Recreation Beauty Founder Nedahl Stelio
Nedahl Stelio shares her business and personal journey to creating Recreation Beauty.
by Melanie Burnicle
Melanie
You had an amazing career in the editorial world, starting as a journalist to becoming editor of one of the biggest women’s magazines in OZ, how did you transition to building an amazing beauty brand? What was the drive behind that for you to sort of go from writing, to creating?
Nedahl
I think that when you’re working magazines, you get to do every single job. So, it’s not just about the writing, it’s about the creating and the designing and the styling, and it’s just got so many different aspects to it. Yes. So, you probably get a bit too confident really, and think you can do anything. I just wanted to sit on a different side of the fence and see how things worked from there. And with Recreation, it basically started with me putting one foot in front of the other, I thought, can I do this? And I just started investigating step by step. And so, I was like, oh, okay. I’ve gotten this far, then I need to do this, and then I need to do that. And after doing step by step suddenly I had this brand, and it was created. I guess because I looked at it so methodically and just did it. One by one, it came about.
Melanie
So, you found ease in making small steps approachable and not daunting and overwhelming where it can look too hard with a big mountain in front of you.
Nedahl
Exactly. So, the way I did things was instead of thinking, right. I needed all this money at the beginning to invest in it, I guess that would’ve been the point where you would have to decide. So, I did the things that didn’t need the money and I did all the research on whether I could actually create a perfume brand in Australia. Yeah. Asking the questions; Are there, perfumers here? Who do I need to work with? How do I need to get in touch with them? What about the packaging? So, I just started doing all these other aspects first that didn’t need financial backing. Once I realised I’d gotten to the point where I did need to put money in it, I was confident that I could do it.
Melanie
Do you think your skill skillset as a journalist and the research you would’ve done for so many different topics over your amazing career really helped you with research and across other parts of building your business?
Nedahl
I have realised that I research a lot more than other people who aren’t journalists, knowing how to find the right information and where to look or start looking for that kind of information, I think my nose for digging things out really helped.
Melanie
Did you end up down a couple of good rabbit holes with the research?
Nedahl
many, many rabbit holes, you find a lot of things and I found amazing people to work with. It took a long time for me to convince them to work with me. Having had no product development background. But my background in magazines did help with that also.
Melanie
It’s nice to know that when you transition from something so extreme and the difference in industry are big, people still respect where you’ve come from. Which is a Testament to your skillset.
Nedahl
They do respect where you’ve come from. I also think if you present yourself well and you’re giving them the right feel for the way you want your brand to go. They’re much more receptive.
Melanie
By that stage, you would’ve had quite good clarity around what you wanted to achieve, when people hear that message and it’s clear, they know you’re not messing around.
Nedahl
Exactly, I think if you’ve got your story for the brand from the outset, then you’re right. Because if you’re just faffing about, and you’re not quite sure which way you want things to go, <laugh>, they’re less likely to think that you’re able to pull it off.
Melanie
What was your personal journey into wanting to create natural perfumes?
Nedahl
When I wanted to get pregnant, I actually struggled to get pregnant, it took me a really long time And I just started researching again. <Laugh> about what to do because the doctors basically just said it’s unexplained infertility. There was no medical reason. And yes, that happens a lot. It’s not new or rare, so one thing I did find was that when you cut down on your chemical load, you are more likely to conceive. It’s certainly not guaranteed and it’s certainly not what got me pregnant either. I was doing a billion other things. But you know, it definitely started me on this health journey. I basically cut out all the chemicals in my household, food, and beauty products, which for me as a magazine editor was a really big thing. I threw out all these be products actually I didn’t throw them out, I gave them to other people who were happy to use them, And I remade my entire beauty cabinet. It was 11 years ago now, so it’s quite a long time ago and most things I was able to find natural products for. The green movement was just starting but fragrance was just not around, and I couldn’t find any natural beautiful luxury fragrance. It was more like Aromatherapy roll-ons vanilla. Patchouli and that was your extent of your choices. there was nothing luxury that replaced that wonderful sensation that you get with a beautiful perfume, opening the box, spraying it on you. I just couldn’t find anything like that. so, I lived without perfume for so long And I really missed it. You really, really miss it.
