesting. These kids, they have this new craze going on. They're very, very interested in these high end, premium brands, which is great. So from my perspective I thought, well, that's good, because they're spending their money on something that's got very, very good ingredients in it. And the one thing I had picked up from Drunk Elephant is that they had this kind of banner on the top of the stand which said we avoid the bad E6. And it's there.
Speaker 2:It's a list of six ingredients that are in normal skincare, of like general skincare, that they've decided aren't actually that good and that they're taking out. And I was really interested by this because I had no idea and I thought what is it that they're taking out of these? You know, these skincare products that would normally be in a skincare product that they think is a problem. And why is it a problem? Why don't I know that it's a problem? So it was things like sulfates, so I had to look down the list, alcohol, any kind of paraben, and so I didn't know anything about these things. I didn't know what they were.
Speaker 2:It turns out they're petrochemicals from the petroleum industry and gas and they're byproducts. And the reason that they're used in skincare is not only are they very, very cheap because they're a byproduct, but they're used as fillers, so they don't do anything nutritionally. But they're mainly used either as preservatives, which obviously they do need to keep the shelf life of these products, but they're used just for the look, for the feel, for the, or whether they're a, whether they act as a humectant, which means that they bind water to them. Now there are natural connectants in most of the oils, like jojoba, and hyaluronic acid is the most famous one at the moment because it's particularly good at this. But then these are synthetic ones that don't really do anything other than that and that and even that they do at a cost, because petrochemicals they do at a cost, because petrochemicals are where something called endocrine disrupting chemicals exist or are found in. And the problem with endocrine disrupting chemicals, particularly for teenagers, is that they interfere with the endocrine system which is building everything. It's building the skin and the brain and the bones and your heart and the reproductive system. And what they discovered latterly, after petrochemicals kind of flooded into the skincare market since the 1950s, is they discovered that these things affect the hormones and the development of the hormones, and that's a major issue for teenagers, for for everyone but teenagers specifically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the very idea that these things were in normal products, that I might buy in boots, but they weren't necessarily what has now been turned, turned clean beauty at the higher end of of the market, yeah, um, was complete news to me and I was also incredibly shocked. But the other thing, nikki, just to round out this story, is that as soon as she said to me this product that your daughter is thinking of buying is going to potentially harm her, I just felt so guilty. I was like how could I not have investigated or even known anything about what she was about to buy? It was complete news to me and I felt really embarrassed actually saying to the woman I don't, I literally don't know what you're talking about, but please tell me. So then that was.
Speaker 2:That was part of the zeal for suddenly thinking actually, this is quite, this is. She's about to get into an area and she's really passionate about it and I, you know, I think skincare is a great thing. Washing their face and doing their teeth, and you know they get enough sleep, you know. So their skin looks good, um, but if she doesn't really have a product that she can use, then there's, then there's a problem and yeah, but it's. But it's not just her, it's, it's all these other millions of kids who are now in this skincare craze phase and they don't have anywhere to go, nor do they know they don't have anywhere to go yeah, yeah, because it wasn't until I met you that I hadn't even considered right, you think something's natural, then therefore it must be good.
Speaker 1:I, I had, and I'm quite into like, or have been in the past into, sort of face serums and having a routine. I've always known the benefit of it and I, my son, who's now 13, and his he he started to get the the typical teenage spotty skin and he's been putting Sudocrem on it which has been working. It sort of dyes down the redness, and I was like, well, that must be safe because you put it on babies. And you were like, no, so I have not even close to being yeah so what?
Speaker 1:what is it that we don't know that we need to be looking out for as mums?
Speaker 2:so well, there's. There's two areas here. In fact there are many areas, but let's just talk about two. So one, you've got the regular market for skin care products and, like you pointed out so, the baby care products, and that's at the what you would now call the lower end or the general range. Those are full of petrochemicals. Now some of these petrochemicals, now some of these petrochemicals. The problem with them is that they they're in the process for extracting or creating the petrochemicals out of the petroleum. There are some, sometimes many, side effects to that, where they create a kind of by byproduct chemical and that has been um that they, they tested that and they now think those are carcinogens. So so, so there's those, those problems. Then you have the other problems, the endocrine disrupting chemicals where they were being used all the time. Oh sorry, the petrochemicals that that contained. Those were being used all the time because the you know, up until about 10 years ago this industry was almost self-regulating and they would only really test for what?
