I wasn’t planning to get quite so excited about vitamin D. But then I tasted the vanilla sample and these words came out of my mouth.
“That is a million-pound product.” ...Maybe I’m delusional.
No spreadsheet open. Just me, already mentally spending the marketing budget.
But to explain how we got there, I need to go back a bit.
Vitamin D was something I was already taking. It’s a non-negotiable for me, all year round. I live in the North West of England, spend a lot of my day inside working, and I’m hardly outside marinating in sunshine when the weather improves. My face has SPF on it. Quite often, the closest I get to enjoying a sunny afternoon is noticing it through a window.
And whenever we develop something at Elle Sera, I start with myself. I’m the customer. If something bothers me, or I find myself wanting to know more, there’s a reasonable chance other women feel the same.
With vitamin D, I kept coming back to who was making what I was taking.
That’s what happens when you get involved in manufacturing. You learn enough to become a real nuisance. You start wanting explanations for things you once wouldn’t have thought to ask about.
I’m fortunate enough to work with manufacturers whose expertise I trust. So eventually, the thought became: why don’t I speak to them about making one?
I wanted a spray. I liked the idea of it, and I could see it fitting into my life. My breakfast is often a black coffee before I disappear into work, so I appreciate something straightforward and convenient.
But I wanted to get properly into the formulation. You know me. Give me access to a scientist and suddenly I’ve got a few more questions.
The people I use are specialists in liposomal technology. I call them the liposomal police, which probably tells you something about how seriously they take it.
They have university links and a professor of nanotechnology involved in the business who reviews the formulas. There’s third-party testing behind their work. When they explain what they do, you realise how much is happening behind a word most people might glance at on a label.
“Liposomal.” Fine. But what does that actually mean in this product, and how have you checked it?
That’s the conversation I want to have.
I believe you should absorb what you’re paying for. Vitamin D is fat-soluble, and liposomes are tiny structures made from phospholipids that can carry ingredients within a formulation. The reason it’s great to have this is because Vit D likes fat… but not many people take it with any fat, it’s usually just a bottle of water or a black coffee and hope for the best. Well, if you do that you are leaving gains on the table.
We thought about this and so gave our Vit D, it’s own fat jacket.
Somewhere in these conversations, my curiosity had turned into a product brief. As it tends to do.
We chose D3, which generally raises and maintains vitamin D blood levels more effectively than D2, and paired it with vitamin K2 in the MK-7 form.
We tried different flavours, too. Watermelon was never going to have an easy time with me because I hate the taste. Piña colada wasn’t particularly calling my name either.
But vanilla? I tasted it and immediately wanted another taste.
It was so nice. And because I already knew what had gone into it, that was the moment the whole thing came together for me.
Then my marketing brain got involved, obviously. I was picturing vanilla pods and ice cream, mentally organising photographs while we were still discussing a supplement.
Vanilla is vanilla for a reason, isn’t it? It didn’t need to be an unexpected flavour to be a brilliant one.
“That is a million-pound product.” A bold declaration, admittedly.
But I could suddenly see what we could do with it, and I wanted to give it the full Elle Sera treatment.
Which brought me to my next thought.
If this is what we’ve managed to create inside, how incredible could it look on the outside?
I suspect the sensible thing would have been to choose a bottle from a catalogue. I didn’t…
Anyway. That’s another story...
Elissa x