Melanie
Perfume for me tells a story about how I feeling I find
Nedahl
It does, it just completes your outfit. I think once you’re dressed, you just want to add that final touch before you leave the house.
Melanie
When I’m dressed and wearing clothes you often don’t see them during the day, but you definitely smell you. And it’s fun play around with different parts of your personality with fragrance. whether you feel like being flirty, sexy, sophisticated.
Nedahl
It’s an accessory. And that was when I started investigating to see whether it was actually possible to do it.
Melanie
How hard is it to create the blend of fragrances to create a signature scent? I assume that the choices on offer and available are immense. How do you choose?
Nedahl
I work with perfumers, who create the fragrances for me, we work really closely together as I knew what fragrances I wanted to create. I would basically give them a brief. there was a lot of research involved. So, you need to be prepared to put the man hours, there was a lot of back and forth, and I was able to work with some incredible perfumers, who I’m still working with. It’s an ongoing process.
Melanie
When you build a relationship or any kind of rapport and you finally start speaking the same language, it’s so exhilarating. With so many people, you could describe something, but in someone else’s mind, they describe it very differently. So, when you find that connection with the right people, and you’re finally speaking the same language you’d want to keep them around.
Nedahl
That’s right, there were some perfumers who I just couldn’t work with. They just weren’t getting it and I’d give them a brief and we’d go back and forth, and it would be literally like five months later And I’d say, it’s not happening And I’m really sorry but we’re moving on. you have to be able to recognise that and know when to cut your losses and when to move on someone else. So now I work with two amazing perfumers, and they really get me, and they really get it.
Melanie
When it comes to different chemicals, that could be in a regular perfume. What are we looking at and what might they do to the body?
Nedahl
Okay. So, there can be up to 3000 chemicals in parfum, and the thing with fragrance is that nobody has to let you know what is in the perfume, because the blends are proprietary. The company owns the fragrance, and they obviously don’t want people to copy them, that’s their IP, which is understandable to a point. But the problem is that the regulatory body who tells people, tells the companies, what they’re allowed to put in the perfumes are also the people who are trying to sell it. Sometimes they’re using ingredients that they used, you know, way back when they started making perfume. when these companies started in the 1940s and fifties, we didn’t know any better and we didn’t know what some chemicals caused, and they weren’t tested properly. But now we do know, and we know that things like phthalates and synthetic musk’s are really bad for your endocrine system, which regulates your hormones, especially in women, And of course men. It really controls so many things from mood swings and weight gain to headaches, phthalates have been linked to reproductive issues in unborn male fetuses. And these chemicals aren’t just in perfumes, They’re also in anything with as scent. So, think shampoo, laundry, detergent, body wash. it’s just everywhere. I think why the clean beauty movement really took off is because it’s one thing we can control. there are chemicals in things like vinyl, car covers, mattresses lounges and things like that. But it’s much harder to control Your intake of those things. Whereas with beauty products, you can control that straight away. You have a choice now whereas 10 years ago you didn’t have this choice. This is one place where you’re able to easily control your toxic load. A lot of these ingredients have been tested and they’re only in such small amounts in each product. What hasn’t been tested is the toxic accumulation when you’re using different products.
Melanie
Think about it. If it’s in your couch, it’s in your car, walking into a corporate building, they’ve got scents coming through the aircon. then on top of that, what we are eating, there’s different chemicals there. I would probably use at least, oh God, even on my face and there’s probably about 20 different products a day. Toner, serums, more serums, eye cream, moisturiser, sunscreen, and that’s before I start putting a face on.
Nedahl
Well even before That, body wash, soap, shampoo and toothpaste, toothbrush, just everything. So that’s why I think it’s just one of those areas in life that if you can control. When there are beautiful, amazing alternative products on offer, why wouldn’t you use them? it’s not like before where it used to be a compromise with organic products, natural products. They didn’t look good, and They weren’t very well done.
Melanie
the packaging used have a feeling of oh, it’s natural, and there was much effort put in.