Speaker 2:what obviously was creating an irritant or an irritation was going to really hurt your eye if you put it in it. You know all the horrific animal testing. But now they test in other ways, but for similar things. It wasn't until they realized that something might be happening and obviously it's in the food as well and in all our cleaning products. But, um, they realized something might be happening because of the rise of all the autoimmune diseases and the problems with reproduction in, you know, in our age group and and younger, and uh, and they started to think that there were we're obviously ingesting or somehow, um, taking on something that's not very good for us. So that's when they tested for the effect on the hormones and that's when they found out that a lot of these petrochemicals contain EDCs.
Speaker 2:Now, the problem with this is that unless you know what these, what these chemicals are called and if you've looked at the back of the ingredients, you can see. I mean, the list of chemicals is ridiculous. It it's like wait, it's like that long. Unless you understand what you're looking at, you won't know that those have been suggested, that they are endocrine disrupting chemicals, the ones that you're looking at. So you'd have to educate yourself.
Speaker 2:And it's not on CNN, it's not on ITV news, it's not on the outside of the packaging. So what happened in, as a sort of um response to that, was that clean beauty happened. But because naturally produced ingredients or plant-derived ingredients are much, much more expensive because of the way they have to be harvested and the cyclical, and you know it's much, much more man because of the way they have to be harvested and the cyclical, and you know it's much, much more manpower than just some by-product chemicals. Yeah, um, these products are just are more expensive and if you're not in for that or you don't understand the necessity of buying clean beauty products, you will obviously just go for the lower end particularly for kids, because you think it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:You know they're not trying to, you know, erase the signs of aging yeah, they're not really doing anything than cleaning their skin and that can't be that bad for them. But then you think all the body lotions and the body mists are literally the worst. They've got the worst amount of petrochemicals in so I mean it's. It's not that this is news to some people. This isn't news at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah and there's a huge, huge health care market, um, natural health care that has arisen because of this. There are loads of people, for years and years, have understood this, but the products they're producing, while while being good, are a expensive and be packaged in a way you know it's all brown packaging.
Speaker 1:It's nothing exciting, kids don't want it and they're not trending on tiktok.
Speaker 2:So there were two problems here that I had, which is, I can't just say okay to you, can't have these products because these aren't said, because they're the. The problem with the adult clean beauty products was that it wasn't necessarily the ingredients themselves, some of which were natural and some of which weren't. So you've got a whole other grayer area of safe synthetics. So they're synthetic, they come from the petrochemical industry, but they've been deemed safe.
Speaker 2:Well, they're safe until they're tested for something else, that's that's the problem so so you've got all these safe synthetics and then you've got the natural biactive ingredients, bioactive um, and those are great but very expensive. But the levels that they put them in the products because they need it to do something are far too high for kids, and they're often asking the skin to do something it shouldn't be doing at their age, which is, you know, like resurfacing yeah that kind of thing, you know, shedding the cells too quickly or just just in some way interacting with their hormones, which isn't going to be particularly good.
Speaker 2:So that's the problem with those. So you've got the high end only really for adults. You've got the natural uh skincare market, which could be good, could be very good. In fact, that's where Tallulah is at the moment. Um, but they don't, they don't want to show their friends, they don't want to make a tiktok about it, they don't want to, they don't have it on their vanity. You know, worktops or whatever, a desk I don't know what to lose is called um, they don't, they don't want to look at them, they want to look at the bright, shiny packaging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, which is where you were inspired to come in, because this is where you come in. So, from what I, from what I've picked up, you've taken your, your mum guilt, which, when you think I should have known this, of course you're going to feel guilty. That's a normal response I think to, for any loving parent. But what I think is amazing that you've done, yara, is you've taken that guilt and you've used it to drive such a positive business. So tell us about lalalula so, yeah, so exactly.
Speaker 2:Thank you, nikki. It's very sweet to say um, yeah, I was really passionate about it. I also thought do you know I can? I can do this, because the one piece of that puzzle was they needed a brand where somebody cared enough about the packaging and the presentation that they would be interested in it. Because half of this, in fact, probably more like 80 percent of this situation, is by the kids themselves, not by the parents. So these kids are going out on saturday and their new ritual is to go with each other buy makeup.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's a whole other story and yes, there are natural makeup brands now being developed, of course, because they have to be too, but let's say they would buy makeup, and they would always have done that. You know, you'd go into town with your best friend and you'd talk about boys and it'd be great fun. Well, now, the other piece to that is they go and they buy these new skincare trending brands, and so what I needed to be able to do for to lula and for everybody else, was to build something that would educate them but would give them what they wanted so would it would educate them, would provide what they needed.
