portia-ella wouldn't exist without the visionaries behind our partner brands. These are women who saw something missing in the Canadian market and then found the courage and ambition to make it available. Or perhaps they had a dream to create something to call their own and change the course of life for themselves and their families. We are eager to champion them as individuals - powerful and full of passion. We are proud to offer their creations here at portia-ella; the largest selection of clean-beauty products in Canada.

Today we sit down with Melodie Reynolds, founder of Elate Beauty. Beauty industry insider of 20 years, she created Elate to redefine what “low waste” looks like in the cosmetics industry. Elate is based out of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and is committed, as a brand, to advocate for kindness in their marketing, ingredient sourcing, and packaging. To help us love ourselves more, to engage with beauty out of love, not insecurity. Their innovative packaging and formulas help us use makeup to its fullest. We wish Elate Beauty a Happy 10 Year Anniversary, and are thrilled to present this exclusive interview with Melodie Reynolds here on thePRIMER. We hope you enjoy reading her story and about her beautiful journey just as much as we did!

"Hello there! This is Melody Reynolds from Elate Beauty. I am the founder, and I'm really excited to answer these questions for you. Thank you again for featuring our brand!"

about business

How long have you been an indie-beauty brand owner? I have owned Elate Beauty for a decade now!

What was the inspiration to start your brand? I launched our brand in 2014, and the inspiration behind Elate was really that, at the time, as a professional makeup artist, I was growing really concerned about the ingredients that were in the products that I was putting on, not only myself, but on the models that I worked with.

But also, it wasn't just about the ingredients, it was about the fact that every single time I bought a makeup product, I ended up with a little pile of garbage at the end of unwrapping it, which really made me feel terrible. I'd always considered myself to be a good environmental citizen, and it took a few times of me unwrapping a product and creating a little pile of garbage in front of myself to realize that this was actually a problem that I was part of, and I needed to look for some solutions.

Did everything go as planned as you began to build your business? What were some (positive and negative) surprises along the way? Did everything go as planned? No, not at all! Running a business is like a roller coaster. There's lots of ups and downs, and it can be scary. But the good thing is that I really like roller coasters, so I'm happy to continue riding the waves, as it were.

In the beginning, one of the very first challenges that I had was I chose a name, and I had done all the research, and just for whatever reason, the name that I had chosen, which was Mantra Cosmetics, never came up in any of my Google searches. And so that was the name that I started having put on all of our packaging and the name that I started my branding around. But then about three months before I was set to launch, I had to change the names on the packaging to Elate, and that was a really interesting time, because I was very stressed out that I had chosen a name that was already taken for products.

But then we settled on Elate, and I'm very happy, because Elate, of course, not only does it mean joyful, which is really what I feel like makeup should be, but also Elate stands for Everyone Loves A Thoughtful Experience, and that indicates the intention and the thoughtfulness with which we create our products, and that's really important. 

Do you have a “best moment” in your journey that you will never forget? That's a really good question. There are so many positives that happen so many times that I've been thrilled with, you know, whenever I see our product featured in a magazine, when we partnered with the Jillybox a few years ago, that was incredible. If I'm invited to be on a podcast, and I get to speak about sustainability... I would say, getting our B Corp certification was such a huge moment for me.

But I think probably the "best moment" would have been in 2019, we hosted a leadership summit, which is an event that we hold for all of our partners to come to in Victoria, and we spend two or three days learning together, we provide lots of content about running your business, and about Elate and about makeup as well. But really, it's a chance for partners to all get together and get to know each other, because I'm a big, big cheerleader for collaboration over competition.

So we know that our small business partners, they actually all sell our product, that's the thing that they have in common. But they actually have more in common with each other than they do with us as a brand, because they're serving our customers on the floor every day. And so [at the leadership summit] I had actually just had my baby, Thomas who was born November the 21st, and that was just really, really special to see all of our partners come together and to get feedback from them in real time. And I think another thing that I'll say about best moments is, whenever I get an opportunity to visit a partner and interact with our customers in their stores, it's the highlight of my day, and I wish that I could do it more. But of course, as an indie beauty brand, our travel dollars are limited, so that's something that's really interesting.

about clean beauty

What does clean beauty mean to you? What does clean beauty mean to me? We really focus on high efficacy formulations and making sure that everything that we're producing with our partners is as useful as it can possibly be with the least ingredients and the least ingredients that have a negative impact on humans and the planet. So really, that's what clean beauty is to me, you know, we follow the European standard in terms of which ingredients are allowed or not allowed in our products. But even just personally, I would never use anything that had a synthetic fragrance, because I think that those things are not appropriate for use on our bodies daily. But the biggest thing for me is balancing where does an ingredient come from? Is it grown in organic conditions? But also the workers that have to harvest those ingredients, how are they treated? I want to make sure that everything is as kind as it can possibly be. So really, clean to me is about kindness and ethics.