Nedahl
The reality is the natural products are more expensive to produce, the ingredients are more expensive and, and harder to come across and they’re actually really amazing. they’ve got the science behind them that say that they work just as well.
Melanie
I really, I think it’s so important that people start to become more aware. I’ve got someone on my floor that comes out and sprays the hallway I’m literally, immediately feeling unwell. There’s a good 30 minutes I have all the windows open. it comes under my door, and I just can’t cope with any of those plug-in and sprays, I have a headache within a few minutes. Even the car scents when the use they really make me feel unwell
Nedahl
The headache, that’s your first symptom. So, imagine then what else it’s doing? Do you know what I mean? It’s just not worth it. I don’t think
Melanie
Not when you’ve got a choice.
I think the ritual of spraying something and to make it a conscious choice to make it healthy Is extremely important.
Nedahl
Fragrance is one of the worst offenders in the beauty cupboard for the unwanted chemicals So if there’s one thing that you’re going to make over that’s it! Especially when you’re spraying on your lymph nodes.
Melanie
As a makeup artist, what I’ve noticed over the years, having worked with so many different people in 25 years, for so many women if you look at the area of skin on the neck behind the ear, I say, “do you place your perfume there?” and they say yes. The discolouration of pigment in the skin and the texture in the skin in that area is so vastly different. Over the years I kept asking, 25 years’ worth of research has me spraying hair perfume on my clothes and in my hair to avoid skin contact.
Nedahl
Oh, my goodness.
Melanie
So, if it’s discolouring the skin and changing the melanin in your skin, what is it doing on a deeper level. I am not a scientist, but it definitely has me asking the question what else could it be doing? for me, just seeing the visible, that was enough to make me start spraying it on clothes in my hair, because I’m so such a visual person
Nedahl
Yeah. I would never have thought that it was actually a physical, visual reaction.
Melanie
one thing I noticed about your products, they’re vegan and cruelty free. Now I know it might sound a bit silly, but why would you have to say that a perfume is vegan?
Nedahl
Interesting. Isn’t it? I mean, most beauty products do have some kind of animal component in them. Musk until they hunted it into oblivion actually used to come from a Musk Deer. Then of course we almost made them extinct, so now, they’re synthetic musk’s, but they’re the ones that are really bad. They’re really bad endocrine disruptors.
Melanie
What part of the Musk deer where they from?
Nedahl
The anal glands.
Nedahl
there are ingredients derived from whales, beavers, there’s a whole host of ingredients. when it comes to perfume, you’re trying to get that animalistic True scent going. And so, it can come from very strange places. obviously, this started way back when hundreds of years ago, when they started making perfume and of course animals were the one thing that they could get fragrance from. now there’s a lot of synthetic options, but then again, some of the synthetics aren’t good for you.
Melanie
why do you think the synthetics are worse than the natural ingredients? Regardless of if it was coming from an animal.
Nedahl
I mean, with vegan, it’s one, one of those things where I’m not a vegan, but I just draw the line at having animal products in my beauty products. I just don’t think I should use animal parts to make myself feel beautiful. And so, I’m just drawing the line there. I think you can say that they’re sourced ethically, and the animals aren’t harmed and a lot of them probably aren’t, but at some point, if you’re selling enough product, you’re going to have to farm or keep a farm for the animals. I think so many people are so much smarter now and they really are caring about what goes in and when they know that they have a choice, they’re most likely to be choosing the smarter option. But I think there’s so much education that still needs to go out.
Melanie
I walked into my sister’s place, she’s in the country and my mom does this too, they have these scented candles kids, animals, farm you want your place to smell nice not like a farm and kids stinky sport shoes? But, if I go into one room and there’s scented candle, my asthma starts, I can’t breathe. I’m nasal. And then I’ll have a headache, bang like that. So as soon as I get to the farm because I know mums got them out, I grab them all, put them in the cupboard at the back of the house, close the cupboard up. Yeah, I was never the easiest child <laugh> and so when I start doing stuff like this, they’re just like, oh God, here she is again. But I look at my nieces and if I know what’s going on, I’m like wow what could it be doing to everyone’s hormones.
