In an industry as saturated as beauty, cult brands are hard to develop. But Randi Christiansen and Nick Axelrod-Welk did it, turning body care into the category du jour with the launch of Nécessaire.

The concept was simple: a tight curation of body essentials that were both results-driven and a pleasure to use. Amazingly, its 2019 launch filled a gap in the market, affording transformative but luxurious formulas that sat somewhere between drugstore and designer. It didn’t take long for it to become a top shelf staple in cool bathrooms everywhere — and it makes sense, given Axelrod-Welk co-founded Into The Gloss with Emily Weiss, while Christiansen spent 15 years as an executive at Estée Lauder.

This month also marked its debut in Australia, with a selection of the range becoming available at Mecca. To celebrate, GRAZIA caught up with Christiansen to learn more about the origins of the brand, and how it flipped body care on its head. Keep scrolling for the interview. 

On the Nécessaire origin story…

I worked at Estée Lauder for about 15 years. I worked on Creme de La Mer, Tom Ford, Estée Lauder. I did quite a few things and ultimately ended up at the West Coast arm of the business that was known as ELC ventures. It was here that I had the pleasure of meeting my now co-founder Nick Axelrod-Welk. We were actually on a flight drinking cheap beer on our way to Korea. We were talking about our dreams and the businesses we wanted to start. We both has similar ideas, and we had so much fun working together that we just almost looked at each other and decided to go for it. 

Ultimately we were just two folks at the right time with an entrepreneurial spirit. We spent evenings together, weekends together, trying to map out what we needed to do. We had both moved to Los Angeles — me from Denmark and Nick from New York. It was hilarious, we both always wore so much black! 

Nick had an editorial background (editor’s note: Nick was the editor at Elle, and then co-founded Into The Gloss with Emily Weiss) whereas I came from product strategy and business background. Our big idea was to create something simple, and we loved this concept of necessary items. We wanted less, but better — a brand that was highly edited. Our long term dream was skincare for all of you, but when we considered where to begin, it seemed clear that body had traditionally been such an afterthought. So we decided to make body our first thought — we wanted to make skincare, for the body.

On the name…

We named the brand Nécessaire, and it became quite powerful because we work in an industry where we were overwhelmed by choice. It because the backbone of our brand, and how we thought about development: “Is this product necessary? Is this ingredient necessary? Is this piece of copy on the carton necessary? Is this conversation necessary? It became the lens in which we built the brand. Isn’t it funny the ideas that can come from cheap Korean beer! They’re still my favourite, by the way! 

On the cleanness and sustainability…

So we launched at the very end of 2019. We didn’t want to shout about being clean, because it wasn’t a revolutionary idea to us. Bu we do follow EU regulations, and we were highly transparent about formulas and ingredients. But what was truly important to us was creating performance-led body treatments that really worked, and using concentrations of ingredients that would have an effect in the same way we used them on our face. 

We had this idea of caring for your body, while also caring for the planet. My dream was to always be the Patagonia of beauty. For a little while there we were kind of using the word sustainability, like everyone else in beauty. But we decided to remove it, because no beauty brand is truly sustainable, including us. But we did decide to continuously tackle our footprint and work at ways to minimise it. We were definitely one of the first brands to achieve carbon neutral status, and we’re plastic neutral. We’ve been a 1% for the planet member since 2019 as well. We focus highly on verified claims, as well, because as you would know so much of this is unregulated.

On product performance…

I think about performance in four ways. When I think about creating a product for us, it always first and foremost has to deliver an efficacy — we don’t really take that lightly.

Number two, there’s something about textural performance, and how something feels. The way a product feels, matters. There’s a moment of intimacy with texture on the body that’s very important.

The third thing is performance in design. I like to think about this as furniture for your bathroom, where the front of a product is for your vanity, but the back is for information. 

The last one is the idea of scent not being synthetic. Every product is synthetic fragrance-free for two reasons: because it can be easy for a formula to hide behind scent, and also many folks can’t take fragrance on their skin. 

On branching beyond body… 

Nick and I talk about this all the time. While we started in body and it feels like home, we do have dreams to one day be a personal care destination for top to toe. But it is important to us to be thoughtful and considered, and to ensure the brand is accessible.

SHOP THE RANGE

Nécessaire The Body Wash Eucalyptus, $37. SHOP NOW

Nécessaire The Body serum, $67. SHOP NOW

Nécessaire The Body Lotion, $37. SHOP NOW
Nécessaire The Body oil, $52. SHOP NOW