Elate Cosmetics is a clean, cruelty-free, and sustainable cosmetics company founded in the heart of Victoria, BC. The Founder and CEO, Melodie Reynolds, or Chief Adventurer as she prefers, began her business based on the desire to see a difference in the cosmetic industry. She wanted a cosmetics line that was clean in ingredients, sustainable with low waste packaging but still maintained high-performance quality.
Melodie’s Story:
After working in the beauty industry for 20 years and as an editorial makeup artist, Melodie began to notice a gap in the beauty world. Grown weary of the marketing tactics that current beauty companies were using to shame and instill fear in women to buy their products, Melodie wanted to create a more empowering message to women, and thus Elate Cosmetics was formed.
Melodie believes in leaving the world a little bit better than how she found it and this message is clear in the company’s mission statement that revolves around “kindness and creating a place for people to define their own beauty”. The core values at Elate are Kindness, Wellness, Authenticity, Community, and Spirit and can be instantly validated the moment one enters their headquarters in downtown Victoria. Whenever a business decision is made, Melodie will ask herself 3 questions before pursuing: Is it purposeful? Is it high quality? And is it aligned with their core values?
The Culture at Elate Cosmetics:
The culture at Elate Cosmetics is very in sync with their core values. Melodie believes that her company’s culture comes less from hammering this tone and more from leading by example, “it’s just there and everyone picks up on it, the core values are stamped onto all of our hearts”. She believes that the culture in the team is what extends to the customer. “When the team is happy then the customer is happy”. When asked about how she built such a strong customer base, Melodie accredits their message to coming from the heart and believing “It’s what people want to hear because that’s what I want to hear”. Melodie jokes that her superpower is being “totally average but I know I’m average” and that her experience is probably similar to women everywhere.
On being a Successful Entrepreneur:
Throughout her business ventures, Melodie believes in 3 skills to be a successful entrepreneur. The first skill is flexibility, but not in the sense of being available, more in terms of recognizing that something you thought yesterday might not be the same today and to be accepting of that. Secondly, she believes failure is an excellent skill to have and that failure, just like success is objective. “Someone else might see your failure as a success” and failure will “teach you how to be a better leader and business person”. The final skill is knowing you, and “feeling confident in what you are able to do and what you are not and then being able to delegate those things as soon as possible”. At Elate they have a Greater Than Yourself Philosophy, in which the goal is to hire someone to be better than the person that hired them by building them up and giving them the desired tools to succeed.
However, no one succeeds without making a few mistakes along the way. Melodie is first to admit that she has faced a few failures throughout her business endeavours but is very optimistic about the fact that each failure has taught her something valuable. Her first failure to come to mind was during the beginning stages of her company. She submitted a request to trademark her company name only for it to be rejected, having to do a full name change 6 months into branding and losing quite a bit of money on completed packaging.
In 10 Years…
With continued growth discovered in failures, Melodie is confident that in 10 years from now her goal of being the world’s first totally waste-free cosmetics company will be achieved. She hopes to see Elate in “bathrooms of every person who wants to use a product that is helping them create their conscious beauty ritual”.
3 Elate Products Every Woman Should Own:
Finally, Melodie believes the 3 Elate products every woman should own are the Capsule Palette, the Essential Mascara, and a Lipstick.
Shop Elate at www.elatecosmetics.ca which includes a list of 90 retailers across North America that carry Elate Cosmetics.
Check out other articles on Eco-Friendly Beauty here.
Contributor: Sarah Williams
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Sarah is passionate about fashion, beauty and traveling the world. You can find the latest on what she’s up to on her personal blog The Trendy Blonde. Originally from Calgary, she now resides in Victoria, BC until she decides where she’s off to next.
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