What is your favourite product from your brand? My favourite product from my brand is probably our prep priming serum. I use it every single day without fail. It is a hyaluronic acid based serum that we just it makes your makeup go on so smoothly, but it's also really hydrating for the skin. So it's a real star product in my mind.

Share your favourite clean beauty product you use regularly from another brand. My favourite clean beauty product I use regularly from another brand would be the Three Ships Skincare. You know, shout out to those gals, they're amazing! They have these under eye patches that are completely biodegradable. Like, after you use them, they disintegrate in water. They're made with avocado I believe, and those are just my favourite. I use them probably more than I should because being a small business owner, I do look tired sometimes after working 12 hour days. But my daughter Fiona, who's 12 also loves to do that with me. So we'll put on a clay mask and put on our iPads and you know, do all of that fun stuff. 

about you

Describe a “day in your life”. Oh my goodness. So I have two children, a 12 year old and a five year old. So generally my day starts pretty early at 5am. I begin working and I work until about 7am when the family wakes up. And then from 7 until about 9, I'm doing breakfast and dropping my little one off at school. The big one takes the bus by herself, so that's great. And then I will, often if I can, I'll take an hour for myself, maybe go to the gym or do a hike. I live on Vancouver Island and it is so beautiful here, and we're so lucky to be in the mountains, but by the ocean. And so I try to get outside as much as possible. And I then I will continue my work day from there because my work day starts before the kids get up. 

I will generally have a call with my team to see what's happening. I like to incorporate as much creative work as I can every single day. I think it's important to have balance, so I don't like theme my days in terms of like today is when I do marketing and tomorrow is when I do finance. I generally do a little bit of everything each day and I block my time in 60 or 90 minute blocks. I always stop and have lunch, I never eat lunch at my desk, I think that that is really bad for our mental health. So I always get up from whatever I'm doing and go and eat lunch, it only takes 10 or 15 minutes. And then I will often go for a 15 or 20 minute walk after lunch, just to clear my head.

Afternoons are when I usually have phone calls. I find my energy is highest in the morning, so that's when it's great to get administrative tasks out of the way. But I feel energized by people because I'm an extrovert. And so in the afternoon, when I feel my energy dip is when I would have a phone call with a partner or a supplier or a potential marketing partner. And yeah, that's really great. And then about 4pm is when it's time to go and pick my little guy up. And then we will do swimming lessons if it's that day, or we'll play a board game or we'll play outside if it's nice.

And then we make dinner. Then, once the kids are in bed, I usually do my wrap up for the day, which takes me about an hour. I just take all of the tasks that I completed today, I celebrate any wins, because I think that's really important. And it's something that we don't do a lot as business owners is celebrate those little wins that happen every day. And then I set myself up for success by writing down anything that I need to complete the following day. So that's kind of a day in my life!

Do you have any tips to maintain balance in your day-to-day? Any life hacks you would like to share? You know, the tips for maintaining balance, that's kind of what I mentioned, getting outside, making sure that I have proper exercise and nutrition for myself, and making sure that I have a little bit of time each day to really disconnect, whether that be with my family or on my own. I think it's really important to recognize that because you are running your business, you know, everything that happens in your business is going to be good or bad based on the way that you view it, right, based on your perspective. And if you are feeling depleted, that's going to be more difficult to create those positive circumstances for everyone.

What brings you joy – besides the brand you built? I love this question. I love hiking, I love adventuring and climbing to the top of a mountain, seeing all around. That's so exhilarating for me, doing a really difficult or technical hike feels great. Again, I live on Vancouver Island, so I have lots of really incredible opportunities to do outdoor sports. I also love mountain biking, the same kind of thing, climbing to the top of a mountain just on a bike this time and riding down, you know, going fast is very exhilarating for me. I also love music, I play the guitar, as well as the ukulele and I'm actually in a band! I love playing music with other people. I sing and play instruments, which is a really great outlet for me, so I make sure that I play my instrument every single day for practice and just also for joy because music really brings me joy.

What occupies your free time? Or if you don’t have much free time, what do you imagine you would fill it with someday? Yeah... I don't have a lot of free time.  I like to spend time with my kids and my partner. And one day when I do have more free time, I would like to do more gardening because I love growing things. But I just don't have time to do it right now, but that would be lovely. I also love animals, we have a cat, I would like to have more animals, but it's just about the time to dedicate to take care of them. 

I think if I could sum it up, it would just be, you know, everything with kindness, everything with joy and everything with love and beauty, because those are the things that are really important to me.

Thanks so much again for shining a light on independent businesses!