How clean are your beauty products? With skincare co-founder Natalia Monnard
Episode #061 | AUGUST 2022
How clean are your beauty products? With skincare co-founder Natalia Monnard
For many of us, a major part of our health and wellbeing journey involves 'cleaning up' our food. But what about our skincare? This is an area that often gets missed or undervalued, even though our skin is our body's biggest organ.
For my guest Natalia Monnard (known as Nats), her passion for creating beauty products all began with an unlikely product... deodorant. What started as a personal need to find a great toxic-free option turned into a business mission to create the product that was missing from her search.
With true entrepreneurial spirit, Natalia saw a problem and sought to find a creative way to fix it. This purpose led her to transition from her very successful corporate career in banking to team up with co-founder Sarah Pein to create their natural beauty company SQIN Ø.
And they didn't stop at deodorant! With their recent success in securing almost 150% of their crowdfunding campaign they have been able to launch a brand new range of 100% natural, chemical-free facial skincare beauty products that includes moisturizers, oils and balms.
In this episode, Nats shares a wealth of guidance and wisdom on everything from natural skincare and starting your own business, to the pitfalls of positive thinking and the limitations of approaching 'work-life balance' as if our career and personal lives are in competition with each other.
She warns us of the lack of transparency in the natural beauty industry, how toxins hide even in the products that claim to be organic, and why we must avoid anti-perspirant and reach for deodorant instead.
We also delve deep into her personal entrepreneurial journey. She shares her top lessons learned after one year in business, the number one thing that helped her leave behind a traditionally successful career, and the two 'sources of courage' she regularly leans upon when she's having one of those days where everything feels hard.
Whether you're curious or passionate about natural skincare, or want some inspiration about starting your own business, this episode is for you. Nats shows us that purpose and vision are not just things we do or work towards, but are a system of beliefs that can offer us incredible support and motivation through both the joys and challenges of creating something new.
About Natalia and SQIN Ø
Natalia Monnard is The CEO and Co-Founder at SQIN Ø (SQIN ZERO), a Swiss startup working in natural skincare and sustainability. The company was founded in December 2020 and launched its first product only 5 months later in May 2021. Before that, Natalia spent a decade working in financial services, specifically in the Wealth Management division at UBS, where she held senior management roles such as Senior Transformation Project Manager and Chief of Staff Europe & Emerging Markets among others.
In addition to her corporate career, for the last 6 years, Natalia has been an active advisor for start-ups and entrepreneurs in different industries focusing on topics such as sustainability, growth, and client experience. Born and raised in Mexico, before joining UBS, Natalia worked as a donation analyst at Nacional Monte de Piedad, focusing on philanthropic activities.
Natalia holds an MBA from the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), a Master’s degree in International Economics from the Universitat de Barcelona (UAB), and a degree in International Relations from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM).
Quotes
“On average, women use about 12 beauty products per day. This is almost 168 different chemicals on a daily basis going onto the largest organ in our body.” – our skin."
“Today we have developed more awareness about what we eat, but still put a lot of chemicals on our face, some of which have been proven to have a negative effect on our health.”
“Natural skincare is an important topic because it’s about consistency in our wellbeing choices. Holistic health is not just about diet and exercise, but what we put onto our body.”
“I feel our society today is a bit obsessed with positivity, which is a lot of pressure and is quite unhealthy. It’s nice to be positive most of the time, but you also need to learn to embrace that sometimes you will not be positive, and that’s OK. Embracing your bad day is how we find ways out of it.”
Natalia Monnard
Natalia Monnard is The CEO and Co-Founder at SQIN Ø (SQIN ZERO), a Swiss startup working in natural skincare and sustainability. Before that, Natalia spent a decade working in financial services, specifically in the Wealth Management division at UBS, where she held senior management roles such as Senior Transformation Project Manager and Chief of Staff Europe & Emerging Markets.
Heidi Hauer
Holistic Leadership Coach Heidi Hauer shows you how to use intuitive tools and access life-changing mindset shifts that support you in leading an abundant, meaningful and successful life.
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