EP107. Naughty Alchemist - Formula Botanica graduate story

I've worked with tens of thousands of formulators over the years now, and there is one thing that they all have in common. They all love their ingredients. It's the botanicals. They excite people. The idea of every day working with organic cold pressed plant oils, or freshly distilled flower waters, or rich botanical butters, or exquisitely fragrant plant extracts, this is what inspires people to become formulators. And just imagine starting a business that not only allows you to connect to these amazing botanicals, but also allows you to help nurture a deep love and respect for nature with your customers. This would surely be the ideal job, wouldn't it? And this is what we do at Formula Botanica. We train up people all over the world through our online courses to become formulators and to work with those incredible herbs, flowers, roots, spices, leaves, petals, buds, barks and seeds. And then some of those formulators decide to create an outlet for their creativity and the sheer joy they experience in working with these exquisite plants. And they then start their own indie beauty brand. Right now, in May 2022, when this episode is airing, we're in the middle of teaching a huge free masterclass for future formulators and indie beauty entrepreneurs. If you want to sign up, the link is in the show notes and I know many of the thousands of people taking part will be wondering what it's like to surround yourself by botanicals all day, every day. Well, I've got a treat for you because today I am interviewing Stella Nisreen Kanan, one of Formula Botanica's graduates and the founder of Naughty Alchemists. If you want to know what it's like to formulate your future with botanicals, make sure you settle in for this whole episode as I promise you, it will inspire you so much. Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that challenges you to think about how you buy, use, make and sell your natural beauty formulations. We tackle topics that will make you think and encourage debate about green beauty with your friends, followers or customers. I'm your host, Lorraine Dallmeyer. I'm a chartered environmentalist, biologist and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school, Formula Botanica. We have thousands and thousands of students in over 180 countries around the world who study with us to become organic beauty formulators and entrepreneurs, visit our website@formulabotanica.com to try and sign up for our free online masterclass, which is ongoing right now. And if you want to be the first person to know what's happening in green beauty, make sure you subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. So in today's episode, I'm joined by Stella Nisreen Kanan, Formula Botanica graduate and founder and alchemist in chief at Naughty Alchemist. Stella is also the founder and CEO of Beauty Avenue, a leading beauty salon and spa in Green Beauty in Copenhagen in Denma Mark. Creating Naughty Alchemist was a consequence of Stella's deep passion for natural plant based beauty care and how she herself wants to live and interact with nature. I've known and admired Stella greatly for many years and I am thrilled to welcome her onto the podcast today. Hi Stella, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Hello Lorraine. Thank you so much for having me. I'm doing very well. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, me too. I'm so excited that you're here. Obviously we've known each other for years and I can't wait for this conversation. So let's start at the beginning. Can you please tell us about your brand, introduce your brand to us and tell us about the products that you make and sell.

So I am the founder of Naughty Alchemist, which you can see over here. And Naughty Alchemist is a skincare brand, well, also a lifestyle brand where I connect nature to all the products that we make. So my vision is how can we actually work with herbs and essential oils and plant oils to create beautiful skincare products. And everything is always organic certified. So I only use organic certified ingredients with everything that I work with. Actually this year is my second year of since we launched. So we have two years birthday for Naughty Alchemist and we do skincare face products for now. So we have launched a moonlight renewing serum which is a night serum for your skin. We have a sacred elixir product which is a serum for your yoni actually. So it's when you've had your hair removed down in your intimate area, you can actually apply this beautiful oil that can help reduce ingrowns and redness and bumps and so on. And a brow serum. That was one of the things that we've launched as well at the beginning as I am a herbalist, I have also launched a beautiful tea which we call the Self Love herbal blend as well. And then later on we also have launched our hand spirit which is our hand sanitizers, all made from organic corn alcohol, actually from a distillery in Denmark as well. And what do I have? I've just launched two new three new products, a hand balm and two face mists. And actually not to forget my other children, which are my face cleansers. Oh, my goodness. The family is growing. Sorry, Cleansers. I haven't forgotten you. Yes.

I love it.

I love it.

I mean, your brand's been going for two years. First of all, congratulations. I remember when we met five years ago or so, you. You came up to me at one of the events we were running for Formula Botanic. You said, I've got my name. Don't tell anyone, but I want to share it with you, and I love it. And obviously you've launched. So why Naughty Alchemist? Why did you choose that name?

