FLORLESS skincare – a modern African beauty and wellness house
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FLORLESS skincare is a new luxury skin, haircare and herbal wellness brand stemming from the founder’s African roots and the power of the native ingredients and practices she had grown up with. Catered to the stresses of the modern world, FLORLESS employs the ancient wisdoms of African communities and Ayurvedic traditions and updates them with modern science; to form a range that considers skin health as part of a larger mind, skin, body connection. I caught up with Bukola to hear more about building FLORLESS as a way for consumers to experience African beauty with the same authority, quality as global mainstream brands.
‘I became increasingly overwhelmed by how complicated skincare had become. There was always another product, another trend, another step you were supposedly missing. At the same time, I kept coming back to ingredients and practices I had grown up around as a Nigerian woman – things like African black soap, shea butter and plant-based preparations that have been used within African communities for generations,’ explains Bukola about the seed of the idea for FLORLESS, ‘I wanted to build something rooted in Africa but made for the world.’
As so many mainstream brands seem to be trying to co-opt ancient wisdoms and rituals through marketing and ingredient greenwashing, I was initially drawn to FLORLESS by how genuinely rooted in African heritage the products are, ‘the core of creating FLORLESS was thinking to ourselves how do we formulate, package and present this for a modern consumer without stripping away its identity?’ begins Bukola, ‘African black soap, our first formulation, is a clear example of a product made and used across West Africa for generations. Shea is another example and then we expanded to bring the consumer into ingredients like moringa, hibiscus and our haircare range which includes both African and Ayurvedic traditions.’
As someone with sensitive skin prone to psoriasis and inflammation as well as fully fascinated by rare botanicals and ancient wisdoms, the FLORLESS Liquid African Soap, ‘The African Deep Cleanse,’ was the first product I tried. So far so great; I have always found many mainstream cleansers to either be too cloggy and sit on the skin surface or too ‘natural’ that the skin isn’t thoroughly cleansed before layering on later products. The FLORLESS Liquid African Soap finds a great balance of a sumptuous texture bringing together goodie ingredients like Palm Kernel Oil, Sandalwood, Cocoa Pod Ash that reaches deep into the skin epidermis for removing of impurities whilst calming a reactive skin barrier, ‘from there we began to build the wider body care and wellness world around it.’
FLORLESS utilises these ancient African practices to take a holistic, 360’ approach to skincare – connecting mind, body, skin and wellness. ‘Beauty has become very externally focused – what can I put on my face to correct something? African wellness traditions often give us a much broader lens involving food, plants, bathing, hair, community and everyday practices.’ The body range includes simple but effective formulas, such as The Glow Oil made from botanical goodness like rosehip, sea buckthorn and tamanu, chosen for their different fatty acid profiles and skin conditioning properties. And a haircare line including the Hair Strength and Growth Pomade and Hair Butter Stick that are easy day-to-day botanical formulas to support hair health without the mess of traditional hair butters. Next came the herbal wellness products that Bukola explains ‘I wanted to make it easy for FLORLESS consumers to adopt simple practices that encourage them to be intentional about caring for themselves.’ So, alongside your skin and hair care, take a few moments to sit down with a FLORLESS botanical tea. FLORLESS ‘A Blend for Bloating Herbal Infusion’ caught my eye as belly fat is directly associated with stress: the apothecary formulation includes wild harvested botanicals such as Prekese (Aidan Pod) and warming Uda Seeds, Calabash Nutmeg, Alligator Pepper for internal ease.
As much as FLORLESS is inherently connected to the founder’s African roots and those traditions, I enjoy how conscious Bukola is not to fall into overpromising: ‘our philosophy is much more about supporting the skin rather than making aggressive biological claims. I want FLORLESS to be evidence-aware and transparent about what a cosmetic can realistically do.’
The future for FLORLESS looks exciting.
‘The vision is much bigger than individual products. I want us to introduce people around the world to African ingredients and practices in a way that feels contemporary and elevated, without removing the culture and history that made them interesting in the first place,’ she adds, ‘We’re growing carefully because I don’t want to build a brand that launches something new every five minutes. I want each category to earn its place. Long term, I absolutely see FLORLESS moving beyond being an online independent brand and into major retail.’