Speaker 2:They provide a pure beauty brand, a safe brand, completely transparent brand, because I care that much about it, because I have a daughter who's using these products, but also would be packaged in a way that they would love and would be proud of. Yeah, it's, and it's. To me that was easy, it was like the easiest thing in the world. What it? You know, actually building a skincare brand very, very difficult, takes a very long time and it's really expensive. So the end so it. You know I I'm kind of driven now by the passion, but also by oh, with, with this far down the line, I need to see this through so that I get the actual product, so that she can have it. But, yes, it will. It won't be cheap, cheap, cheap. It won't. No way of doing it would kill the business, it wouldn't, couldn't exist. But it will be on a level with other natural skincare brands. It will be between them and the very high-end, premium adult brands, because of course, adults can afford that sort of money and kids can't and what I love as well.
Speaker 1:that you said about with regards to the education is, how you know, I had no idea until we had this conversation, so having that education as part of this business was really important to you, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really important because what I saw was Tallulah and I had gone into that shop and we were so lucky to meet that girl because there are so many assistants. I've been in this shop since and, um, you know, many, many times and very, very few few assistants are willing to or know enough to talk to you about these brands or what's in them. They just don't know she happened to be the assistant manager and she really knew her stuff and she was genuinely, genuinely concerned about what was happening.
Speaker 1:So we were really lucky, um, but I forgot what you said um, I was just asking about the education and I know yes, before, if you feel like this isn't just your passion is obviously to lula and having safe, pure skin care for her, but also all the other being a parent for all the other children and teenagers, when we're like, as a parent, I'm not educated, but you are now I am. You are now with all the research and with all the you know the bio. What's the word Bioactive, bioactive?
Speaker 2:Bioactive just means it's natural, but it will do something. It's not just going to sit on your skin and just you know, maybe make it feel nice, it actually does something. So I mean, we haven't even talked about that. The bioactives in natural plant medicine are absolutely insane. Why they ever went to synthetics? Well, the only reason was money, but it's extraordinary. So the way, yeah.
Speaker 2:So just to get to the educational piece first, um, yeah, as soon as I found out and Tallulah found out with me and we were so lucky to have that girl tell us, uh, and she'd been in skincare since she was 18, so she certainly knew what she was talking about I then immediately thought wait a minute, what about all these millions of children who are watching and following these influencers, who really haven't got a clue? What about all these millions of children who are watching and following these influencers who really haven't got a clue what they're talking about? Um, what about them? Nobody's telling them. And I tell you, and the other thing that we found out from you, girl, is that these brands don't look to those brands to be telling you, drunk elephant were not saying a word about all this that was happening on tikt TikTok. In fact, they were reposting the videos where young kids were saying who used this? You know we use these five drunk elephant products for our skincare routine completely inappropriately they didn't say a word.
Speaker 1:And then when?
Speaker 2:they were finally called out, which must be eight months after we first heard and I started, you know, this skincare journey. Um, they said oh, we have no idea.
Speaker 2:And of course, no, yes, not all our products are you know suitable for children, but most of them are, and I mean you think that's no good because they don't know which ones. And actually, as this girl told us, only one of the products was, and they produced something like 20. So you know they were being completely disingenuous, it wasn't true? Um, but yes, what?
Speaker 2:What happened once I started researching uh, and I started researching pure beauty was the discovery that that you know, the natural world is our apothecary shop. I mean it's, which is, of course, what traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine have always known, four thousands of years, and we're talking five thousand years in some cases. So all up. So my first port of call was to start researching those modalities and then, when I discovered what some of these plants do, thinking well, this is genius, because these are the sort of things that actually kids with hormonally changing skin, with the challenges that your son is facing, you know, with the breakouts and acne and how to control sebum, this can be done by natural plant ingredients you know, saffron, for instance, is a natural uv protector.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying don't use spf, I'm just saying it will help build the barrier, the skin barrier, specifically against uv, photovoltaic, race. I mean that's what it. That's one of its um, one of its attributes. And then you have something like white willow or purple willow, which is the highest level of natural salicylic I was trying to remember the name of what salicylic acid, which is now massively produced synthetically because it is so good at treating breakouts. It's absolutely brilliant for for um, you know, spots, and actually I don't have. I mean, we're of an age we hardly get spots, but I do sometimes if I late up, which I always am, or if I'm not eating healthily enough, or I'm just really, really tired. And the other day I had like something. I had like something growing out, you know like it felt sore, tended on my chin. I thought, oh, I'm getting a spot. Normally I would reach for something like clearasil, which I've been using since I was, you know, 14 and uh is absolutely vile in terms of the chemicals that are in there.
Speaker 2:I mean just really awful so so bad and I just sprayed on um our toner, because we now have these products sprayed on the toner gone in two days, didn't even, didn't even come out and then by the second day it's completely gone and I was like it actually works.
