Nicole Brannan is founder of a new perfume brand Elix Fragrance; a niche premium start-up that focuses on the experience of ‘personal alchemy’, enabling the user to create a range of unique personalised fragrances. Nicole brings her expertise of innovation and creative workshops to the world of perfumery, putting the consumer at the heart of their own fragrance. Nicole believes passionately on the benefits of mindful creativity and the unique (yet much undervalued) power of scent to transform our sense of well-being. In August 2022 she decided to give up her boutique innovation and research consultancy, turning her hobby into a business. She took a 7-week sabbatical to Grasse, New Zealand and then Andalusia to fine-tune the ideas for her concept and after 12 months of determined ‘kitchen table’ innovation, launched Elix on 1st November this year.
Can you introduce yourself to us?
It seems funny introducing myself as an ‘perfume entrepreneur’, but I guess that is what I am now. I was a consumer insight and innovation consultant for so long, it’s a novelty to try to take my own advice!
I live and work at home in Surrey, with my husband, and two working sons (its part home, part office for all of us except the dog!). The concept of Elix Fragrance is pretty unchartered territory though the world of perfume personalisation is a key growth area. My business is B2C business online (retailing premium personal blending gift sets), and face to face experiential blending workshops (both private and ticketed events). In my spare time, I spend at much time as possible outdoors in nature but also try to make the most of what creative London has to offer. During school terms I also volunteer for a local food box charity in Kingston.
Can you take us through your journey to where you are now?
I’ve had a 30yr career in FMCG marketing, innovation and insight research, working for and with blue chip brands, primarily across health & beauty, food and drink and household care. I started as a brand and trade marketer, but I turned away from corporate life to spend more time with my children and became a self-employed consultant in branding and innovation
will several agencies before starting my own in 2014. Both as a co-founder and later founder, I specialised in live co-creation workshops, bringing brands and their business partners closer to their consumers via creative workshops. The heart of co-creation is to solve creative challenges and foster a more consumer-centric and empathetic approach to innovation. During Covid, I was forced to move my business on-line and I hated it!
I was starved of that personal connection and empowering force of working live together.
I took up perfumery as a personal creative outlet to safe guide my mental wellbeing and become intrigued by how mindful this experience was. I was more than aware of key mega trends in the world of beauty (being closer to nature and more sustainable, more mindful and self-expressive) the seed of an idea started to form. Both my professional trends and innovation expertise as well as my personal insights led to concept of Elix.
Since starting, have you made any changes to your business model?
Since Elix I launched a few days ago, it’s too early to say how my business will change (though I do have a vision for it). The first couple of live workshops are already giving me invaluable insights into whats is resonating.
I can however share my experience on innovation success. The following tips were my ‘innovation rules for success’ to my past clients, and for Elix I have followed these to the letter!
Tip 1: Understand your audience and always connect with the heart.
Find an ‘insight’ that speaks to your target, and give them a proposition that solves a ‘problem’. If there is no problem, there is no opportunity. Whilst many problems are physical, the most compelling ones to solve are emotional. Your brand need to solve the problems that really count, better than the best of the current competition.
With Elix, this ‘problem’ was a desire for more mindfulness and self-expression via perfumery. This market sector is not really developed, there are a small handful of very premium brands, but they do not focus on the consumer they focus on the ‘fragrance’. Elix is about Personal Alchemy, making the consumer the creator – it is offers an experience, a freedom to explore and decide what is right for you, as opposed to what is give to you. This does not underplay the quality of the final fragrance itself, I use premium ingredients the majority of which are natural. Whilst some perfume brands do offer ‘in-house’ experiences, they are inaccessible to many (either by location or price point), and can often be quite elitist or overtly technical. Elix, aims to make blending easy and my in-home kits enable you to share the experience with someone else at home.
Tip 2: Look to the trends.
Our lives are complicated and the pressure to be seen, succeed and be ‘always on’ is having a huge impact on our mental health. Mass consumption is no longer appropriate and our need to maintain balance and have more meaningful relationships with others and nature is becoming increasingly poignant. Ultimately, we all seek moments to make us ‘happy’ and ‘heard’, a well-trodden path to achieve this mindfulness, self-expression and deeper connections. No new brand should ignore sustainable, its expected now and rightly so. Elix blending boxes have been specially engineered to be plastic free and everything is reusable and recyclable. Constantly improving this side of the brand is something I am committed to.
Tip 3: Create a ‘minimal viable product’, test and learn with your audience and see how they respond and react, before you attempt to scale.
This last year has been a whirlwind off home grown production and creative problem solving. The cost of developing x10 different fragrance blends (developed from scratch), along with flexible and still beautiful packaging has been a real challenge! The price premiums of short print runs, and small volumes has forced me to do everything from scratch (including make hand-made ‘jigs’ to ensure each bottle label is positioned correctly and developing my own blending scents over and over to ensure they are safe to blend together and comply with strict International Fragrance Association safety standards). My workshops will allow me to assess first-hand how people react to both the concept and the fragrances themselves. I have no doubt the brand will evolve as I learn about my audience.