Nedahl
Behavioral disorders. Yeah. It really does but you’ll never know what’s going on because you would be least likely to suspect it to be a scented candle.
Melanie
They sell it in the shop, you know, it must be okay. If there was something wrong or dangerous, they wouldn’t sell it, you’d think.
Nedahl
But that’s not the case. No.
Melanie
This is so insightful. I think really pushing the education about understanding what goes into your products. You might not get the formulation cause that’s your secret, herbs, and spices recipe. But at the same time, know what goes in. This is your body. We get one, so why not really make conscious choices about how you live your life.
Nedahl
Exactly. there are certainly safe chemicals, obviously everything is a chemical of some sort. So, there are certainly some safe chemicals that you can put into your body and know that there are unsafe ones and, avoid the unsafe ones
Melanie
It’s Just that awareness. And care. being conscious about what goes in.
Melanie
apart from the fact that what’s in the bottle is great. Talk to me about your packaging. It’s award-winning and it’s sustainable. You’re just like ticking all the boxes here.
Nedahl
When I was launching my own brand. You wanted to be proud of it. You want to be able to talk about it and say, yes, I’m doing this. Yes, I’m environmentally conscious. That’s the way I live my life. Yes. And so, I just wanted that to translate in all areas of the business. Be an extension of me. And I wanted something that I, I was proud of that I could say, you know, sustainable packaging, we’re environmentally friendly, everything’s in a glass bottle, we’ve got aluminium lids and we use no plastic at all.
Melanie
Even in the way you deliver the product. There’s nothing nasty.
Nedahl
In a box there’s normally, especially with fragrance, so much foam packaging. Which again, they have really bad chemicals in foam. I didn’t want to create or have something that when you’re ordering these, you’re ordering thousands of them, so you can you imagine if ordering thousands of pieces of plastic or foam for it to just end up as landfill? It wasn’t something that I could consciously do. Let’s say it’s not easy, it’s really hard to do. And we’re actually going to have an evolution in our packaging this year again, we’ve creating a mold, which generally would always made with foam. They’re almost impossible to make without foam, but we’ve found this company who makes it out of bamboo pulp.
Melanie
Oh, amazing.
Nedahl
these things just take so long. It’s taken me about a year and a half,
Melanie
I Love that you care though, cand you’re not in a rush to do these things. You’d rather get it Right. And I think, living in this fast based society and it’s just quick, quick, quick with everything. You’ve stopped and said ‘well hang on a second’ let’s bring it back to quality. Not this mass-produced stuff. And for me that means it’s more exclusive and it’s more personal. I think I would rather put my money into that knowing that every time I buy a product, it’s not damaging everything else.
Nedahl
One of the things that I wanted to do was, I wanted to be a part of the solution. Not a part of the problem. a lot of people just go, well everyone else does it, why, why should I be any different? And I just didn’t want to do that. I wanted to be part of the solution. I think if you start here, especially with small businesses then the big companies will have to follow and that’s what’s happened with the clean beauty movement as well. With Consumer demand, everyone moving over to these smaller indie companies’ bigger companies have had to follow. And that’s, that’s great. That’s changing the industry and that’s changing the way we consume things. that’s the aim of the game.
Melanie
It’s amazing that these big, big corporations with so much money, it’s taken the smaller businesses who are taking their business because people care and it’s taken that movement to give them the kick up the bum rather than, them say ‘Hey, let’s be leaders in this field.’ But instead, they’re following.
Nedahl
The big companies have Always had that option, again, it’s a more expensive option. but when you are the business owner, you don’t mind losing a few cents to make it work for the environment. Whereas bigger companies are like, oh no, no, that’s going to come off my bottom line. Yeah.
Melanie
I really like the philosophy behind what you’re Doing.
Your product range, you’ve got the perfumes, the body oils and now a face oil as well.
