Aora Mexico CEO Nour Tayara (Makeup with Sustainable Packaging)

https://aoramakeup.com/en-us

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nour-tayara-05292ba/

How has Nour Tayara and his co founder created a plastic free brand? 

Can makeup packaging be more sustainable? 

Bright and beautiful makeup and packaging you will want to keep. 

Check out our sponsor Orora Packaging Solutions 
https://ororapackagingsolutions.com/

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

Cory Connors: 0:31

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors

Brodie Vander Dussen: 0:34

and then Brodie Vander Dussen. Cory Connors: We're so excited experience video today, because we have a CEO and co founder of Aura Mexico, which is a wonderful makeup brand and lifestyle really brand. we've got Noor Tayara with us. How are you? Welcome. Hi.

Nour Tayara: 0:56

Hi Corey. Hi Brody. And thank you so much for having me. I'm doing fantastic. Thank you.

Cory Connors: 1:00

Thank you so much for being on the show. We were really excited and, we'll tell this story later, but I want to talk about how excited my daughter was to see the package of makeup that you sent me. So we'll get to that later, but,

Brodie Vander Dussen: 1:14

I'm, I know May's very excited. I'm really excited for this episode and to learn more, I was, before we hit record, we were talking a little bit about, we're recording this a little bit early, but we're. Looking for the holidays and holiday gifts are coming up. I've done a deep dive lately in microplastics and all of the things, slightly more of a spiral than a deep dive at this point. and so I'm really looking for plastic free makeup and plastic free gifts. And how do we. How do I, as a consumer, reduce my impact of plastic? And so I'm really excited to see, brands like Aora Makeup, and what they're doing and their mission. And I'm excited to support these brands because I think that they make a huge impact. And I hope you can talk a little bit more about, the impact that you guys are making in the space. but before we get into that, can you tell us a little bit about your background? What, how did you get started into this? Just a little bit of a little sneak peek.

Nour Tayara: 2:11

Super. well, I, I started by studying engineering, honestly, that doesn't have, it has a lot to do. you don't usually end up in beauty from a branding point of view, but I studied electrical and computer engineering in Montreal, Canada. And after that, I started becoming really interested and I was doing guerrilla marketing. I was like the person being paid a lot of money to like give out, vouchers on the street or like sit in a movie theater in a robe just to show that Axe deodorant is fantastic. And I started being like, okay, you know what, I want to do something creative like this and end up in Paris. to do a master's and immediately met L'Oreal on the campus. And that was the start of about a 13, 14 year career at L'Oreal. most of my career was, that's what you call over there, like DMI, international marketing. So think about it. If you're a fashion house, that's where the actually is. So we would be creating. New products, new innovations, new visions, values for the brands. And really from very early on. I started working on marketing innovation, product innovation, packaging, formulas, where do we want to take brands? And that's, I would say, how I started into beauty product development and brand development. And very soon after, I was sent by L'Oreal to this conference called One Young World that the old bosses of Havas do and it's for young people under 30 and you get to experience like you have Coffee Anan, you have Ariana Huffington, you have, Nobel Peace Prizes and it's meant to wake you up a bit. And I think there was 10 of us from L'Oreal chosen to go. And something hit after. I think it was the element of, we could be doing well as a business while doing good. we, there, there's so much more to do in terms of sustainability, in terms of CSR. Like, there was the people element, there was the earth element. There was also the safety element of ingredients. And because, It wasn't very about humans at that point. It was more about like rivers, seas, et cetera. And I remember coming back extremely excited about that part, but also extremely excited about innovation. I had been working at that point, I was on a hair care brand on care styles, and my job was to invent new things and honestly, there was a plateau to it. It had become boring. How of how? How can you keep reinventing a shampoo? But then I created the first silicone free shampoo that of L'Oreal. we started creating, we put the, for the first time ever, we put PCR in a bottle. Seems incremental, not much, but it was massive. Suddenly. It wasn't just about creating a new name. Suddenly we were working on task forces, on testing, on figuring out how to do color, rigidity, and slowly I became a bit more of a specialist like that in the company. So I would be sent on brands that want to focus more on sustainability, and we end up doing the first 100 percent PCR bottle of the group. then, we did like showerheads introduced by 50 percent water usage while increasing efficiency. So we played a lot. So I really got into the sustainable side while keeping the innovation and branding side and about a bit more than three years ago, I left, I was part of the, like Beyonce, you won't break my soul, great resignation, COVID, I don't know if I want to do this anymore and I wanted to do this, I wanted to create a plastic free brand and I could not do that at L'Oreal. So I, met my business partner at a beach in Mexico. And soon after we started working on quite the ambitious plan for this brand. And we launched a bit less than a year ago.

