In the latest edition of Meet the Female Founders I chat to Alice from sustainable brand Authentic House.
One of the absolute pleasures of running Yogipod is meeting others who also run small businesses. It’s always inspiring to hear their stories, particularly when so many of those I find myself in community with are female founders. In this series I’m going to introduce you to their businesses and most importantly the founders themselves.
Alice began Authentic House in 2018, starting with a subscription box model, the first eco-friendly one in the UK. Since then the focus of the business has moved from subscription gifts to creating it’s own products but always with a sustainable focus.
Based in Cardiff, Alice runs Authentic House in a way that makes a positive impact on the world and has four key values to help the business do just that. Low waste, circular, giving and authentic.
Authentic House is an independent skincare maker and sustainable home shop, what inspired you to start Authentic House?
It started with a conversation over coffee with a colleague in Edinburgh. We were talking about purpose and wanting to create positive change, and something sparked for me. I didn’t know exactly what it would look like, but I knew I wanted to create a business that would help protect the environment and make a change in my life along the way.
After taking a break to visit my family in Peru, I moved back to Cardiff in 2018 and started sketching out ideas for Authentic House. The name comes from the idea that each of us can create a home that reflects our values.
I originally started Authentic House as a directory for sustainable businesses. It was having the support of The Prince’s Trust though and their brilliant course leader Gemma, that helped me develop my idea further into an eco-friendly subscription box.
While interviewing people for the directory, I’d come across my first sustainable products – a handmade sponge and a coconut brush. They were small objects, made with love and care for the environment, and an accessible way of breaking down the big changes we all need to make into small steps that each empower the next one. So, I went from there, and Authentic House has evolved organically with me.
You have more recently begun to formulate your own skincare products, what made you take the leap into creating not just stocking sustainable products?
I’ve always loved drawing, writing and creating things from scratch. When I started Authentic House though, I didn’t know where to begin with designing products! Instead, I curated sustainable products through a subscription box.
Running my box through the rollercoaster of 2020 and the years around it helped me understand what products really made a difference – the ones people came back to. They were products that made us feel good, that would last and that translated care for the environment into a sense of care for us and our homes.
Gradually, I fell out of love with subscription boxes and wanted to focus on just a few products I cared about, especially around skincare and haircare which my customers loved. I started a small Authentic House range with the help of a few makers, and our soaps and haircare bars quickly became favourites.
For me, the final leap into formulating came during a year of burnout that forced me to slow down and reassess. In a moment of curiosity, I googled how to make haircare. I found an online course and felt a little of my spark come back, so I followed my intuition and began studying again.
I started with skincare and, in 2023, launched my first range. Learning to formulate gave me the skills I needed to turn the ideas in my head into the sustainable products I wanted to see.
What does the process of developing and making your products look like?
My ideas for products usually come from something I love that I want to create a sustainable alternative for, like my Think Again Facial Serum, or from improving sustainable products my customers want to use.
The process starts with research. I talk with customers at events and over the phone, noting down their thoughts and experiences of other products. I also look at what people are saying online and study similar products to understand their ingredients.
Once I have a wish list of active ingredients in mind, I start building a formula. There’s always trial and error and a lot of ugly ducklings at first! Texture, feel, scent and ease of use are all aspects I think about.
Next, I have some lovely subscribers from my newsletter who help test my drafts for a couple of weeks at a time. We’ll then chat about everything from how soft a shampoo bar gets in the shower to how a serum looks dripping from a pipette. There’s lots I wouldn’t think of!
After making any changes, the final steps are stability and lab testing. Stability testing is like speeding up the passing of time to make sure a product will last, and lab testing makes sure it’s safe.
I make our skincare, candles and haircare in small batches in our workshop. The design process never really ends, as I’m always noting down ideas to improve and testing my batches on the go.
Your sustainable skincare is refillable and you use upcycled ingredients where you can, can you explain a little about that process and why circularity is important?
Circularity is the idea of keeping our materials and products in use for as long as possible so ideally nothing goes to landfill. Thinking about where we are today, where just food waste accounts for one-third of our human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, we’re far from being circular. That said, designing skincare means lots of opportunities to help reduce waste.
I made my skincare refillable because it makes sense to use glass again and again. Working out how exactly I’d do this was a bit of a headache, until I settled on a baby bottle steriliser! When my customers collect 3 skincare empties or more, I’ll arrange a free collection. I’ll then steam sterilise the bottles and reuse them.
When it comes to upcycled ingredients, I find them during my research stage. It’s amazing what can be derived from food waste. I use blueberry and raspberry oils from seeds left over from juicing. Beer and gin ferments are a great source of moisturising and soothing extracts even with some peptides mixed in! Skincare ingredients like olive squalane also play an important role helping to use up inedible olive waste from making olive oil.
What do you think the best thing is about having your own business and running Authentic House?
The best thing for me is the space I get to create a business around my skills and what I care about. It also gives me the sense of making a positive change I was looking for from the beginning. We’ve planted 4,383 trees and donate 1% of our sales through 1% For The Planet.
Conversely what do you find the most challenging?
Working for myself has been like a training ground for my fears. Whether it’s uncertainty, mistakes or just gathering up the courage to show up on social media, I’ve had to become my own best coach and therapist!
Creating a community around a small business is, I think, one of the privileges of running one. What five words would you use to describe what you would like your business to bring to the community around it?
Kind, Authentic, Encouraging, Curious and Imperfect.
I know we aren’t supposed to have favourites but what is your favourite product you’ve ever created and why?
It’s my Think Again Facial Serum. I love serums for my skin, and I wanted to create one packed with active ingredients, but that also tells a story around upcycling.
I created my serum with ingredients to support our skin and help protect it from everyday damage from pollution and sunlight. After a lot of experimenting, I’m proud I was able to use Vitamin C and Ectoin, as well as upcycling blueberries, raspberries, gin ferment, olives and apricot stones.
This year, my serum won Silver at the Free From Skincare Awards. It was a big milestone!
What does a typical day look like for you?
I work from home in our spare bedroom with the company of our dog Freya. In the morning, I’ll focus on my business goals with a cup of coffee or film content while it’s light. The afternoon is about catching up on messages, writing and planning, as well as making candles! I’ll take Freya on a walk in the afternoon.
On the days when I make skincare, the whole day gets taken up with cleaning, making and labelling. I love the process, but I need a different headspace for it as it’s so precise.
When running a brand in the self care sector it can be assumed that as founders we have everything sorted, when it can often be the total opposite. What do you do to look after yourself or what would you like to do more of?
Running Authentic House has taught me to be intentional with taking care of myself. On weekdays, I have a morning routine that starts with some exercise or yoga (I love your bolster for this!), followed by meditating and writing in my journal for 5 minutes.
I know not everyone can have a routine like this, and it’s one of the benefits of having a small business. I find that when I make time to move, be still and reflect, I can process a lot of tension in my body and mind that builds up over the day and night before.
Something I’m not so good at is going to bed on time. I’m currently reading Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series and it’s way too gripping!
What does the future hold for Authentic House?
Next year, my biggest goal is to get a research and development process underway for Authentic House. I can be a bit stop start with releasing products as formulating takes time, so I’d like to always have a new product underway so I can keep testing and learning from them. I’m at the early stages designing a conditioner for hair and am also thinking about springtime candles with an organic scent.
Longer term, I’d like Authentic House to keep developing alongside me. Back in spring, I wrote down how I’d like my life to look in 15 years’ time. I’d never thought about it before! What I realised was that I wanted to live closer to nature and run Authentic House from a studio perhaps with my own team, still going back to our ethos though – creating products for imperfect sustainable living.