Speaker 1:It actually works, so tell us so. The brand is called La La Lulu. It's packaged beautifully in line with what teenagers are going to like and love. Oh look, and it's pink, which I love.
Speaker 2:That's the jelly wash.
Speaker 1:That's the facial wash yeah, so tell us, what products, what products have you currently got ready to, to test?
Speaker 2:yeah, so we have, um, one cleanser. It's it's not foaming, because that's one of the areas that strips the skin when the when it foams up, and that's usually that's a sulfate that they that that um is put in there to foam, to artificially foam. You can get. There are some natural foamers soap bark is one of them, and that's in a cleanser, um, but it doesn't foam. It's uh, it's a balm that then, as soon as you put water on it, goes into a milk. So it's a really lovely feeling and it's very, very moisturizing. So when you take that off you you know it doesn't feel stripped at all. So there's a cleanser, so it's a gel cleanser. Then there's the toner that I just mentioned, which is like it's a face mist. You can use it all day. It sets makeup, so that's brilliant, because the kids are all using these horrible synthetic makeup setters, so that's quite good. Um, and then there's moisturizer which, as I said, has three or four natural ingredients that build up your uv barriers. So, as well as various, yeah, so will this be?
Speaker 1:I'm just thinking I'm in the beautiful menopausal phase of my change. So, like you know, it's not just teenagers, like women, go through this change, hormonal change. So I know you're, I know you're absolutely marketing to teenagers, but would it benefit a hormonal woman as well?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, I mean it's, it's natural, pure skincare. It can't not benefit. So yes, absolutely. And the other thing is the moisturizer. Although we don't actively target anti-aging, there are three or four products in there, including crushed pearls, which actually build. They build elasticity back into the skin and they protect the retinol. Yeah, the retinol is already in the skin, so yeah, um retinol, yeah, the retinol that's already in the skin.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, really really good, we just don't go after. You know, anti-aging as such, it's just. It's it's really just keeping the skin at its kind of peak health.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when that's the guy when. So yeah, I use it every day I love him yeah I love it. So when are we going to be able to get our hands on La La Lulu, la La Lulu yes, that's the next bit La La Lula, so my daughter's Tallulah.
Speaker 1:So and I call her Luna, that's her. It's because I figured out why I struggle with this. It's because Yara was like Nikki, you're doing a podcast, you have to be able to say it, right. But I think it's because I keep going to say I want to say Yara, I want to say Yara, lula, then it's you and her, but then I stumble, I'm like Lula.
Speaker 2:So it's. Lala Lula Named after Lula La la, la la. Yeah, if you've got Lulu Lemon, you have that Lulu. Lulu lemon, yeah, that lulu. So yeah, there's, there's a lot in that, in that space yes but once you see it, nikki, you won't forget no, I won't forever.
Speaker 1:So, yes, when are we likely to be able to get our hands on this? So the stage we're in now is we.
Speaker 2:We have to go to claim substantiation, so that means everything has to get ticked. Not only will it be tested just to be sure that it's absolutely um, it's, but it's not the safety, it's more the it's, more the stability, stability testing to see that it doesn't degrade or whatever. While you're, you know it's got how long the shelf life is and all that. But also safety testing, all that um. But the lab where it's made I mean they're, you know they've got 30 years experience in this I know there's not going to be a problem. So hope, so I'm expecting that the three formulas we have in place now will be the ones that we'll go to market with. But that does take some time. Just have to jump through those hoops.
Speaker 2:Same time, we have to have claim substantiation, which means kids testing these products, blind testing, so they won't know what they are um. So we're realistically looking about april and that's when we'll be producing, you see, these. That's a little mini size. We'll be producing three of those in a one skincare kit, like that, love it. And we're going to be giving away 200 of those to kids. So if anybody listening wants one for their daughter or son, it can be used by anybody. Yeah, and the age range is 12 to 21. 21 is about when you might start thinking about you know, aggressively going after lines that you have You're aging. As I say, I'm using it and I love it. Then, if they were to either go on the website and go to the brand ambassadors and put in their child's details, or just drop me an email and I'll put them on the list, yeah, one of the free ones which will be will be um producing in handgap hopefully april, that's I love it.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited, I can't wait because, blue, my son, is well up for trying it. When I talked, when I came back and I said would you try it, he's like, yeah, I'd love to. And then I was like and I can't wait to try it either, because I do love a really good feeling beauty product. I use Tropic at the moment, which I believe is quite good.
Speaker 2:I don't know that brand at all. Oh, don't you no?
Speaker 1:So it's adult. I mean, I think they do have a couple of baby products potentially, do have a couple of baby products potentially, but from what I understand, they are very um, low toxic.