Cory Connors: 6:15

Wow. I didn't realize it was that short. Like congratulations. Amazing. That's amazing. Thank you. And you've done a huge, growth already in just, less than 12 months. And, let's talk about this company. I'm holding up one of the, you call this a compact? A palette. A palette. Okay. Yes. this is the, reusable packaging. And, refillable, which I think is wonderful and plastic free. a keepsake. My, my daughter was so excited. She's nine and, just could not get it out of my hands fast enough. But tell us about your company. What's the focus for AORA Mexico? Super.

Nour Tayara: 6:55

So, for now we are a makeup brand born out of Mexico. meant to celebrate color, Mexican creativity, and what we like to call future luxury, which is really, a big belief we have that the future of luxury is about durability, is about noble materials, is a comeback to beautiful objects, and we are born out of many frustrations we've had in the market, one of them being that It's all about the north. yes, everyone talks about the fact that there's a probably a new beauty brand popping up every week, and that the market is growing, and the amount of new startups and investments. But when you look At it, the grand, grand, grand majority is still startups born in France, in the UK, in the US. It's still a Euro centric, that's North centric point of view. And we thought that it's time for something new from somewhere else, that it's time for other voices, for other aesthetics. The second one comes to clean beauty because we know that clean beauty is growing. It is a future because there's science at some point when you read the facts and you know what ingredients can do to your skin, to your health, to earth, to you. We can't keep ignoring it for too long. So that's gonna That's going to hit the fan at some point and everyone's going to have to move in that direction. So except that when we look at clean beauty, it's a bit boring. it's many shades of beige. Somehow it has been decided that clean beauty is like only for minimalist makeup, for example, or not too much color. And It's not very flavorful. It's a bit the equivalent of the vegan burgers before beyond that impossible came. They were like made out of lentils, a bit dry, not that great. And we think we could have, we could make it a lot more colorful. And lastly. Look, we have a plastic issue. this industry, the beauty industry as a whole, but the makeup industry in particular, because like shampoo bottles, we know that they can be recycled there. They could be made out of, PT and recycled easily. We almost know how to do it. They're big enough. Make up is a real issue. The grand majority probably like there's no data, but I would say probably 99 percent of makeup is not recyclable. almost 50 percent of makeup is made out of more. Probably 55. it's made out of two products. a lipstick, lip gloss or a mascara. Those two are many reasons they have never been recycled, and they will never be recycled if we keep the status quo. They are too small, they're less than two by two, they will not go in any mirth. Somehow has decided somewhere, someone that black plastic is luxury. Think about the amount of brands out there. Black plastic is not recyclable. It's like throwing a black t shirt and a load of white laundry and no Merff will take it because who wants to sell gray PCR after. and lastly. They are made of so many materials, like a mascara is made out of like four different plastics, a lipstick as well on average, and which makes them unrecyclable. imagine, palettes are the same, pencils are made to look like plastic, like wood. The pencils in the market, eyeliners, They look like wood, they feel like wood, they're not wood, they're plastic. you're literally creating microplastic every time you sharpen a pencil. It's as simple as that. we wanted to do something about that. And I think that's what the brand was born about. We wanted to be this colorful force of change. That is, setting new standards. And, hopefully, pushing the industry to see that, hey, you can do it. I don't say we're sustainable. I don't want someone to look at our brand and be like, Oh, it's a sustainable brand. We try to do something so that people get drawn to the object in your hand. It's beautiful. That's why I want it. This metal has a temperature, has a sound, has a weight, it's a comeback to, we should all go back to admiring, owning, and wanting to own objects, not just, honestly, pieces of plastic that might degrade, and, that's really why we did all of this, if that tells you a bit about our brand.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 11:36

I am, I feel so inspired by this. I love what you said. The, a colorful force of change, I think is beautiful. I looking at your website, looking at products that you guys have, the aesthetics, the branding, the presence that you guys bring to the space, specifically the clean beauty, as much as like, I love to participate in that. You're right. it is, Page. I, it's exciting. I'm excited to see you guys next to them and succeed next to them because it's infectious, the mission that you have. I'm curious how you feel about how that mission, the plastic free packaging, we talk a lot about packaging on this podcast. How does that really affect your customers, sales, loyalty, reputation? How does that affect your relationship with your customers?

