Today we’d like to introduce you to Elena Marques.
Elena, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started my skincare career as a licensed cosmetologist in 2007, but after developing severe allergies to hair dye, needed to change the course of my career. I always had an affinity for the science of skin and quickly adapted and felt it was the place I always belonged. I spent many years in a spa, working directly with clients, and many years after that as a specialist for multiple high-end dermatological brands like Perricone MD, Kate Somerville, Dr. Dennis Gross, and ZO by Obagi. Working in that setting with so many clients gave me a firm grasp on what people were looking for in skincare, and what they wanted that either didn’t exist, wasn’t accessible financially, or plain and simply wasn’t a clean enough formula.
Throughout my entire career in the beauty and skincare industry, it had always been a long term dream and goal to eventually create an accessible skincare line geared towards sensitive and easily irritated skin. I always had ideas of ideal ingredient combinations and was constantly researching and educating myself in order to better serve my client’s needs. This ultimately brought me closer to bringing my dream to life because I had a solid understanding of ingredient function when it came to formulations. I started in my kitchen with a single soap for eczema-prone skin that I sold on facebook to friends and acquaintances. I posted the picture of my humble soap, along with all of my in-depth research on each individual ingredient, and within 2 hours of posting I had sold 16. Within weeks, I had dozens and dozens of repeat orders, and from there it blossomed.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There were definitely a lot of rough turns along the way. A lot of needing to find new ways to stay in the industry, roadblock after roadblock from allergies, chronic illness, injuries, and other challenges. As we grow and grow, there have definitely been a lot of growing pains and tough lessons but the passion, drive, and commitment to provide clean accessible skincare to people keeps me going. We are a self-funded business in a world of venture capital start-up brands, so odds have been against it in many ways, but the feedback I receive from my customers about how it’s changed their skin, or how they are able to use it when nothing else has worked, keeps us forging ahead. We have had larger brands steal ideas and names from us, other better funded companies take advantage of us, a plethora of other things that come with naivety and newness to the business world, but every painful struggle ultimately became a learning lesson that’s only made me stronger and wiser.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I make botanical and mineral-based skincare with an artistic edge, formulated for sensitive skin. Something in particular that I pride my brand on and feel sets us apart is our mission statement from the get go. I don’t believe in selling insecurities. We don’t thrive on convincing people there are things wrong that need to be fixed. What we do provide, however, are luxurious self-care rituals at an accessible price, full of natural clean ingredients, to help encourage comfort in your own skin. Skincare is incredibly intimate, and inevitably intertwined with self-care rituals, and these are things we believe everyone should be able to enjoy should they choose.
There’s almost this sacred aspect to skincare that comes with taking the time to love and baby your skin. It’s not just about “fighting aging”, it’s about nourishing and loving your skin enough to treat it nicely, then going to bed with skin that feels soft, and comforted, and the subtle lingering fragrance that makes you feel good. Ethics in another issue we firmly stand by and feel proud of. We are completely cruelty-free, not just with animals, but with human beings as well. For example, we use lab created mica to ensure it is conflict and cruelty-free because so much natural mica is a result of child labor and unable to be thoroughly and properly sourced. Our many ingredients we use from the amazon are thoroughly sourced to ensure ethical and sustainable practices were used.
We specialize in products for skin that needs gentle but effective products. Our most popular product is our star bright eye cream, which is a lotus, hyaluronic acid, green tea, and rose water eye cream with all-natural ingredients. It’s very fragrant from the lotus and we get a lot of love for the scent and how quickly our customers feel like it perks up their under eye area. We work with a lot of blue tansy, lotus, and dragons blood, which is a sap from the croton lechleri tree in the amazon known to be incredibly healing and regenerative.
What were you like growing up?
I was actually pretty chronically ill growing up, which I think affected a lot of things for me and the direction of my life. I was an artist from a very young age, and began to pursue it seriously my first year after high school and became a frequently showing artist. Art and science have been life long loves of mine and contributed a lot to the development as Beladoce as a brand.
Pricing:
- Star Bright Eye cream $22
- Miami Glow Luxe Shimmer Bronze Body Oil $18
- Jelly Doce Natural Lip Oil Conditioner $11
Contact Info:
- Website: www.beladocebotanicals.com
- Email: info@beladocebotanicals.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/beladoceskin
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/beladoceskin
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