“At the time my acne felt like the end of the world,” says Louise Thomas-Minns. “But looking back it’s made me the skincare therapist that I am and that’s why I love what I’m doing.”
Louise began her career in beauty with a part-time job in a salon when she was 16.
“Scrubbing showers, making teas and coffees, booking appointments...I thought it was going to be really glamorous,” she laughs.
“But it obviously didn’t put me off, because I decided to go and train as a beauty therapist.”
Early on in her career, through developing treatments for her own acne and her clients’ skincare concerns, Louise decided that nurturing skin back to health would be her focus.
“Nails and tans didn’t excite me as much as helping people with their skin issues,” says Louise.
“Then I realised that lots of people coming to me had acne and I think it was because they realised that I understood what they were going through. They weren’t intimidated by me, because they looked at me and saw actually I’m on this journey as well.”
Today, Louise Thomas Skin Therapy, her clinic in Norwich’s Unthank Road, has a waiting list. And this week she launches the first product in her signature Louise Thomas Skin Care range.
It’s a moment she’s dreamed of for decades – and the foaming cleanser will be followed by four more products.
“Jo Malone is a good example of somebody I admired,” says Louise. “Someone who created something that was meaningful to them. For me, it wasn’t just about having my name on it. I needed to get involved with the inner workings of it. It came from a place of expertise, education and research from treating clients for 20-odd years, listening to them about what they love about products, what they hate about products, what packaging they like.”
Louise started developing the products in 2016, and, over coffee at bustling Kofra on Upper St Giles, she describes the last six years as “a roller coaster of emotions.”
It started with “a Dragons’ Den-style pitch in a big boardroom” to secure some investment.
“The investor said yes there and then, which made me go a bit pale, and we were up and running, in terms of them allowing me to develop and find a chemist and formulate those initial five products" she says.
“I’ve definitely done it the harder way,” she continues. “It’s not a white label, so I didn’t just go to a manufacturer and say I want a foaming cleanser and just stick my name on to that bottle.
“It was literally going to find the chemist, and have some lab time with them, which I was in my element with, sitting with them with my brief for formulations and coming up with a bespoke blend if you like.
“I just loved and relished that opportunity to literally put my ideas into a bottle.”
Developing a skincare product is an expensive business, and Louise realised that she would need additional funding.
“We had 25,000 bottles and jars screen-printed ready to go, so we had to find another investor to enable us to buy the raw materials and fill them,” she says.
“So, I spent the whole of 2019 looking at different ways of doing that and we had found somebody. Coming into 2020 we were just about to sign on the dotted line, they were excited, we had big ideas to launch all five products.”
Then the pandemic hit and the investment fell through. It was a double blow as not only were Louise’s plans for her skincare brand on hold, but she was also unable to see her skin therapy clients in person.
“Of course, I completely understood and all parties were devastated. I think probably like most people I just went into a hole for the rest of that year,” says Louise, candidly.
“I felt guilty, actually, about feeling sad that I may have to just literally pour away all of that investment and get rid of those bottles. Even though I was feeling upset and stressed about it, I didn’t feel like I should because of what was going on in the world.”
But at the beginning of 2021, Louise had what she describes as “a shift in energy”.
“Although we went back into lockdown, I thought that I’ve got to use this four months of [the clinic] being closed in a positive way. We scaled all the way back and decided to focus on looking for a UK manufacturer that might do small runs. So, rather than going for five products with four and a half thousand units of each, was there anybody out there that could just do a few hundred?”
Louise found an all-female team (her chemist is an all-female team too) in Yorkshire, which specialises in manufacturing for indy beauty brands and decided to start by launching the foaming cleanser.
And this week sees the culmination of that six years of hard work. The Louise Thomas Skin Care website goes live on March 31 and on March 28 a week-long celebration starts at Jarrold in Norwich, which will be stocking it.
“The experience has taught me a lot about myself,” says Louise.
“I always thought I was quite determined, but 2020 definitely made me have a huge amount of self-doubt and disbelief and I spiralled into that hole.”
She also wanted to set a good example for her daughter, Maggie
“I think having a six-year-old watching made me think that I can’t let her see me give up on this,” she says.
When it comes to talking about the products, Louise is clearly in her element.
The brand is science focused, (“I have to know that an ingredient has clinical studies. As well as being high quality they have to have research behind them,” says Louise) and contains a specially-created moisturising complex made from a form of hyaluronic acid that is unique to the Louise Thomas Skin Care range.
“Hyaluronic acid is found in the skin, it’s part of our extracellular matrix, it’s what give the plump youthfulness to the skin and helps to form the protective lipid barrier, which is something I always talk about with clients all the time,” says Louise.
“You get this lovely hydrating effect, even though you’re washing your skin, and there’s also a really clever plant polysaccharide that actually acts almost like a film on the skin and it picks up the dirt, the oil, the make-up, the grime and physically lifts it away.”
Glycerine gives a softening effect with antibacterial rosemary essential oil creating an uplifting scent.
Louise has also taught beauty during her career, and it’s part of her philosophy to educate people about their skin, so there’s a QR code on the carton the cleanser comes in, which links to a video of her explaining what the product does and how to use it.
The cleanser launch will be followed by a hydrator and three hero serums.
“The hero serums are designed in a way that you need all three, but it’s because I believe that your skin changes every minute of every day,” says Louise.
“If you wake up and you’ve got a spotty outbreak there will be a product you can use on that. If you have some oily shine or if you have redness or if you want to focus on healthy ageing you will be able to either use all three together, patchwork them, or you might have a day where you think do you know what I love the healthy ageing, I’m just going to stick with that one serum for the next couple of weeks.
“So it gives you a little bit of control over being your own skincare expert, but with us educating you and helping you. It’s important for us that we guide you and hold your hand and empower you to understand what your skin might need on that day.”
Louise says that she is hugely grateful for the support that she has had along the way, including her initial investor, Mary Steward, her “right-hand woman” at Louise Thomas Skin Therapy, and Elizabeth Elcote, who does her design and branding.
Norwich is an entrepreneurial city, with a supportive and creative business community. Louise has found a kindred spirit in Madeleine White, co-founder of the vegan lip care brand Juni, and now sits on their board.
“And absolutely I couldn’t be doing any of this without my amazing husband, Ian. We’ve been together for 26 years this year and he’s been privy to the years of research and those highs and lows,” she says.
For the last five and a half years she has also worked with Panasonic Beauty UK in an advisory expert capacity, teaching journalists about their products and devices, and they’re sponsoring her new podcast, The Skin Pod.
“I have wanted to do a podcast for about four years – I love chatting, I love presenting – and a friend suggested that I should see if I could get some sponsorship,” she says.
The episodes are released fortnightly and guests so far have included Norwich fitness influencer Carly Rowena and nutrition expert Glen Matten.
“I wanted to have six really good guests that were experts in their own right but then I needed them to bring in a spin on skin. Then in the last part of each episode we then do a fly on the wall session, with consenting clients - I chat to them about their skin concerns so it’s kind of like you’re sneaking into the treatment room and earwigging our conversation.”
Louise is launching her signature cleanser at Jarrold this week. She will be in the Store Folk section on the ground floor giving demonstrations and help with skincare questions including from 2-5pm on Friday, April 1, 10am-5pm on Saturday, April 2 and 11am-4pm on Sunday, April 3.
Find out more at louisethomasskintherapy.co.uk and follow on Instagram @louisethomasskincare
The Skin Pod is available now wherever you get your podcasts.
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