You know, I went through the process of trying to choose a name for my brand and, you know, I was putting different things down and I was putting Alchemist and I was putting like botanical this and herbal thing, you know, like different names which are beautiful and connected to my brand. And then my husband name is Manuel. And so Manuel was saying, you know, let's call it Naughty Alchemist. And I was like, naughty Alchemist? I don't know about that. That sounds a little. Maybe too much. I was saying to him, I don't know. And then for a long time I was feeling like, no, I don't want to have Naughty Alchemist on there. It doesn't really fit. But then he actually created. He helped me create my Excel sheets for all my formulas. And on the Excel sheet, he actually wrote Naughty Alchemist. So for a long time, while I was doing my classes and, you know, all my formulas and taking my online course, then I had. I was seeing Naughty Alchemist. And actually it really made sense because for us, Naughty is about breaking the rule. And because we, with Naughty Alchemist, you know, we've built on, you know, we have an. Our apothecary lab here in Fredericksburg, in Copenhagen, in Denmark, where people can look into it. We're really trying to be changing the way the beauty industry does business by having our lab making everything ourselves from scratch. And also we love to be playful as well. So being Naughty is also about being playful and having fun, doing what we do. And then the Alchemist is really connecting this part of going back to the ancient wisdom of using herbs and plants and how can we actually help them support our health and skin.

Yeah. Oh, what a beautiful story. Well, for our listeners, let's paint a bit more of a picture because, of course you don't only, I mean, I say only in brackets, have a skincare brand. You are a powerhouse entrepreneur, and I've seen so many articles with you over the years. I mean, obviously we're friends on social media. I see everything Come past. You're a real inspiration. So for our listeners, tell us a bit more about your entire business empire.

Thank you, Lorraine. I started in the beauty business already. More than 21 years ago, actually. I started studying beauty therapy in London. That was in 1999. Sounds so crazy. Long time ago. Yes. And I actually started in the beauty business because I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I've always wanted to have my own business. Doing beauty treatment treatments was something that was my hobby. And I always thought, wow, imagine actually earning money on doing what you love to do. And that's why I thought, okay, let me start taking my education as a beauty therapist. And then shortly after I finished my education, then I moved back to Denmark. And then I opened my salon, which is called Beauty Avenue. And it started with just me, alone in 26 square meters with one bed. And then I started slowly growing it. And back then, we didn't have social media to sit and advertise, you know, I had to actually buy an ad and ad in the Yellow Pages. And it sounds so ancient today. You know, it's like, what Yellow Pages? Do they even exist? Still exist. So I was very determined in making it work. And part of it is, of course, for me, I love working with people. So that was always my choice of work. I have to be close to people. That's for me. I get energy from being with people. And I love touching people and making people feel good and make them feel happy. And by being a beauty therapist, I could actually do that. And then, of course, as we grow, you know, our business was growing and mostly was word of mouth, you know, then I hired someone new and then we started growing. Ten years ago, we moved to this beautiful big location, which I started 20 years ago with 26 square meters. And today we have 550 square meters, which is a big house, a full house with four floors. And today I have 28 employees, you know, 28 people working. And we do beautiful holistic treatment. So this is my philosophy. It's about being healthy beauty, really, and about wellness. How can we, through our house here, be able to help our guests to reduce stress, to feel good about themselves? And. And we often forget to take that time. So we really do a full body treatments, we do facials, we do hair removal, we do manicures and pedicures. But again, everything is actually with a holistic approach. And we only use organic beauty products, healthy beauty products for that.

What an incredible story. And congratulations on your huge success as well. So you have this incredible Beauty avenue in the center of Copenhagen. And if any of our listeners happen to be in Copenhagen, I would very much recommend you go and visit. So why did you decide to start your beauty brand? What is your big mission behind it?

