An effective gesture: start the morning by adding a few drops of the same oil to your coffee that, applied to your face, has restored its lost luminosity. We could also use it mixing it with the moisturizer, on the damaged ends of the hair, on the cuticles, to season juices, yogurts or salads… Avoir it all, as the product is called, is so innovative and unique that it was the first in register as a cosmetic and nutricosmetic in the European Union. He is the perfect ambassador for Ulè, a brand that debuts by changing the rules and laying the foundations for new beauty.
Ulé was born from the vision of Lindsay Azpitarte, with more than 20 years of experience in the beauty sector, part of them as a director of Shiseido’s Prestige brands in Europe. The group has accompanied her in the adventure from the beginning, with the full involvement of Ainhara Viñarás, general director of the Prestige division of Shiseido in Spain, and the scientific and technological support of her laboratories. “Being supported by Shiseido is crucial due to the trust that the brand inspires and the collaboration of its scientific department,” highlights Azpirate. From Paris, the creator of Ulè explains the ins and outs of the brand.
How would you describe Ulè in five adjectives?
Conscious, effective – because the scientific part of the project is very important –, holistic, innovative and pleasant.
Why did you decide to create it?
I wanted to make a brand in line with my values: eco-conscious, but also with scientifically proven effectiveness and without neglecting the sensoriality of its formulas –(Their products smell luxurious)–. I think more and more people are demanding more natural beauty and there was a niche in the selective market for it. The Prestige has a role to play with brands that respect the skin and the environment. For me, conscious beauty means controlling the impact it has on the environment, the social impact and adding an educational factor to know and understand what you are putting on your skin. The philosophy of the products, their transparency, trust… All of that is important.
What makes it different from other brands?
It retains the best of traditional cosmetics in terms of effectiveness, science and sensoriality, and provides the values ??and formulas of a new beauty that is more committed to natural than synthetic. Our products are natural, but they are supported by science. And then there is vertical farming, of course, and our own extraction methods.
How did the idea of ??the vertical eco-farm come about?
I studied architecture and urban planning at university many years ago and I have always been interested in projects that adapt to different environments, such as vertical gardens. When I started working at Ulè I wanted to introduce nature and more sustainable crops that would also avoid having to go around the world looking for plants. I was curious to see what vertical farming could bring to the beauty industry and suggested it. It was a little scary, but we quickly got it going.
Beauty in
What you eat and your lifestyle affects the condition of your skin as much or more than what you apply to it. I am convinced that to achieve healthier skin, which is what we are looking for, we had to cover both fronts and work on the skin inside and out. A nutritionist has helped us develop the synergy between the two angles.
Avoir it all is an oil-based product that is applied to the skin and can also be eaten!
Achieving this has been a complicated and complex process, because the legislation for something that is ingested and something that is applied topically is very different. There is nothing specific for such a product! In our packaging we have two lists of ingredients, the cosmetic INCI and the nutritional ones. We have had to work on the product as if there were two of them and from the formulation point of view it has not been easy either, because there are ingredients that work very well on the skin, but not as a nutritional supplement, and vice versa.
The name of the products honors his French-American ancestry and his sense of humor. Which is your favorite?
Avoir it all is one. It means having it all, and that is part of our philosophy: helping you live your life in the healthiest way possible, but without giving up having fun and having a good time. You don’t have to be perfect all the time. Another one of my favorites is the Oh la Plump serum.
Ulè is the first brand that is committed to its own vertical crops, a form of sustainable agriculture that reduces water consumption by up to 95% in a pure and controlled environment with ideal conditions for plants, without soil and free of pesticides. In addition to maximizing space and not depending on the increasingly frequent vagaries of the climate, this new method allows obtaining a higher potency of the active ingredients, which increases the effectiveness of the products and facilitates their traceability.
All its components are traceable, from the plants and the rest of the natural ingredients, to the glass, the cap or the ink of its packaging. Just scan the QR to know the origin of everything. The carbon footprint is also minimized to the maximum: from cultivation in the eco-farm to packaging, Ulè products only travel 340 kilometers.
Does vertical cultivation improve the effectiveness of formulas? “Yes,” says Lindsay Azpiarte without a shadow of a doubt. “It opens up an infinite range of possibilities for botanical cosmetics by guaranteeing 100% pure, traceable and fresh extracts. A vertical farm makes it easier to work with fresh plants, because they haven’t had to travel from the other part of the world. By controlling the environmental conditions, we can grow exotic plants and we also know exactly the characteristics and properties of the extracts we obtain,” she points out.
Another of Ulè’s key concepts is to use the entire plant, from the roots to the leaves. “We thought, ‘Nature is smart, why cut off any parts of it?’” Lindsay says. “With coleus, for example, we use the entire plant, when normally only its roots are used,” he points out. Vertical crops are key to offering greater molecular diversity in products (they have identified more than 139 skin-nourishing molecules).
The creator of Ulè is not afraid that other brands will sign up for this type of cultivation. Quite the opposite: “I hope so,” says Azpiarte. “The goal of conscious beauty is to lead a movement and hope others will follow. I believe that vertical cultivation is a true innovation for natural cosmetics: it is safe, it is pure and it is local. The more people or brands follow us, the easier it will be to support and develop this type of cultivation as an industry, because it is now expensive and very new. If no one else bets on him it will be difficult to keep him,” she concludes.