Nedahl
Yep
Melanie
my favorite is the Stardust I have the body oil and I’m literally like down to my last little drop I love the smell. I even put it on this morning because it’s soothing and it’s calming, but I kind of feel sexy in it
Nedahl
It’s a beautiful unisex scent. Yeah. And it’s one that we’ve just redone with One of the world’s best perfumers. We’re so excited to work with her and it’s just heaven. you probably don’t want to smell it now
Melanie
I sure do. <laugh> I didn’t realize that this one was unisex. That’s probably why I like it because I like a balance of masculine and feminine. I think I that’s kind of me in a way
Nedahl
This is one both you and him can wear. Fragrances are losing their sex, as with everything else is it’s just becoming less gendered. Yeah.
Melanie
I love that.
Nedahl
Whatever makes you happy, whatever appeals to you. And if you smell most men’s scents, you’ve actually got a lot of floral in them. Yeah. So, there is a lot of floral in them. With the new stardust, the heart of that is the Iris flower, it’s really sensual. It even looks sensual. That’s the heart of that with sandal wood.
Melanie
with your oils, what the vase of the body oil
Nedahl
On the, the body oils are ha Jojoba macadamia, there’s SHA butter oil, rose hip coconut oil. I think I’m missing one <laugh> but yeah. what I wanted to do with the matching body and hair oils is, you’ll find with a lot of fragrance products, the matching body products, the treatment part isn’t so important. It’s the fragrance that’s important. I wanted to make the treatment part just as important as the fragrance.
Melanie
that’s one thing I thought was really genius in the way that you put it together, because sometimes you want to put an oil on, and it’s got a different fragrance and then you want to put a perfume on that’s and then its conflicted
Nedahl
Well, that’s the thing head to tow
It’s a luxury experience. It’s just really indulgent. Having the feeling of being able to put on that body oil every morning. It’s just heaven. It’s one of my favorite parts of the day and you’re setting yourself up for a better day. It’s that whole treat yourself self. And you can do it every day at home.
Melanie
With your face oil you you’ve created basically three products in one which again is brilliant. And there’s a special ingredient, which I don’t know how to pronounce correctly – Bakuchiol.
What’s so magical about this ingredient?
Nedahl
Bakuchiol is basically a plant-based alternative to retinol with the studies on it. That means that it performs exactly the same as a retinol does on your skin. Retinol is the only thing, pretty much proven to decrease wrinkle. Depth, to decrease pore size and to encourage skin cell turnover. So, it does all of those things, plus your skin doesn’t sensitize like it would with Retinol. Everyone should wear SPF every day. But our magic ingredient doesn’t make your skin sensitive to the sun. You can wear it without an SPF. Not that you should. You can also use it while pregnant and breastfeeding because it doesn’t contain vitamin an It’s a safer, more natural alternative with exactly the same results. And because you don’t get those skin sensitivities, you can build up to using it twice a day.
Melanie
I’ve tried a fair few of your fragrances, but you’ve got a new out called “At night we dance”.
Nedahl
So, this one is another unisex one, but it definitely is more for floral than Stardust. it’s a really sultry, sexy fragrance. It’s inspired by summer evenings when you’ve just left the beach and you want to go out to the bar it’s one of those scents that you spray, and it can take you through the entire day and it really develops and warms on the skin beautifully.
Melanie
Do you find even the temperature of the skin can bring the fragrance to life? So, is it like when you open the wine and its starts to breath, does that really happen with Fragrance?
Nedahl
Yeah, it really does. that’s why when you apply fragrance, you should always apply it to the pulse points of your body. So, your wrist, your throat, anywhere that there’s a pulse point because that warmth will carry it around your body.
Melanie
I Had no idea, I just thought you did that’s what you did because that’s what my grandma did.
Nedahl
you should never rub your wrist together either. Because it breaks down the top notes of the fragrance. Oh yeah. Spray and just let it cloud over you and just let it just do
Melanie
So, no need to touch it. just wafting. Let it waft.
Nedahl
Waft is a good word.
The Beauty Quiz
Melanie
What’s your personal favorite fragrance out of your range.
Nedahl
This changes with my mood, funnily enough, I’m a Gemini. I go through lots of different moods in a day. “This love of mine” I think probably will always be my absolute favorite it’s Gardenia and Jasmine they’re my two most loved scents of all time. I created this to really bring those two Scents to life. And then the two new ones have really captured my heart ‘at night we dance’. And ‘Stardust’ at night we dance is just so gorgeous and sultry and it’s really different to anything that’s on the market, which I think is such a great thing with fragrance and Stardust I’ve never been one for unisex scents And I’m obsessed with it.
