Ahead of the Curve: Neora's Innovative Approach to Beauty and Wellness

Carving a successful niche in the highly saturated beauty industry requires anticipating and identifying consumer pain points and, through innovation, offering the must-have solutions that translate to deep customer satisfaction and intense brand loyalty. According to Amber Olson Rourke, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer and Co-founder of the burgeoning beauty and wellness brand Neora, strict adherence to a client-centric, problem-solving process is central to her company's core mission of helping people create the best versions of themselves.

"We really think about the consumer, our customer first, and try to understand what are their pain points throughout their day, what are their pain points in the products they're using and their health journey?" Olson Rourke notes. "Anytime we're creating products, we want to [pinpoint] a need that's in the marketplace and create custom products that help solve [that] need for our consumer."

Neora's Growth: Finding Alternative Solutions To Create Better Products

Since its launch 12 years ago, Neora has grown from a five-person, father/daughter-run health and wellness outfit to a multinational corporation with a global footprint and distribution. One of the significant factors contributing to Neora's rapid rise is its leadership's knack for anticipating the next new thing and getting it to consumers before competitors. "We've always been super-innovative and ahead of the trends," Olson Rourke admits.

Olson Rourke says that for both cutting-edge concepts and improved ingredients, she can cite a host of instances when Neora's innovative products were three to five years ahead of the mass-market trends. "One example is a plant-based alternative to retinol," Olson Rourke explains. "Retinol is known as a ... go-to for anti-aging, but the downside of it is that a lot of people's skin can't tolerate it."

While it may live up to the hype in the short term, retinol, which can increase dermal photosensitivity, may lead to long-term skin damage for some users. "One of the most common side effects of high-octane skin care products is photosensitivity," warned a Jan. 19, 2023, article on the Skin Cancer Foundation's Sun & Skincare News website. "If your skin is extra sensitive to the sun, it's easier to sustain skin damage that can lead to skin cancer and premature skin aging."

In 2014, Neora sourced a plant-based alternative to retinol that was clinically shown to offer similar results without harsh side effects. According to Olson Rourke, the ingredient didn't go on the mass market until a year ago. "Same thing for double-cleansing your skin; same thing for using adaptogens to balance your circadian rhythm; same thing for really focusing on scalp care as the basis of hair care," she reports.

Being Proactive Rather Than Reactive Puts Neora Ahead of the Competition

Juliana Rochelle, Neora's director of product development who heads up the company's beauty and wellness lines, explains, "I think the secret is not to react, but instead try to be ahead of the trends. When people ask me what brands I look to for inspiration, my answer is always the same: 'None.'"

"I feel that if I try to look at what others are doing, I've already fallen behind," she adds. "[We] work closely with several partner labs and understand what their latest innovations and developments are, as well as raw material providers, to understand what new ingredients are being sourced." Rochelle also follows a number of leading dermatological panels in search of product inspiration because they have first access to new studies and clinical data.

While she doesn't put too much stock in competitors' latest releases, Rochelle does pay attention to consumer behavior trends from analytic forecasting and market research services such as WGSN and Mintel. "The idea is to translate the best innovation out there into something that is relevant and simple to add to my consumer's day-to-day lifestyle," she explains.

Unlike some monolithic beauty firms that can get mired in bureaucratic red tape, Olson Rourke says Neora is still nimble enough to strike while the iron is hot when a great new idea comes their way. "We're really open to innovation," she says. "When we find something through our network of partners across the world, we see this could be a fit. We're really quick to adapt and move and make it a part of our product cycle."

"Neora isn't a beauty company focused on trends, but rather, on true innovation," Rochelle asserts. "Our question is: 'What is the problem we're not solving for our consumer yet?' I truly believe this is what has kept us ahead of trends in the first place. We strive to have products that are truly relevant for our consumer base, not just another item to add to your bathroom counter."