WELLNESS: NĒKTAR

The Australian Made NĒKTAR

Former lawyer Katheryn Blewett has created a bespoke range of contemporary personal care products providing clean and honest formulations. She chats to Anita Quade about sourcing the finest ingredients and her life-changing journey.

Congratulations on your launch of nēktar Australia – tell me how this came about?

“I was inspired by fragrance from a very young age. I had an absurdly large interest in collecting miniature French perfumes and by the time I was in high school I had collected over 300 of them. I was always fascinated by fragrance and its ability to transport the senses. Close your eyes, inhale, and with one smell of a particular fragrance you could be anywhere in that moment. It was when I visited Grasse Fragonard perfumery in the South of France, the mecca of fragrance in the world, that I realised this was the space that I wanted to immerse myself in.

I was inspired by the scents and surroundings and it was at this moment where I envisaged marrying the concept of sustainability with scent and aesthetic sophistication. When I came back home to Australia I began immediately researching and liaising with the contacts I had connected with in France to get nēktar in its pre developmental stages.”

You are a former lawyer – what sparked your interest in the wellness sector?

“My now, late father, was a biochemist and specialist formulator, so it was a natural predisposition for me to gravitate towards this line of work. Growing up my dad taught me to ingredient read and I was always so fascinated to learn and do my own research in this area. It was something that came naturally to me and that I really enjoyed doing. It gave me power to know I could understand the listed ingredients and what they meant. Whether it was the ingredients on detergent, or a packet of chips or a hand cream, I instantly knew how to review and asses the product, a skill I still possess to this day.

There was always a strong focus on ‘organic’ and ‘natural’ in our house and it has always been something I am very passionate about. That has transitioned to present day into all aspects of my life and raising a family with two young boys. I am slowly trying to educate and pass down the ingredient reading tradition.”

Your line of curated personal care and home products are built around the promise to deliver clean living luxury and sustainability – how important was this to you when launching the brand?

“There is such a strong focus on sustainability in our society and it is the only way forward. Ensuring that the brand fulfilled this aspect along with also remaining clean and natural was crucial to nēktar’s ethos. When nēktar was in its developmental stages we never wavered on our vision to maintain pure and clean ingredient formulations.”

Was it difficult to deliver on this and be Australian made?

“There are always challenges when creating a brand and developing nēktar was certainly no exception. These challenges are more so evidenced when you have an extremely high level of expectation for your brand. It was a non-negotiable for me that nēktar would embody everything that is Australian. From employing Australian manufacturers to making our formulations and fragrances from scratch. Our ingredient formulations are bespoke and made locally in small batches. Having manufacturing facilities in Australia was incredibly important because I knew it would enable me to have full access and control over my brand and I would get to oversee all aspects of its development. Creating strong relationships with your manufacturers and other business partners is a crucial element to establishing a well thought out brand. It can of course be a more expensive venture when you do everything locally, however, you can’t put a price on quality and full control.”

How hard was it to find a niche in the ever-growing market of body/ wellness products?

“There’s certainly no denying that the market has an extensive amount of personal care and home products and it is a competitive industry, but I am of the belief that there is room in the market for everyone. Being a certified Australian made and owned company definitely sets up apart from the competition. To make the claim ‘made in Australia’ and to actually be ‘certified’ are two very different levels of aknowledgement. If you are certified then you have gone through the Australian Made governing body and have been reviewed and every component of each of your products has been audited. Anyone can really make the claim that they are made in Australia.”

Any other ways you set yourself apart?

“We also make sure we have ingredient transparency and honesty. We even put our ingredients on the front display of our washes and lotions. A lot of brands will claim they are natural and this can often mean their ingredients listing contains only one natural ingredient out of 30. From beginning to end our ingredients are natural and clean and we remain true to our ethos.”

It took four years to formulate your range what was one of the biggest challenges?

“Product development and ensuring the integrity of a product have by far been the most challenging. I always have a vision for each product I release. I know how I want it to feel, smell and look, however, it’s one thing to know what you want, and it’s another thing for that vision to be achievable. I have spent months/ years trialling and reworking formulas with my manufacturers to get a desired outcome. It has been the case where we have mastered a scent but then the application to which it was applied would change the composition of the scent altogether! Fragrances, and especially ones containing essential oils, need to be suited and reworked for each new format they are used in ie candle, diffusers, hand creams etc, so it is a mammoth achievement when you can finalise a whole range in one scent. It is an incredibly lengthy process but it truly is rewarding when you see that product range finally come to life.”

You certainly did your research on fragrance spending a year to develop this and visiting Grasse to meet with world class perfumers. Why was scent so important?

“Scent is everything. It evokes so many feelings from the past to the present, places to people, scent is just such an integral part of our lives. It was important for me to create scents that captured a certain feeling or emotion.

have 5 current scents in our range and in developing these we tried to diversify the pallet in order to accommodate for everyone. People are very specific when it comes to scents they like, so we have created a range which we feel has covered most scent types across a suite of products. From masculine to gentle white florals to aquatic and slightly gourmand, I would like to think we have satisfied the consumer’s choice for fragrance.”

Where did you source your ingredients from?

“All of our ingredients are sourced locally within Australia. Our fragrances are made and formulated from scratch. A lot of brands utilise ready-made generic fragrance. We do not employ this method. It has taken a lot of trial and error and many months/years developing the scents to get them right. Our fragrances are infused with essential oils and we have complete confidence knowing that no one else has the exact same fragrances as our carefully crafted range of products.”

Everything is done by hand from filling the lotions to pouring the candles – how time consuming is this to be such a bespoke company?

“Hand pouring and hand filling is of course more labour intensive, however, everything we do is based on quality and ensuring complete product integrity. Developing our products in this way provides the consumer with the assurance that they are receiving a quality handcrafted product each and every time.”

Your products are free from nasties and 100% cruelty free and vegan – was it difficult to nail this?

“It was extremely challenging trying to formulate products without all the nasty compounds. Once you remove these and substitute for natural you find the formulation and consistency of the product changes altogether, which is why we don’t substitute. We create our formulations from scratch and base our formulations around a bespoke composition to ensure all the natural components work synergistically together. Seeing my products on display. It is truly such an amazing experience.”