The Dedicated Planet Pleasers

For our readers who don’t know you yet, tell us a little bit about yourselves, in let’s say, 7 sentences each.

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Carmen: As I see it, sustainability can be an effortless part of your day-to-day life. Being health and eco-conscious has always been second nature to me, and I’m a firm believer that even the smallest, most insignificant change can make an impact. That’s why I decided to put my years of experience in strategic design thinking to test and go beyond a mere new product proposition. Tired of compromising efficacy for clean and green labeled beauty products, I knew, I wanted to do something about it. With Nuniq, we are constantly looking for innovation offering beauty for the good of the people – and the planet. This means we create products for you to enjoy fully, wholeheartedly and completely guilt-free. 

 

Silvia: Growing up, I spent a lot of time inside the four walls of my family’s cosmetics lab in Spain. I‘d argue that’s why beauty is so fascinating to me, not just the glitz and the glamour, but seeing the process from start to finish. From an idea on paper to product on shelves and all moments in between. So much so I spent all my career building fragrance brands and developing beauty products in big cosmetic multinationals. With Nuniq, I believe in creating beauty with purpose. 

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You just founded Nuniq (during Covid, wow!) Tell us a little bit about Nuniq? When did you first start putting the wheels into motion for your company?

 
We met each other about 2 years ago, thanks to our daughters, who went to the same nursery. We were both dreaming of bringing a project to life, because after many years working for specific departments in big corporations, we wanted to be in the driving seat to make our ideas happen. We are non-conformists and have a fighting spirit that we wanted to put in use for a good cause. We felt very quickly that we had compatible experiences and made a good team. So we started to shape our dream company with a mission to challenge the beauty industry to do better. With products made with less plastic and refillable and recyclable packaging, filled with highly efficient superfood ingredients. With Nuniq, we’re here to make a change, because ‘why compromise between great hair and being good to the planet?’ 

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What is something about your work that people don’t know or that surprises them?

 

Everyone tells you that starting a business is going to be a full-time job, but it’s much more than that. It’s very time-consuming. You hear all the benefits about being your own boss, the autonomy, the flexibility, but there have been many sleepless nights, and it’s just the beginning. This commitment, effort and dedication needs of great support from the partner and the family. We are fortunate that our husbands and families have understood this and help us with the load of the children and the house, but women do not always have this support, especially in a culture where it is thought that the woman is the one who has to carry the weight of education and childcare. We would like this to change to help more families (women or men) carry out the projects of their dreams.

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What has been your greatest challenge and how did you overcome it?

 

We started this business in the middle of a pandemic. Corona has had implications for every business, challenges but also opportunities. Our main challenge during the pandemic has been to select our partners and suppliers during lockdown without the possibility to attend to industry fairs or physically meet with any of them. This slowed us down at the beginning, but very soon we saw how every business was reinventing themselves and thanks to the technological advances we have been able to reach and meet many of them without having to travel which at the end has given us a much broader selection to choose from. The key to stay motivated, happy and determined is to have a clear purpose! We are building a company that is aligned with our own values and principles and we believe that we can have a personal impact in an industry that has been driven too much by consumerism without taking into account what consumers really needed.

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Your motto is "less waste - more good" how can we as individuals do our part?

 

Plastic thrives in the bathroom. Ditch single-use plastic with packaging you can refill, reuse, recycle or use as you damn well please. Our hair and body care products do just that, and are made for a good time, a long time, or for as long as you like.

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What’s a mistake you see get made all the time, even by very smart people? What have you learned from that to handle it the right way?

 

Not validating hypothesis to learn as much as possible from consumer’s feedback before a big launch. You have to be open to pivot and iterate based on customer input and test your ideas to fail early in order to succeed sooner. We are right now testing our formulas in a limited batch to make sure we develop exactly what consumers are looking for and are happy to continue improving and developing together with them. You can buy our products from our website or from our instagram and facebook pages where we try to have a close relationship with our customers who are the first trying a new sustainably led, non-boring lifestyle with great-looking hair and a greater conscience.

 

Surprisingly, the beauty world is a very male dominated industry - what has been your experience so far and how can women push through?

 

So far we haven’t been in a situation where we felt we were being treated differently because we are women and we really hope that it will be like this in the future. For this company and for our project, we think it is very important that we are female entrepreneurs because we are speaking to women which have been mostly the “victims” of a beauty industry were very few companies have tried to give them alternative products that are good for them and the planet rather that building on unrealistic beauty expectations. We think that being so close to our consumers has helped us in our journey so far.

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Quick Questions
 

Favorite Quote: "A little magic can take you a long way” Roald Dahl

If you could get on a plane right now, where would you go?: NYC

Who would you bring along: Le husband

Mornings or evenings? Evenings! 

Drink of choice: Coffee

3 words you'd like people to use when describing you: high performing, non-boring and naturality

Most used emojis: 🤣 🥰 🤦‍♀️

Finish this sentence: “women should be more... supportive to each other"