Melanie
What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given and by whom?
Nedahl
Best advice I’ve ever been given would be probably with hair and to treat your hair with as good products as you treat your skin with. I was guilty of just going buy supermarket products or even just things like brushing it and being really rough with it. Just treat it as you would your face because it starts to age, and it also shows like it really shows.
Melanie
Do you have a favorite fashion genre?
Nedahl
Yes. The eighties <laugh> how could you go past the eighty’s genre ever.
Melanie
Yeah. I think I might have fried my hair back then.
Nedahl
we all fried our hair. but it was just so much fun. I feel fashion has just gotten so safe, celebrity stylists have just ruined awards shows because there used to be so many disastrous outfits and now there are just none <laugh> everyone looks perfect.
And it’s Boring. <Laugh>
Melanie
True. I look, back into so many different phases I’ve been through
Nedahl
Yeah. Many, many phases, and that’s so expressive though, but it shows you, where you’ve been and you now
Melanie
Do you have a most memorable beauty campaign over the years
Nedahl
I absolutely loved and I think everyone was a bit affected by it. the Calvin Klein eternity fragrance campaign with Kate Moss and she was just lying on that couch. I think she had undies on. And it was just really bare, and it came off the back of the eighties, which was all so overdone. So, OTT and this was just paired back simplicity and it just set the tone for like the next 15 years or so. that really stands out with me.
Melanie
I love that it’s fragrance as well. If you could give you a younger self, a piece of advice, what would it be?
Nedahl
Okay. So, a piece of advice to myself when I was younger would be not to take my mistakes so seriously. Because I think when you’re young, you really look at mistakes like a failure and you really don’t want to make any mistakes. Whereas now I’ve realized that making mistakes are a part of life. Yes. And we all make mistakes. And the key thing to take away from them is to learn and grow. I think once you realize that and you realize that you actually need to experiment and you do need to try different things it makes a big difference with how you feel, but also the flow of your life and, and how it goes. Because I think when I was younger, I didn’t do a few things because I’d made a mistake in that field or I’d, you know, go, oh I’ve really stuffed up there. I better not go down that path. Whereas actually it’s a learning experience. Learn from it, grow, and see where else it can take you.
Melanie
I think that’s great advice. I look at mistake when you break down the word and you work in TV and things Mistake, so you think about how many people get it right in one take, it doesn’t happen. And how many times do they just improve on it? So, I call it like a mis-take. Rather than a mistake because it gives you that freedom to grow in that moment. I received a D in art for school. Oh, I can’t draw. I can’t be a makeup artist, imagine? And then I got told with writing, you know, your creative writings terrible. And then I won a poetry award.
Nedahl
Right. Exactly.
Melanie
But that took a lot of years of confidence building to get past, that you are “not good “at this because you didn’t get a right first time.
Nedahl
It’s a strange thing. And it happens, I see it in my children and, and they don’t want to make mistakes. And so, I’ve really tried to teach that to them as well. Everyone should learn that from a young age.
Melanie
I think that’s really nice that you’re trying to instill that message into the kids as well.
Nedahl
Well, you have to, you don’t want them to never do creative writing again because one person told them they Couldn’t.
Melanie
Now for my favorite question to ask, what does beauty mean to you?
Nedahl
Well, I think especially with my journey of beauty, I think when I was younger, beauty definitely meant something much more different to what it means to me now. But beauty to me now is basically good health And I think that if you are healthy from the inside, it will show on the outside. If you’re happy from the inside, it will show on the outside. That’s just what happens. It’s just a fact of life. It’s science, you know what I mean. No one’s making that up when they tell you that. I think you think that when you’re younger you Just need to put all this makeup on and then I’ll be fine, but that’s not true. So, one thing for me is when I started that whole, ditching toxins journey, it was really a whole health journey. For me. And I think that has really helped, you know, entering my older years.
Melanie
Yeah. It’s a really nice way to see the world too.
Nedahl
It is.
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