Speaker 2:yeah, low toxin, yes, low toxins I mean you, there are, there are lots of levels of this. I mean we've got. We've got the whole green washing issue, where a brand, formerly completely synthetic, will take two natural products, put them in, whack it all over the packaging and suddenly they're a. You know they're a natural brand? Well, no, they're not. You just have to look at the ingredients and they've probably got you know 20 other synthetics in there. Yeah, so, for instance, there's the only other. So at the time I didn't mention this there was a, uh, a teen focused brand. So that's the point about this is it's for teens, so we're going to have an inclusion level that wouldn't be appropriate for their skin, um, and that hadn't really been done before. And yet there was a company in America called Bubble, who had started it a year before me, which I hadn't realized about because those products weren't here they are now here.
Speaker 2:But the thing about them and they do most things right, you know they don't have they're a little bit like drunk elephant that they have a kind of list of things that they don't include, which obviously we certainly wouldn't have it. So they're kind of non-toxic, they're vegan, they do all those things right. I had their cloud surf moisturizer analyzed just to check, because I wasn't entirely sure and I knew that they use some natural ingredients probably, you know, and a lot of natural bioactives, like we do. But as well as that they had and I asked our lab to to evaluate their um, uh, the product and it came back with 13 synthetics and petrochemicals as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, still containing yeah, and all these things to doing is it's just about the feel of the product. So it's literally whether it makes it more more able to absorb water, that kind of thing, humectant or emulsifier, so it, you know, kind of bulks up the product. So it's just, it's all rubbish really, so you can't trust anything. But that's the whole point. We want to be a brand that parents, that the kids will love by themselves, but the parents will know if they are buying our product, that they're fine, they're safe.
Speaker 2:We we've got them.
Speaker 1:We're kind of kind of mother everybody yes, I love it, I love it so much and I just think that, um, it's such a beautiful way of just sort of completing the circle of mum guilt. Coming back to that, you know this this is what makes us such loving passion, fiercely passionate mums. Isn't it the love for our children? And that protective, that protective like bubble that we want to put around them? Isn't it the love for our children and that protective, that protective like bubble that we want to put around them, isn't always possible, but you are. What I love is that you've taken that and you've gone. Actually, there's a need in the market, um, and, and I could, I love this I can feel that need, I can do that, and so you went and did it, and I just think that is incredible. So, thank you, I cannot wait. I cannot wait to actually get my hands on some.
Speaker 2:I know you'll be addicted. I tell you we're already fighting each other. So that was like the best kind of benchmark for me was the fact that when they first arrived, when the products first arrived, because we're testing them, so after coming to us first and we do all the do, does Tallulah like the feel of it? Does she like smell? It smells amazing, by the way, because they've all got natural ingredients in it that are quite aromatic um, all these essential oils and and so we were first testing them and initially she was like, yeah, no, she liked them and she might use it. Oh, that was a bit, you know, that was that one's too creamy for her, and then she wanted something lighter. And they're amazing what they could do at the lab without adding anything else. It's just how they mix it and in what order they mix the, they mix ingredients. It was incredible. They really know what they're doing. Anyway, they've come up with something absolutely great. She absolutely loves it.
Speaker 2:But initially she still had these products. So she started using the bubble products, which I didn't know, then had all these um other things in and bioma, which again apparently are not that great, but anyway she was using all of these and she, she really liked them because they're in their packaging and so she was quite. She was pushing back a little bit about using lalulala because they had no packaging, it was just in these little plastic bottles and uh, and then she started using them and now she's like I can't use anything else. She just stopped using all her other products. She only uses it.
Speaker 2:But we're fighting because, of course, we're about to run out, because we've gone through of what they've sent us and they haven't got any more. They have to keep it for the stability testing.
Speaker 1:So anyway, you will like it so we will put the links below to get on your website to start following lalalula on instagram, so that when you go viral, I want everyone to remember you heard it here first, though it was you, nikki, always, thank you. Thank you so much for joining me today. Given that you've had a full, long day, I hope that I've energized you rather than depleted you. No, you have.
Speaker 2:It's been really great. Thank you, nikki, and thanks for taking the time to talk about it, because you know for incredibly passionate and I think it's an important. It's an important subject, yeah, it's so little's known about it.
Speaker 1:But, thank you, it really is. It really is. So, uh, yeah, maybe when you're huge we can, we can have you back and talk about what it's like to be like the head of an international company or something like that. That would be exactly the same, I know yes I've been in meetings all day, absolutely, but that's that's. That's the joy, isn't it? So thank you so much, and I'll speak to everyone again next week. Bye.