Welcome to the next instalment of the #beautyinsider Q&As, where you can find out who is behind some of your favourite beauty brands, what they are working on and how they got there. This month’s guests are Clare and Rebecca Hopkins, sisters and Founders of Balance Me, a natural British skincare brand focusing on bringing balance to skin. I discovered Balance Me when I was working for the company distributing the brand’s hotel cosmetics, then only the other month did a double take when I spotted their Gradual Tanning Drops in a weekend supplement – in completely new packaging! The brand kindly gifted me a selection of their products – all reviewed here in this blogpost. But if you’d like to find out more about the brand and its founders, read on to learn about this year’s skincare trends and what Clare and Rebecca get up to out of working hours.

1. Hello Clare and Rebecca, thank you to both of you for being my #beautyinsider Q&A guests this month. Let’s start from the beginning: every beauty brand has a story, what’s Balance Me’s?

Back in 2005 long term stresses and 21st century living had taken its toll on our health and skin. We were both struggling with our work life balance and felt our careers were out of sync with what we really wanted.
Rebecca retrained as a reflexologist after working both in Paris and the UK for a global beauty brand; Clare harnessed her passion for aromatherapy, having discovered the power of essential oils as a student, and travelled the world to learn yoga saying goodbye to a successful business career in the City.
We spotted a gap in the market for a brand that focused on wellbeing, as well as results, at a time when natural skincare wasn’t highly regarded in the industry. From the beginning we have always wanted to challenge the idea that natural skincare wasn’t sophisticated. To this day, our products have been focused on innovative ingredients, amazing textures and honesty in labelling.

2. What makes Balance Me stand out from other natural skincare brands?

Our award-winning formula is at the heart of everything we do and this is what makes us unique and effective. Our naturally active formulas use cutting-edge bio-actives to solve your skin concerns and bring your skin back into balance. All our products are naturally scented with aroma-therapeutic ingredients to uplift or relax. The application of our products is incredibly important, all our textures and consistencies make applying our products a joy.
We also take sustainability seriously, with each piece of packaging from glass bottle, post-consumer recycled tube through to outer FSC card-approved carton clearly displaying how to recycle according to your local facilities.

3. You’ve recently re-packaged the entire Balance Me range. What brought this about? Could you talk us through the new look concept?

After almost 15 years we thought it was time! Our redesign incorporates two, vertically overlapping circles that represent two elements coming together: the founding sisters, nature + science, work + life, physical results + daily wellbeing. Everything about the design is perfectly balanced, even our new logo is reminiscent of a weighing scale with the central point running through the ‘A’.
Our packaging is designed to walk our customer through each product’s skin benefit, highlighting new categories and our hero bio-active ingredients. We may look different on the outside, but rest-assured, it’s still our award-winning natural formulations on the inside.
We also wanted to be transparent on our recycling principles so together we can help minimise the impact on our precious environment. We are on a mission to address the sustainable 6: Re-Use, Remove, Reduce, Replace, Recycle and Renew. On every product you will find clear recycling guidelines, and we have introduced more clear glass alongside PCR (post-consumer recycled) plastic.

4. As founders of Balance Me, what so far has been your proudest moment?

We’ve won over 65 consumer, industry and media awards to date and each one is a pinch me moment. We are still growing, innovating, expanding into new territories 15 years after launch despite economic recessions, a global pandemic, a surge in competition and rising raw material prices. Our customer feedback is what motivates us to keep innovating and pushing the boundaries on what is possible to achieve in natural skincare.

5. Insider news please! What skincare trends or ingredients do you think we should look out for?

In our opinion it will still be focused on:

• self-care – as a result of the pandemic and lockdown
• stress relief – we’ve created a beauty sleep range and have a CBD concentrate
• diversity – both in product offering and brand representation
• cost-effective and sustainable beauty – we want cruelty-free, vegan, planet-friendly beauty
• multi-tasking skincare that avoids too many steps and unnecessary spend

6. What exciting beauty projects or launches do you have in the pipeline for Balance Me in the upcoming months?

Our new product launch is one we are really excited about: Bakuchiol Smoothing Serum. We ask our consumer panel to test every single product and this has had amazing results. Later in the year we are launching a new acid mask, something our customers have been wanting. We are also focusing on further expansion overseas. We’ve recently rolled out across Scandinavia and we’re about to focus on the US.

7. And finally – what do you both get up to when you’re not surrounded by beauty products?

Rebecca – Family life with my husband and teen daughters. We are very active and love to travel. And gardening is a huge passion and stress-reliever.
Clare – Family life and travel too. I am also a keen open-water swimmer and have recently discovered a reservoir near to my home where I can finally swim again!

If you have any burning questions you’d like to ask Clare or Rebecca why not leave a comment below? Or you can get in touch with Balance Me directly on Instagram.