Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Why We Are Paradoxx fans
Meet the local beauty guru who is making waves with her new plastic-toxin-and-cruelty-free haircare brand
This week it emerged Claire’s Accessories has been selling kids’ make-up items containing asbestos. The disturbing findings are from a US Food and Drug Administration study.
Claire’s is adamant their products are safe. But it still removed the nine items in question from shelves. If they really were “safe” then why do this?
Whatever the truth, the fact is it all leaves a bitter taste and highlights an important issue taking place in the beauty industry right now.
Terrifying stories like these continue to pose the questions: What are THEY putting in their products and, as a result, what are WE putting in our bodies?
With the rise of clean eating in the past few years, we are all aware of the effects of what we eat. And a lot of us have made the move to natural. However, we are still applying make-up full of chemicals to our faces, washing our hair and skin with toxins and bathing our children in sulphites.
I started “wising up” to these issues a few years ago and made a conscious decision to start cleaning myself in, well, cleaner products. It isn’t easy. It’s not like I found it tough using them. I didn’t, as most are fab. What I found tough was, literally, finding them.
Supermarket shelves are packed with all the big brand products, many of which are packed with ingredients most of us can’t even pronounce.
What these shelves are lacking are items which are chemical-free. Some of them don’t even have that option...and the ones that do usually have a very limited selection.
Something I really struggle to find is totally clean haircare products. I had all but given up until an old Instagram pal’s new business page popped up.
I first met Yolanda Cooper in 2015 when she worked as the marketing manager for a Northern Irish-based organic tanning brand. She set up a meeting between myself and the chief executive of the company. On the day, I was struck by Yolanda’s personality, professionalism and her passion – for the brand, the industry and for all things natural. She has since ventured out on her own...with a business venture of her own to boot. This week saw the launch of We Are Paradoxx.
It all started with an overweight suitcase at a bag check-in desk at Dublin Airport in 2016. Yolanda had to unpack all her luggage in front of queues of people (been there, done that, binned a few T-shirts as a result) and realised all of her hair products were the culprits.
It was only on the plane she thought, “Why isn’t there something that does it all?” A few days later, while lying on a sun lounger, she started sketching ideas for a “does-it-all” tool.
When she came home she set to work with a team of engineers and after several months it was created. It is patent-pending so not much can be said about it at the minute but it is set to launch in the summer. (Watch this space).
In the meantime, Yolanda thought, “There’s no point in having a great tool if you don’t have great products to go with it.” So she created some.
What sets We Are Paradoxx apart is it incorporates her true passion – it is 97% natural.
Each product is free of toxins, is not tested on animals and comes in aluminium packaging – which isn’t harmful to the environment.
The hair brand also stays true to its roots (no pun intended) and contains unique Irish ingredients like Carrageen Moss, kelp, white nettle and Irish Whiskey. Yolanda is launching this breakthrough range at the perfect time, when we are crying out for honest haircare that doesn’t make us feel guilty about the effect they’ll have on the environment, or scared about the effect they’ll have on our health.
As Yolanda says: “No haircare brand was offering products I connected with. Organic hair care looked and felt lack lustre and most innovative brands offered products containing toxic ingredients. So I created We Are Paradoxx, for good hair with good conscience.” And the world is very glad she did.