On March 13, 2013, I launched my website. A year and a half later, I offered my beauty ritual.
What does a 10-year-old brand represent?
The first 5 years are decisive:
- 9 out of 10 businesses die in their early stages
- Often for a financial question
- The urgency is profitability
- And if any investor enters, they will also demand to recoup their costs, then reap the benefits. Quality is not a priority.
MJ Les Soins started without ever having to. One step at a time, one order at a time, a boutique right on the property.
MJ was also deeply born from the desire to be a plus in people's lives, an inspiration (the site existed before the products - since March 13, 2013 - without the idea of one day having products, only on the idea of sharing, even refusing advertisers, refusing to be "bought", later realizing the freedom of expression based on this autonomy).
- Fall 2014 - I proposed my natural beauty ritual (which I have been using since 2003) and my formula for healthy cleaning (also created at my request while I was pregnant with my first son); the community asked and designed the rest.
-Summer 2016 - Makeup matters: You asked me which range to use? I tried them all, asked for prototypes too, made here. The results were deplorable. Then, knowing my quest, one put me in contact with the precursors in natural makeup, and I was immediately won over. However, while my care was formulated here one by one, for makeup, I had to order thousands per item in Milan. But I believed in the quality in my hands: it did not exist and had to be available to people concerned about their skin, their health, and with this desire for luxury & coquetry without compromise. Innovating, offering for others (and not for one's ego - the question must be asked), differentiating oneself matters. We embarked on this beautiful adventure, during which several pitfalls will constantly confirm our values in the right place.
This new axis could take its place at its own pace, the care assured.
In the same way that we can offer you organic vegetable salads, hand-prepared dishes (also rare in the ocean of food factories) with only ingredients that make sense, juices of this quality. Sylvain & I classify these spheres of activity in the service that we take pleasure in providing you. These axes of quality food, luxurious makeup without compromise could not be autonomous. Understand and you see them pass, some brands will simply launch by taking what is offered. Without innovating. We have developed our collection, formula after formula, with a selection of ingredients that will also make a difference on the skin (and obviously more) even if it is only makeup!
My first mandate was to share inspiration and educate (see below the beginnings and still to this day, the time I devote to writing, assured when the occasion is decisive, by scientists). I always invite you to look at the list of ingredients, to recognize, to understand. You don't invent a serum simply by calling it a serum.
Our years of experience in natural aesthetics, the dissatisfaction with the answers given by the actors at the time, the absence of limits imposed on formulators AND SOURCING (at the bottom of these lines) are the foundations of MJ. We are confident that we offer you the best on the planet.
Values at heart, ego at zero
77 people subscribed to my first newsletter in March 2013.
I shared, as I do today, with the intention of making a difference, of revealing an inspiration that can improve the quality of life.
Without looking for numbers, on the contrary: when I realized, following a competition, that newcomers were not interested in my content, I stopped the competitions. Without chasing prizes either: when I was told that you had to pay to participate, I realized that true recognition was no longer at stake.
When I started sharing my skincare, from the very first bottle, I replicated what I was looking for for myself, namely the best ingredients at the top of the list (so no fillers). Alerted since my first pregnancy to the dangers of contemporary cosmetics and household formulas that go beyond irritated skin, lodging in our health, in our fertility, I demanded that each of our formulas be edible, demonstrating their safety of use. A year earlier, well before the marketing of my ritual, I interviewed the founder of a natural beauty company, asking her if I could eat her certified organic serum: "it would be better not, there are still preservatives..."
Ten years later, ten intense years based on these same values, always formulated in the same way, without diluting our content, without urgency to make a profit, without having to accept in order to make a profit, rather always driven by the same passion, the same ideology & determination.
No financial stakeholder interfered: a stakeholder cannot have the same values as the founders.
MJ goes beyond the norm, fits into the exception
This determination, rooted in integrity. This tenacity, these efforts to bring together the best without negotiation, also demonstrate our authenticity to our raw material supplier partners.
The desire to formulate without fillers (later the same thing on the supplement side) with the highest quality is part of the equation: the recipes, optimal.
The other, sourcing , takes precedence in efficiency, in performance, in intoxicating quality.
Demanding the finest oils, without asking the price, invites us to the table of the great. Few Houses in the world can achieve this quality, this purity that transports and uplifts; purity and quality are also required to reap the associated benefits. A second distillation is bland, a diluted one is misleading, a synthetic one is irritating, and an adulterated one can become dangerous.
What's more, uncompromising integrity attracts such partners. You only have to read about my encounter in the land of roses and bitter orange trees to see this. This same column also gives us access to the authentication of reserved purity.
Thus the will of the capacity is discerned: no other can have this quality of essence at the heart of our difference, at the heart of the benefits generated, at the heart of your testimonies.
As for the Houses that share essential oils with us, they drown them in an ocean of components with preservatives, fragrances and petroleum derivatives, even colorants (even to obtain white), emulsifiers, silicones, etc.
Our business model was built differently and will remain so.
After ten years, this is what I can tell you.
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