Have you ever had a mentor? If so how has this benefitted you either personally or professionally?
I have had mentors but never formally. My old business partner (who was originally my boss for many years) had a huge impact. He is 15 years my senior and encouraged me to stand up for what I believed in and challenge the rules. His mantra was ‘everything gets better for editing’ – excellence comes from constant improvement.
My best friend encouraged me to manifest my passion. Despite the financial risk I was taking, she helped me realise that the cost of possible failure far outweighed the personal cost of regret from not ‘having a go’.
Finally, my on-line perfume teacher Karen Gilbert, gave me the inspiration to think I could become perfumer without being classically trained. Her on-line perfume school gave me a new sense of purpose and guided me through the key technical & legal steps required to create and sell a perfume. I have never actually met her, but her course has literally changed my life!
What outlets do use for marketing?
In this industry social media is now the media of choice. This going to be my biggest challenge because I have always actively avoided it. It’s ironic that I developed Elix to get people off their phones and screens, and now I’m relying on it! I did host a launch event with content creators and social influencers and that has already proved a good move. Whilst I know I could escalate my presence by outsourcing social media, I have to prioritise where I spend my dwindling budget for now. My live workshops were designed to become content creators and I have several planned and more requests coming in. The power of fostering personal connections has always been my winning formula, so I and am being very strategic in this regard.
What or Who has inspired you most recently?
An SME leader I much admire is Holly Tucker, founder of Not on the High Street and now ‘Holly & Co’. She has worked tirelessly to give a platform for start-up businesses (especially women). If you haven’t listened to her podcast ‘Conversations of Inspiration’, I urge you to enjoy the stories of the countless entrepreneurs who have taken risks and stood for what they believed in. In addition, I would also add Jo Malone who made such a ground-breaking impact on the fragrance world. Her life story is heartfelt and inspiring, and proves that hard work and passion can achieve amazing things.
What is the best piece of business advice you have received to date?
Follow your gut, be authentic in what you do. Listen to others, but do it your way. Remember mistakes are at the heart of learning.
How do you create an evenly balanced work and personal life
Creating a work life balance is virtually impossible around a launch phase, I had anticipated this, and know I need to be patient to achieve it. However… I ensure I get lots of fresh air, take time away from my phone, eat healthily and try to do yoga and stretching to relax. It’s easy to get immersed and I have had many days when I look up at the time and its 2am! This is not sustainable and I am trying hard to stop it.
Balance has always been paramount for me and it’s something I prioritise over money (though that is not to undermine the need for both). Elix was born of a personal passion and I intend to maintain the lifestyle values I hold so dear – money means nothing if a life can’t be lived. For me I know this might been a slower growth rate, but it is something I am prepared to accept. In the short term ….its 24/7 for me, but my husband and I are planning our next trip which I view as both relaxation and creative inspiration.
Name a seminal point in your career so far?
As seminal point in my career was realising you need to be ‘brilliant’ at everything, and to embrace the gifts we have. I am not a ‘logical, ordered thinker’, I think and perceive things in many dimensions and find it difficult to ‘stop the ideas’ and switch off. When I worked as consultant, those that problem solved differently found me somewhat chaotic because I didn’t approach things ‘the way they should be done’. I had many moments of self-doubt, but I learnt that a different perspective offered unique opportunities – my approach to creative problem solving was not something everyone found as easy I did, I just needed to find ‘the thing’ that I could make my own.
What gives you ultimate career satisfaction?
Ultimate career satisfaction is to be both creatively unique and to touch people emotionally, in a way that is authentic and respectful. The business world is faster and ever more competitive, but this should never be at the expense of common decency with whoever we work or deal with, or the willingness to give something of value of ourselves. I volunteer for a wonderful food charity called Britebox (which give meal kits ingredients to primary school children in food poverty, teaching them to cook a delicious and nutritious meal from scratch for their family). The care and dedication of this charity (and the other volunteers) leaves all of us involved, richer for it, and am humbled by their on-going selflessness.
How do you define your own success?
Learning to let go and not being afraid of making mistakes. Social media is going to be a challenge for me as I have strong reservations about its impact on our mental health. When I started my career in marketing, we all knew advertising was an aspiration and not reality. Social media is dangerous because these lines are now blurred. I hope I have the confidence to continue to portray the real me. I’m approaching retirement age in a few years, but have no intention of ever doing this – perhaps I might inspire others to manifest their passion too, because it is very energising. I just need to hold fast and not be afraid to ask for help!
What next for Elix?
This journey has just started so I can’t yet say where it will head. I am certainly looking to tap into the wellbeing and creative categories and can see an opportunity for specific target audiences (eg Wedding market, Corporate Event Workshops). I am not yet fixed to a specific age profile; whilst I know women my age the most obvious target, I have been surprised by the response I have got from gen Z audiences (both men and women) who are tired of blanket brands telling them how and what to feel. It’s important to have goals and targets, but sometimes we should just step back watch things unfold.