Already more than 10 years ago, when I had still my salon and the previous location already the private label industry, if you can say that, were already saying, hey, you know what, Stella? They could see, of course my salon was doing great and it was kind of starting to boom. And they were saying, hey, Stella, what about you having Beauty Avenue's own, you know, skincare products, and all you need to do is to actually, you know, you can just choose the bottle and you just choose the label and we'll produce products for you and then you're good to go, which is of course also fine. But for me back then, I felt that was not what I really want to do and it didn't feel right for me. And I felt that if I ever was going to launch my own skincare brand, I really wanted to know everything inside the skincare brand. I wanted to understand what these beauty products could do and how they are actually produced. And I felt that if I got like a private label back then, I felt I would be a chef that bought my food in buckets and I was just serving it in my restaurant. That was the feeling for me. And I felt, if I ever want to do this, I want to be the chef. I want to be the person who is creating these beautiful formulas and, and want to understand. So if anyone tells me what is in your product, I'm going to be like, you know, there's three main ingredients, key ingredients, but then there's other 50, which I don't know anything about. And for me that was really important, but I didn't know how to start about it. So it was kind of a journey that was developing throughout the years. And especially when we moved here 11 years ago, we went along with a whole detox process for Beauty Avenue. I started taking one treatment at a time and thinking, okay, yes, I know this is how I learned to do this. Or I have been doing it in this way using this and this product. But if we were to question it and say, is this ingredients good for us? Is it good for the environment? Where is it actually coming from? How is it produced? Can we find better alternatives? And then when I started doing that, we could say one of the first things we took, we used a lot of powder to do all our hair removal. And talc has been linked to many, unfortunately, like it's been linked to ovarian cancer and has been linked to. To lung tumors. And here I am putting it on a Brazilian, on my guests, you know, private parts all day long, and me inhaling it and all my therapists inhaling it, and I was like, okay, this is terrible, but what is the alternative? And then I started researching, and then I found that women in Peru actually made their own powder mix. And they started to use, for example, they use arrowroot and they use corn starch and use some other starches from plants. And I thought, wow, that's so interesting. And then I bought those ingredients and then I mixed them together, and it was so much better than everything else. But then I still didn't know, how can I actually, you know, I had this interest, and then I started actually thinking, I want to learn more about this. And I took some aromatherapy education online, and I love herbs, so I was starting with the herbalist education, but still, that didn't give me the feeling of how can I actually create skincare products? And then I was googling, and I was so lucky that the Google God, you know, helped me find Formula Botanica, because what I really wanted was an organic course that can help me work with natural ingredients. And that was my goal. And I wasn't sure if it even existed back then. And that's why I was so excited when I found Formula Botanica, because then I felt it was my way to get started into on this journey. I mean, I am so grateful and so happy that you existed.

Oh, thank you very much. Well, we're very excited and grateful that you have done so well with this as well. I mean, I'm just thrilled to bits. And I love what you said. You didn't want to be a chef that used, you know, just buckets of ingredients. You wanted to be a naughty alchemist and create your own, basically.

Exactly. And I just love that, you know, when I started my course, everything made so much sense, and I, for me, I felt it kind of came natural the way I could mix things together. And I, you know, the more I learned. Of course, when you are such a nerd, you just learn and learn and read all the time. You're never stopping. In my case, I find it so exciting, and often it just really works. And it's really nice to be able to feel that, at least in my case, it also came natural that I understood how things work.

I get it. And I've seen all of the beautiful photos, obviously, that you've taken. I mean, you've done lots of photo shoots in your lab and things like that. And I always love watching you surrounded by the herbs and the plants. I've seen pictures of you out in the countryside, sort of wild, harvesting. You make it look very idyllic. It's lovely.

It's always. And actually, you know, when I build the lab, so when we want, it also is we want to do this. As for me, it's also my goal is how can I educate people about the herbs and the plants and natural and organic skincare? How can I teach them that it's not just another skincare brand that's just been launched and like, okay, why is this different? And that was why, for example, le piece de resistance is my lab. And I wanted, when I started, I thought, okay, I'm not the type of person who's going to hide in a little lab somewhere no one can see me. I want to be around my guests, people I've been doing treatments on my team. And that's why we thought, let's build the lab here in the middle, in the heart of Beauty Avenue, in the house where, you know, I have between 130 and 150 people who pass by every single day, who sit in my waiting area, you know, before they're being picked up for their treatment, and they're looking into the lab every day. And when I'm here, I have the windows. I talk to them and explain to them about herbs. And for me, it's really about reawakening the curiosity of ancient wisdom. And I tell people, and often people say, yeah, that's true. My grandma used to do this and my mom actually did this. And we have these amazing conversations. And this for me is the whole essence of Naughty Alchemist is reigniting the passion for our nature. And that for me will make people hopefully appreciate nature even more. And of course, start respecting Mother Earth and loving it. And then understanding is the only planet that we have. So we need to really take care of it.

Yes, I think we need a bit more of that in the world. So I love how inspired you are and how inspiring you are with this mission that you're on. And of course, I'm sure a lot of people are also listening, thinking, wow, you've got an inbuilt customer base right there as well. Because if you've got 130 plus people walking past your formulation lab doors every day, then presumably they're also looking in and thinking, I want to buy some of these products. Is that how it works?

