- Wren&Willow
Welcome to Wren & Willow...
Hello! If you’re reading this then you have found us and we are already so happy to see you.
This is our first post and whilst we are still very much finding our feet, we hope to introduce you to our little corner of the beauty industry and what we’ve tried hard to create.
My name is Hannah and I’m the founder of Wren & Willow. I have been passionate about beauty and skincare for as long as I can remember, and have worked in many areas of the industry for nearly 20 years, so I count myself lucky to have experienced many aspects of cosmetics retail. It was about 2 years ago that various stars aligned and after much soul-searching, many ideas, so much research and even more ‘should I/could I’ discussions with myself and those close to me, that I decided I had the seeds of a wonderful brand with even better products that my heart was telling me I needed to create. Thereafter, even though I was full of doubt, I wasn’t ready and I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage it all…Wren & Willow was born…
‘Always watch and follow nature’
Egyptian old saying
Essential oils and their therapeutic benefits have long been a part of my life and I remember as a child that there were always bottles of oils and various blends around…for headaches, muscle aches, calming before sleep or uplifting and clearing the mind while I studied. However through my twenties and thirties, while on some never-ending quest to find the ‘perfect’ skincare product, I reckon I used pretty much every type of skincare out there – expensive, budget, natural, high-science and it was all fine…some I liked, some I didn’t, some didn’t really do anything discernible (even though the claims and the price tag were equally high)…I just never really stuck to anything. Oh, to have been one of those people that finds their skincare groove early and sticks with it…my purse certainly would have thanked me for it!
Fast-forward a few years to my late 30’s when a few things changed for me, one of them being that I suddenly became very aware of what I was putting on my skin, and that if I couldn’t pronounce the ingredients I didn’t want to use them…it was like a switch had been flicked.
I started to do some research (who doesn’t like a google worm-hole?) and found a well-formed world of natural skincare in various forms, from the crunchy ’I scrub my face with porridge’ end of the spectrum to the super-high priced products that you needed a second mortgage for. As someone who has always had skin that tended to be dry and was getting more sensitive as time was going by, it was the philosophy of using natural plant and seed oils in their purest and most potent forms to cleanse and care for the skin that caught my eye and everything suddenly fell into place.
After a lot more research, I bought some ingredients and started to play…always having been a creative person, this was the fun part…I was making my own simple skincare products that were making a real difference to my slightly irritable skin…and from these initial formulations, our first two products were created...Hero Balm and Peppermint Lip Salve.
As I passed the samples round to those close to me and started to get their feedback on how the products were working for them, I always asked three questions…if you had bought it with your own money, would you be happy with it? Would you repurchase it? Would you recommend it to others? Very quickly a pattern emerged of getting a loud ‘yes, yes and yes’ to every question…usually followed by the question ‘when can I have some more?’
Everyone I gave the Hero Balm to saw a difference in their skin…oily skin was calmed, sensitive skin was soothed and dry skin was nourished. In fact I wasn't allowed to stop making it for the people that tried the first batches, as it had immediately become such a staple in their skincare routine that I quickly got used to receiving slightly frantic messages asking when the next batch was planned for as they were getting low and were worried that they'd run out! I knew I had the beginnings of something very special.
So after some long months of learning a few extra things about how to bring a brand to life, lots of late nights and the extraordinary efforts and support of some very talented people who believed in me and the products we had ultimately created, we were ready to launch and from June 2019, Wren & Willow went live.
Since then, I have truly felt the love and support of our wonderful customers, and I like nothing more than receiving their feedback on how the products are working for them…all the positive reactions have certainly made the journey worth the work.
In the modern age of fast-paced living (which I can certainly relate to with a full-time job, a husband, 2 small children and a fledgling business to launch in my spare time), I truly believe it is essential to carve out even a 5 to 10 minute window in your demanding schedule to 'quiet the noise' and just reset. For me that has always centred around a skincare ritual of some kind…even just a cleanse at the end of the day…so I wanted to create the most luxurious and wonderful products that feel like a treatment rather than a functional process. Starting with our Hero Balm and Peppermint Lip Salve I feel we have definitely started on the right foot, but we already have more products formulated that will add to this picture to build an organic, natural skincare line made from the finest ingredients, that will treat your skin from within and help it achieve its own natural balance.
This is only the beginning…we’re very proud of what we’ve done so far and are very much looking forward to future…we hope you will stay with us and be part of our journey!
Much Love
Hannah
Wren & Willow
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