Ella & Jo: This can be as big as we want it to be
Niamh Ryan established Ella & Jo with her business partner Charlene Flanagan.
Ballina native Niamh Ryan is one of the two women behind the hugely successful beauty and skincare range, Ella & Jo Cosmetics. With her business partner Charlene Flanagan, they have created a range that now has 12 products, with more being launched this year. And since we sat down to do this interview, TV personality Cat Deeley has been announced as Ella & Jo’s new brand ambassador!
Niamh’s background is in marketing but a deep love for the beauty sector, and in particular, skincare, brought her back to her native town, where she started Bella Beauty 12 years ago, which started her on a journey to building the instantly recognisable Ella and Jo brand.
Her passion for the brand and her work is clearly evident when we sit down to chat in Bella Beauty on The Quay in Ballina one Friday morning.
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Niamh, thank you for talking to me. Tell me a little bit about your background.
I'm a proud Ballina woman who grew up literally right beside the River Moy, just across from The Ice House. My Mum and Dad are still there.
I went away after college for about nine years altogether between Australia, I did half my Masters in the States - between DCU and then University of Illinois. I always had that itchy travelling bug. Then when I came back and had finished my education and went into the working world, I went into the Unilever Future Leaders Programme in London. It was like a grad programme. I went into the marketing department. There are a few thousand people who apply and then six or seven get chosen. It was a really, really interesting company to work for. I absolutely loved it. I was in the UK for a couple of years and then I got transferred back as a senior brand manager in Dublin.
I had always had an interest in beauty. And when I was deciding between going to college or what I was going to do next, I did want to go and do beauty, but myself and Dad sat down and we had a chat and he said 'Get your piece of paper in your pocket first and you can do whatever you want then'. So I went into Business Studies, which was my base degree and my Masters was in Marketing. But I retrained in beauty while I was working and the opportunity then came up to move west. I had met my husband at the time. We were semi-serious! I was like, all right, okay, we'll give it a go. I had been commuting over and back for a long time as well to London from Ireland West Airport.
So you come home, armed with the qualification in beauty therapy as well, what was your next move?
In the West of Ireland at the time, from a marketing point of view, the roles were either really senior or they were entry-level roles and I was really in between. And you know something? I wanted a bit of a break from it as well. I love the beauty. I love people. I find being at the computer all the time quite jading. A lady actually had a salon here, where Bella Beauty is now and I used to come to her when I came home. And when I was very young, I used to always say to Mum, I want a beauty salon on the side of the river. So the lady that was here (where Bella Beauty is now) was going to move to Australia and I was like 'Look, I'll buy the business of you or we'll come to some arrangement'. That's what ended up happening and I started Bella Beauty 12 years ago. And that's how I ended up coming home.
I was always really big into skincare. I had a lot of problem skin when I was younger and I was mad about buying skincare. I go into the salons and try and understand the different skin products and what was going on with them. I couldn't get my head around the piece where people were going to dermatologists and being put on really high-strength pieces when no one had talked to them about the basics. So I think quickly when I came into the role of Bella Beauty, we offered all services, from nails to eyebrows to eyelashes and everything, but I really dove into the skin piece.
So how did you transition from there to developing your own products, because that's not easy to do.
I went off and trained to be a skin expert with Dermalogica. I was one of the first to do that. I also trained with Image skincare - so a lot of the big professional skincare brands in the world. I got to as high as I could, in terms of training with them and understanding their expertise. But even at that stage, I felt there were definitely gaps in the market.
Really, what started Ella & Jo was people coming in and we would talk about their skincare routine, perhaps if they had an underlying congestion or congestion on one side of the skin or they couldn't get breakouts to settle, you'd say, watch your phone and perhaps your pillowcase. And then you talk about makeup brushes. And I'm like, 'Okay, when did you last clean your makeup brushes?' Three years ago when I took them out of the package! And I’d tell them that they were ruining their skin.
So I went out then trying to find something that I could give to people when they were getting their skincare or talk to them about it or recommend, and I couldn't find anything that I liked. So I was actually in touch with the Local Enterprise Office in Mayo - John Magee - and he pointed me in the right direction. At that stage, I had two kids, Ava and Connor and I knew I didn't want to do it on my own. I wanted to work with somebody. And I knew Charlene Flanagan. I'd been her skin expert on her make-up tours around the country. And I asked her 'Have you any interest?' She had just been talking to her husband about doing something different that week. And we said, 'Okay, let's just see how it goes'. And to be honest, it's one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. She's my work wife. She's a 100% life partner in every other way. I see as much of her as I probably do of my husband!
So you launched Squeaky Clean Brush Cleanser- your first product. Was that the overnight success it seemed to be?
It was really like an overnight success with Squeaky Clean. People embraced it because there was that massive gap in the market. I think we changed a lot of people's mindsets.
That range has expanded massively since Squeaky Clean?
We've 12 products on the market. But we have a few more launching this year as well. This business was born truly from consumer need. We're very conscious of that. We don't want to create or launch products just for the product's sake. When it comes down to it, we'll sit down and go, okay, we're talking about our consumer. Her name is Megan. We have a chat about her when we're sitting down and talking about all the different concepts. We'll say, okay, when Megan is going out to do whatever, are there any other points that our routine doesn't help with? Is there anything else that we can help with?
It is a bit surreal to think about what you have created.
Yeah, I think this year is the first year to think that way. I have four kids aged nine, eight, five and three. I am very conscious of my self-care. I'm a very spiritual person, very wellness-oriented. But this year is the first year that I've really said, 'Wow, we have created something really exceptional' and I'm so incredibly grateful for all of the support and the engagement. And it's the community of women, really. It's the community of people that we've created internally in our team and externally in our wider circle. Our customers are incredible.
Where did the name Ella & Jo come from?
We were sitting down having a chat and we liked the idea of having two names because there are two of us. So Ella actually comes from Bella Beauty. And then Jo is for Jones, Charlene's married name.
What's next for Ella & Jo?
I was at an Enterprise Ireland board dinner last week in Westport House. And one of the guys from the Enterprise Ireland Board turned around and said to me, "How big can this thing be?" And sometimes I think, we go into our day and our week like we're running towards the finish line of a marathon and we're not, there's no finish line. I think that we need to remember that there's no finish line, so it can be as big and the legacy can be as big as we want to be.
"We're creating incredible products, we're really into the neuro-cosmetic technology, which is all about triggering those elements of wellness and self-care through scent, through texture, through experience. We want to bring moments of wellness and joy and happiness and really put a smile on people's faces throughout their day because we think life is busy enough and it's tough enough and there are so many things going on. But if you can put a product onto your skin and use it and it really triggers those emotive feelings of relaxation and makes you feel like you're in a spa in your own house, something that you can do every day, that's a win for us.