It is. And actually, I could say one of the things that really made me be, of course, encouraged me to kickstart. Because you can imagine it's a huge investment. Starting, of course, from education to research and travels and building a lab and, you know, working with design and all of these things. I mean, launching a brand is not a cheap thing to do. So of course you have to really believe in it and know that it's going to work. And for many years, of course, having a beauty salon, I have been reselling many other brands, you know, I have already. And having our guests, we call them guests, you know, who come here, people already buy the products that we recommend them. So I felt, you know, we already have the customer base and they're ready to fall in love with Naughty Alchemist, hopefully. And today I had two beautiful guests who were telling me like, they were telling me like, one of them, she never likes to buy purity products before, but now she only wants to buy Naughty Alchemist products.

Oh, wow.

One of our employees, it's her mother in law. And then she said, she's typically such a hippie woman who doesn't really love to buy or do anything like that. She never felt she wanted to. She never felt connected to regular, traditional, or you can say conventional beauty products. But with Naughty Alchemist, she's like, what's the new one coming up? And I was like, yes. And then I had another one today who, because we also do Brazilian treatments. So I was teaching one of the girls and then I looked at her and said, wow, your cesarean section looks amazing. It's like the best scar I have ever seen. And I've seen thousands, you can imagine. And then she said to me, but that's because I have been using the sacred elixir every single day for one year. And it has been helping with my scarring.

Wow, that's incredible.

It is incredible. And I was so happy because I was not expecting her to even say this. I was just asking, like, how is the scar going, you know, or like this beautiful scar, you can't even notice it. And she was saying that. And I said, and that's actually when I was designing the sacred elixir. I had scarring inflammation, redness, pigmentation in mind to actually help reduce that. And it was doing the job and it was amazing to me. I was like, well, that's so nice to hear that, you know, someone who's not my friend saying that, you know, absolutely.

Well, it makes it all worthwhile as well. And of course, it probably makes you very proud to hear all of that thinking Back to. I mean, obviously you. You have it in your blood to be an entrepreneur. By the sounds of things. It sounds to me like you were born to be an entrepreneur. What is it that triggered this entrepreneurial journey for you in the beginning?

I mean, first of all, I did grow up with parents who were entrepreneurs. We are Palestinian refugees. My mom and dad have always had to survive and work hard for the life that they want to create. And my dad was always this type who was always ready to take risks and not afraid and. And kind of was always able to see new concepts and things. And I really looked up to him in that. And my mom actually also had her own, you know, you could say perfume Marie, you know, where she was selling cosmetics and. Yeah, we lived in Abu Dhabi at one point, and she opened one of the first perfumeries in Abu Dhabi. That was in the beginning of the 80s. You have to think that it was not very. So she would go to Paris and, like, buy things from Paris, and she had, like, some of the big cosmetic brands at that time. And it was really exciting to see, you know, when. When people are buying and coming in and already as when I was living in Cyprus later on as a young girl, and I don't know why, but one day I thought I was going to make my own jasmine perfume. I woke up thinking, yes, because we had so many jasmine flowers everywhere and I love them. And. And then I thought, I'm going to make my own jasmine perfume and sell it. And then I woke up one day collecting all the jasmine flowers. I boiled them, but then I had, like, a little concentrate that my mom had bought for me. And then I put it in, and then I filled it up with some bottles that I had bought from the supermarket. And then I went to school and I sold all of them.

I love that. I wasn't expecting that twist at the end. I've heard so many people over the years make their own flower perfume, but I've never heard anyone then take them to school and sell them.

Maybe like, what, nine years old or something. I sold them and it was so cool because everyone's like, give me that. Give me. I was like, wow. And for me, it wasn't the money, because I love that I could say, yeah, it's 20 cents, you know, 20, you know, and then I even made, like, little copy books, you remember, you like, you know, like little copy books of. Of little, you know, I made a banana copy book, an apple copy book, and Ananas and I would draw on them and fix them together and Put lines and then I would sell them in school as well.

Amazing. Okay.

Yeah.

I think we can safely say that you were born to be an entrepreneur, which I think everyone listening can be inspired by. It's amazing.

And I love the idea of energy exchange and thinking of a concept. You know, I love thinking of new concepts, new ideas, and I love building those. So sometimes I feel like, oh, I would love to be hired by someone who's just gonna take over the managerial part, the daily operations, but let me create a concept for them because I would love to do that.

I think at their heart, a lot of entrepreneurs want to be creative director and not be so bothered with the day to day operations. I can speak for myself as well. Exactly, exactly. So what have been the biggest highlights so far with Naughty Alchemist now that you've been going for two years?

