Earthly Delights with Rowse

Beauty is more than skin-deep for Nuria Val, who co-founded natural skincare brand ROWSE after a chance meeting with Gabriela Salord. It was kismet: both were feeling uninspired by their skincare and had a desire to simplify their routines, and both shared a profound love of nature.

The ROWSE collection is created on an almost on-demand basis; the plant-powered products are made with less water than liquid alternatives and come thoughtfully packaged in recyclable glass bottles – an asset to any top shelf. Patter spoke to Nuria about harnessing nature’s abundance and its ever-grounding presence in her life.

The core of our mission from the beginning was to give importance to raw ingredients. My co-founder Gabriela and I met in Paris during Fashion Week and we had this connection since day one. Without knowing each other we decided to start a company related to plants!

I couldn’t connect with the skincare products I was using and I wanted to create a routine for people who want to better understand what they’re applying. Since then we’ve been evolving in a very organic way and focusing on our community’s needs to create the products. We wanted to respect timings and grow very organically. This allows us to be very focused on what we do because we don’t want to create a lot of products or create waste.

There is a lot of science behind natural skin care even though it’s ‘natural’. All the properties that synthetic collagen or hyaluronic acid have can be found in nature. They’re more difficult and expensive to extract, but the properties are exactly the same. We need to change our mindset and believe in the effectiveness of the skin. I’ve been using the products for five years now and my skin has totally changed.

95% are from Europe and the Mediterranean. We are super lucky to have amazing ingredients right here. Then there are some ingredients that we cannot find here and we bring from other countries like argan or camellia oil from China or matcha from Japan.

We partner with Lamia, who develops our formulas. She’s a pharmacist and we’ve learned a lot from her. Sometimes she develops a product and I create the storytelling behind it but often, with the Summer Mist, for example, I said ‘I’m thinking about a product which is like a sun ray, with all those colours, with a smell that transports you to summer’, and she’s able to do it. It’s a very creative process to work together.

The Tangerine Cleansing Balm is a favourite. What I really recommend is to do a face massage while you apply it. It takes five minutes and you work on the face and muscles. This product is perfect for this because you are hydrating at the same time.  Since I started massaging my face and being more conscious of the way I apply products, my skin has changed a lot, so I think taking the time is very important.

Also the Regenerate Night Serum. We added bakuchiol last September, which is a vegan alternative to retinol, and it is non-irritative. The perfume that Lamia created for this product is related to aromatherapy. When you use it, it has a mix of oils that relax you and disconnect all your senses before you go to sleep.

This All-Day Moisturiser with Niacinamide is very interesting because we don’t use water to make our products. Normally when you’re buying a cosmetic product, it’s mostly 90% water. The water that this product has comes from the Amara flower which is the base. Then it has a different mix of oils, like chia and cotton and hyaluronic acid and niacinamide which is amazing because it locks in the moisture of your face.

At the same time that we started ROWSE, my husband and I bought this land in the south of Catalonia. We built this off-the-grid house. It’s simple living, but it really connects us with what is most important. It’s been super inspiring as well for growth and practicing the values that I really want to share. I have a toddler and she knows which plants are aromatic, which is the rosemary, the lavender and the sage. It’s really fun because she’s really connected with nature – it’s such a gift.

Rowse are offering Patter readers 15% off until December 31, use code ROWSELOVESPATTER at checkout.