Nour Tayara: 12:23

look, I think so far and we've only been in Mexico until now, we started launching in the U. S. At the soft launch. But as if anyone is, a lot of people are listening to us right now. If you are listening to us right now, You can go on our website and purchase our brand. We have officially launched in the U. S. In Mexico. So far, the draw has been the packaging. I don't want to say too much that it's about the plastic free. It's the packaging. And I think it's important we start framing the conversation like this. Of course, plastic free is bringing a lot of people, but there's a sentence we love to use on the brand is that plastic could never. It's not, we're not using plastic free just because we're not using plastic free because we actually want to do a lot of beautiful things that plastic cannot do. Sorry, plastic, like we are looking for, for better shine or look. they have plastics like popular enough. We can, go against that current, but in a way, the drone has been this idea of plastic could never, this idea that we are able to create beautiful objects, that Show you a new view because we in almost everything we've done like this is the palette and this is how you open the packaging even this we wanted you to keep something. So the box. It's empty. There's no QR code. There's no ingredients. There's no recycling because it's outside. We wanted you to open it and have this feeling even by the way, if you don't use this you can do this And you're left with a box And then we wanted people to be drawn because they want this before they even ask themselves this plastic. It's not Consumers don't shop out of sustainability. we can read every study out there that tells you that 80 percent of consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable. I haven't seen it in the numbers. When you put two things in front of them, consumers are willing to pay more for a better product, for a more beautiful object, for something that allows them to affiliate to a certain lifestyle, or that gives them a benefit that they didn't have before, or for a price that's super attractive. And, we wanted them to come to us because we've reinvented the way an object looks, we have reinvented even the way the bands go, we've given them an object that is fun. If you're a makeup artist, you can mix your colors in here. When you finish this, you can put whatever you want in it. So we wanted people to gravitate towards that. I always say that you don't. You don't buy organic strawberries because they're organic or because you want to save the soil. Honestly, you buy them because they're smaller, they're redder, you open them, they don't have this like white void inside, they're sweeter, they're more delicious, they're juicier. And I think it's a mission of a lot of us together to make sustainability more flavorful, more juicy, more fun. And that's when we can get to a much bigger adoption.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 15:20

I love that. I think sustainability, the enemy of sustainability is convenience and true, well thought out sustainability is so intentional. And I think almost subtle, if you will, like you said, we want to elevate packaging. And a way of doing that is by sustainability, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is. the goal is not elevated. I love that.

Cory Connors: 15:44

Yeah. I think of the Mexican culture and I think of beautiful colors, bright, happy people, wonderful food, delicious drinks, bright sunshine. And so this is like the perfect idea for all of that. Yeah. this is your brand in this. in this beautiful palette. Well done. Going plastic free is not easy in a lot of plastic or a lot of packaging. What was the most difficult to do? Which, which item did you did you have any like struggles that you remember? Oh my God,

