Cult Beauty Event ~ Welcoming natural USA brands to the UK!

15 August 2015


A few weeks ago I was very lucky enough to be invited to the Cult Beauty exclusive launches event which introduced three great American brands into the wider UK market. These brands are W3ll People, Skin Owl and Odacite.

I've heard about all these brands before but didn't know a lot about them so I was really eager to learn more about the who, what where and when etc. Some were available through niche online sites catering strictly for natural/organic beauty but it was so good to see a more mainstream and less niche beauty site like Cult beauty embracing more natural and organic brands and also smaller brands as well.

The event was based around afternoon tea where press and bloggers etc got to have a Q&A session with the founders of each brand. Sadly as this was during the afternoon I wasn't able to attend this part. However, I was able to join the pop in sessions in the evening, which in the end worked out to be a massive blessing as I got to sit down and have a one-to-one with each of the founders myself. I got to chat personally with each of the amazing ladies behind the brands and really get a great feel for the brand, the products and hear some exciting exclusive news!

I managed to snap a few pictures on my phone (sorry about the bad quality!) and share some of the interesting stories behind each of the brands!


 SkinOwl 

SkinOwl is founded by Annie Tevelin, who suffered for years from acne and bad skin. While building her career in the beauty industry she started a Facebook group supporting and helping other women with advise for beauty, makeup and skincare. This group was called SkinOwl. When I asked Annie 'why SkinOwl?' she had the most sweetest reason. She described herself and the group  as 'the beauty messenger of wisdom in a confusing industry' hence the 'wise' owl. 
Annie shared that while she was helping others she wasn't feeling great about her own skin and decided to take matters into her own hands. She went back to school to study a post-graduate course in cosmetic chemistry at UCLA. Through her studies she began to realise not just how important certain ingredients were, but also the quality of ingredients and ingredients that weren't actually so great for the skin. The SkinOwl group grew and after time and a lot of research and hard work SkinOwl the brand came into fruition. Always Scientifically based and 100% proven SkinOwl products are designed to give women a clean, natural alternative to conventional products that are proven to work with a solid base of scientific research behind every product, ingredient and formula.

Currently available at Cult Beauty, SkinOwl has a small but highly prized collection of products on offer, ranging from Beauty Drops  including Lavender (oily acneic skin), Clary Sage (ageing skin) and Geranium (dehydrated combination skin). There also Body - an unscented (it genuinely is!) nourishing and lightweight body oil that you can use from top to toe for a flawless finish to your skin (thanks to the pearlescent light reflecting properties of apricot kernels), Eye+ a very cooling eye jelly that tackles everything from wrinkles, dullness, dark circles and more. Finally the most cult product the Beauty Drops PM Mangosteen- this smells divine and is a skin super charging overnight treatment. 
More products are to come and we were allowed to learn a little snippet of these but we'll all have to wait until next year!


 Odacité 

Odacité was created by Valerie Gradury who started the brand after being diagnosed with breast cancer  back in 2004. The diagnosis lead Valerie to reevaluate her life and start to focus on removing toxins from her lifestyle and environment. She went on to study to be a health and wellness coach, and after struggling to find products that met all her requirements, started blending her own skin oils in her kitchen. Using her contacts and connections around the world from her previous job, Valerie sought out the best, most powerful and cleanest ingredients to form a wide range of oils that could tackle any skin problem, soon family and friends were taking note and demand grew for her oils. 
Odacité also has a story to it's name, I asked Valerie about this and she told me that it was a friend who one day said to her 'you need to just have the audacity to make this a proper company!' And so she did, and, as a play on words the name Odacité came about. The O is a nod to the organic values and ingredients, and the É a hint of her French heritage.

There are 18 oils in total, one for every skin need as Valerie understands that your skin is ever changing and your skincare should change with it. I got to test a few and Valerie helped me identify some that would be most beneficial for my skin including the Clogged Pores Serum Concentrate and the Combination Skim Serum Concentrate, with the note that you don't have to use just one for all areas you can use specific oils on each area to do a full treatment!
The oils can be used separately or blended with another product that will be launching sometime in September (it took 2 and half years to formulate, and its worth the extra wait!) All the oils are available now at Cult Beauty too!


 W3ll People 

Behind this well know brand is Shirley Pinkson, a pro MUA and the former creative consultant for NARS (yep! you'll see its influence all through the brand with names like 'Orgasm' etc) Shirley quickly came to realise that there was a wide area in the market that women were struggling in- natural, clean cosmetics that work! And, with her extensive experience and skills, she teamed up with a cosmetic dermatologist who is a self proclaimed 'tree hugging entrepreneur' to start building W3ll People into the cult brand that it has become today! Shirley aims to create a brand that can cater to everyone, some products are vegan, some aren't but all have strong research behind them, making it a performance driven brand that doesn't compromise on quality or ethics while avoiding all the traditional 'unwanteds' often found in conventional brands such as fillers, propylene glycol, parabens etc.

Now available at Cult Beauty is a wide range of the W3ll People products, from foundations (powder and cream formulas) to brushes and bronzer stick (Shirley taught me the best way to apply this is through a tapping method that helps blend and build the product exactly where you need it!) Again there are a few products that are currently in development and fingers crossed will be launching in the future!

All these brands were amazing to learn about and it was such a wonderful experience to get to meet and chat with the incredible founders and creators behind each brand. They all have an inexhaustible amount of knowledge and were so happy to go through everything, even after their long long day and in some cases, serious jet lag! Thanks to Cult Beauty I not only have an ever growing wishlist but also another great online destination to buy these products easily!

4 comments

  1. Can't believe I didn't know about this event! I would have loved to go but so glad you've written all about it so I don't feel like I've missed out too much. Love the idea of the Odacite oils, so clever and I'd love to try some products from SkinOwl & w3ll people!

    ReplyDelete
  2. WOW looks like a fab event! I've tried Odacite but not the other two x

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice Post. I’m pretty familiar with most of these. some of these websites i even check in on daily basis. 100% proven Skin Owl products are designed to give women a clean, natural alternative to conventional products that are proven to work with a solid base of scientific research behind every product, ingredient and formula.

    Organic Wrinkle Treatment


    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  4. The event seem to be packed with wonderful things and products. It should have been worth attending. Odacite looks an amazing brand I will surely try it. If someone has any problem of skin pigmentation visit www.cosmedocs.com/treatments/hyperpigmentation-skin-treatment.php for professional help.

    ReplyDelete

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