I feel there has been many highlights and one of the most exciting things is people are repurchasing, you know, Naughty Alchemist products because you can always start selling one thing. But the tip here is knowing if people are going to buy again and again and again. And I even have people now buying like stocking up like four pieces of products because they're afraid it's going to run out. And I think that's so beautiful and very amazing to, to experience and just to share something really exciting with you today, Lorraine, which you are one of the very few people who knows this, but I, I'm saying this because I'm guessing by the time the podcast comes out, then I would have probably started to tell more people. But you will hear it anyway. So, you know, many years ago when I was dreaming of making Naughty Alchemist vision board and thinking, okay, where do I want to go with this for Naughty Alchemist? And one of the dreams was to have our, to be able to grow our own herbs and to be able to grow them here locally in Denmark and hopefully, you know, locally by an organic farm farmer. And I met this and, and I think maybe like more than three years ago, I went out to this beautiful farm only like 30 minutes drive from here, and I met this amazing farmer and I just loved his farm and I loved everything. And I was like, oh my God, you have to grow my herbs one day. And tomorrow is the day where we're gonna plant the first seeds for the garden of Naughty Alchemist.

That is so exciting. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. What are you gonna grow there?

We are going to start. Obviously I use many more herbs than we can start off and because as my farmer says, you know the price is going to be 10 or 15 times more than what you're used to. I'm like, I know, I know, but let's start somewhere. And I would rather give you the money as well and have it locally grown and see how the quality is. So we're going to start off with four herbs. We're going to. We're going to grow calendula, marigold, and we're going to take to St. John's Wort as well. We're going to go with chamomile and milk thistle. So these are the four kind of most used herbs that I have here that can actually also grow in Denmark. So this is one of the things that we also have to. And also, how much yield are we going to get out of one season? It's so interesting because now I'm also learning about all the farming stuff as well.

That's amazing, though. I mean, then it will be truly farm to face. I mean, those are some beautiful herbs you've got there as well. I can't wait to see the photos of your.

I know, I can't wait as well. I mean, it's really nice and I'm really excited. And hopefully what we're excited about is also inviting people out to the farm and helping people reconnect to our land as well as through Naughty Alchemist Farm as well, you know.

Beautiful. I love your story so much. How has Naughty Alchemist changed your life?

It definitely has. I am now so busy with Naughty Alchemist that I don't have time to be working on Beauty Avenue as much as I have before, which has always been the goal anyway. And I'm really excited to go even more in. So after the summer, I will be withdrawing more from Beauty Avenue and really digging in so much more with Naughty Alchemist. And I feel amazing about being able to make beautiful products that make people feel happy. And it works. And also being creative. For me, it's this part of constantly being able to be creative and to do some like, it's joy. It brings me joy every single day. It's so crazy. It's joy. So much joy and pleasure. So it's amazing to do something you just love to do every day and not think of it as a job. Of course, there are things that needs to always be done, but I love that part.

That's absolutely beautiful. And I think that's a wonderful place to end our conversation on today. Formulating and working with plants. I'm just looking at my notes here. It makes you happy. It brings you joy. It's an outlet for your creativity and it brings you pleasure. I mean, that's just fantastic, isn't it? And I know many of our listeners will identify with that too. So where can people follow you and Naughty Alchemist and come and buy your lovely formulations?

Yes, you can. Actually, actually we sell to most of Europe on our webshop, which is naughty alchemist.com we also have Naughty Alchemist DK. We are soon trying to merge these two together and so they can buy our products. And for those who are outside of Europe, they are always welcome to ask for a quote for shipping because obvious, that's sometimes what is required and of course customs and so on. And people can follow Naughty Alchemist on Instagram and of course on Facebook. And they're also welcome to follow me on my Instagram, which is called Stella Nisreen nm.

We will include all of those links in the show notes, so make sure you go and give Naughty Alchemist and Stella a follow. Stella, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you and seeing you again today. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting me. It's been a pleasure.

Me too. I hope you enjoyed this episode and that it's inspired you to imagine what's possible and what it could feel like to become a botanical formulator. I would love to hear your thoughts. So please do come and leave us a comment on our social channels as both the Formula Botanica team and I love hearing from you. Thank you for joining Stella and I for this latest episode of Green Beauty Conversations. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please do leave us a five star review so that other people can enjoy these conversations too. And make sure you subscribe to our podcast on Apple's podcasts or Spotify or whatever your favorite podcast app is. And stay tuned for the next episode. Follow Formula Botanica Formula Botanica on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter or LinkedIn. Visit our website at formulabotanica.com today and sign up for this big free masterclass that we're currently running.