Nour Tayara: 16:16

so many. it's almost impossible. there's a reason out there, like it's most of it was a lot of struggle. I think the palette, for example, the palette was a big struggle. I think first of all, We like this palette is 100 percent made out of 10. it's this mirror is not glass. for example, that was a bit of a struggle in the beginning, getting to do a mirror that is not glass. But that you cannot know this is not a mirror made out of glass because of the coating on it. the everything is 10. I think in the palette, the Okay. The hardest part was, of course, design engineering at all, but we've had fantastic partners. I think production was the hardest because we, 10 is not used in many things. so factories know how to do cans of soup and cans of beans and things like that. They don't, it hasn't been used for a luxury product. And why do I say this? It's because we were a bit OCD. I think it's super important. We're a brand that is coming from a market that is new to beauty from a country that is not known to export beauty and we wanted to make sure we're not doing something halfway. So quality was super important and the hardest part on the palette was figuring out how to get a spectacular quality of tin without dents, things closing, things that are okay in food when you're buying a can for two dollars. But are not okay when you're buying a product that is keepsake, that we want you to keep and enjoy and cherish. The lip gloss is a bit different because that was super hard because our lip gloss is a hundred percent aluminum, recycle ready, because this will go in a recycling stream because it will either go with glass and that will get separated or you can do what we now call nesting. So even if a MRF doesn't want to take it. Okay. Just put it in a can of coca cola and crunch it and it will become bigger than a 2x2 and it will get recycled because it's a full 100 percent monomaterial aluminum. And the hardest part here was figuring out how to do the joint on the inside that gets you to have a bullet lip gloss. There are plastic free lip glosses out there. They're made out of cardboard. They seem it's not the nicest experience. And we wanted something where someone doesn't realize the idea is not to put a compromise on the consumer. I think as a manufacturer, we need to figure out how do we give them the same or a better experience and here getting this to be done with the precision of the screw in a way inside. In a metal like aluminum was hard because you can only do it before with like more noble materials like zinc that allows you a crazy tiny precision so you can have round have these circles that are tiny. So you they have to be tiny. You'll go. You're putting this mini diameter up and down. Of course, you can do it with something big when you have that crazy curve. That's a super hard here. And on the pencils, I would say the hardest part on the pencils is having a wood pencil. That's still, that doesn't like drink your formula because wood absorbs and we managed to do a formula that goes in the water line. It's so you need it to be creamy. You need it to be like a beautiful formula. And, so we worked on the inside of the wood, the liner. We could have done a plastic liner, but we have a more oil based liner, very similar to how you would cover your beautiful wooden table. So if you spill wine at dinner, it wouldn't seep. So that we make sure that the formula didn't get like drunk up by the wood.

Cory Connors: 20:15

That's a great analogy. I like that. Yeah. You're like spilling wine on, on a table. Yeah, this is the things that we think about when we design packaging. Well done. Good for you. Thank you.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 20:26

So you mentioned earlier that it's for now a makeup brand. Does that, is that a hint for some future innovations that we should be on the lookout for?

Nour Tayara: 20:34

For sure. For sure. Because, look, luckily we're in a world where, categories are starting to blur and, consumers are starting to gravitate towards brands that Either represent their aesthetics or their values or make them feel part of the community. And I think it's, It's the sustainable thing to do from a business point of view as well. I think, the idea is for us to mix, purchases like a palette where you might not end up buying a new one every quarter with products that will allow us to have a bit more repetition and repurchase, like going into Not becoming a full skincare brand, but going a bit into other realms that allow us to get to more consumers. I think we have a mission to spread the colors and joy of Mexico and to spread as well, this beauty. knowledge, feeling proof point in a way that yes, you can turn many categories and packaging and formats into plastic free. So I think we're going to keep going. We're going to try to do as much plastic free as we can in as many formats as we can.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 21:49

I'm excited.

Cory Connors: 21:50

Yeah. Well done. I don't even wear makeup and I want to buy some for myself. And this is, you've sold us. Yes.

Nour Tayara: 21:57

The lip gloss, honestly, the lip gloss is barely makeup. Okay. I sent you some and I sent you some. Just try it. It's like, look, it doesn't like, you're not gonna, you're not gonna feel it. Just a little shine. You're just going to look like you drink a lot of water.

Cory Connors: 22:10

I'm on board for sure. Well, let's talk about how people get in touch with you. You have a wonderful, presence on social media. what's your Instagram handle for us?

Nour Tayara: 22:20

our Instagram handle is Aura Mexico, A O R A M E X I C O. And, TikTok is the same. And, You can find me on LinkedIn, just like we found each other. I reached out to Corey because I'm a big fan of the podcast and I like, I, I love finding other innovations through you guys. And then our website is. Aoramakeup. com, A O R A, makeup. com, where, and we ship to the U. S., and, and voila. Well, congratulations. We're so excited to be a part of your world now. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And me of yours. Thank you so much for having me.