Are you over synthetically produced fragrances and seeking a clean, ethically sourced alternative? Then look no further than Recreation Bondi Beach, a locally produced clean brand specialising in fragrances and oils.
Recreation doesn’t use toxic chemicals, endocrine-disrupting ingredients or harmful synthetics. Where possible, ingredients are organic. There are no animal products in their natural fragrances, and there is absolutely no animal testing.
They have banned single-use plastics and the one plastic bottle in their entire range (150ml body + hair serum oil) is made from 100% recycled plastic.
Recreation founder Nedahl Stelio is a former Cleo and Cosmopolitan magazine editor who embodies the organic lifestyle and has channelled it into a fragrance collection.
We asked Nedahl a few questions about her clean brand and what inspired her to launch Recreation.
1. What inspired you to launch a ‘clean’ beauty brand?
I gave up chemicals about 9 years ago when I was struggling to get pregnant. I started researching and one of the first things you read is that people who have ditched chemicals in their beauty products and household products have more luck conceiving. Once you start researching what is actually in those products, it’s very difficult to use them again. I literally gave away boxes of products (I worked in magazines and had a lot of beauty products!) and started from scratch. It’s not what got me pregnant (I was doing so many other things at the same time), but I’ve never gone back to using products with chemicals.
Fragrances are one of the worst offenders – there are up to 3000 chemicals that can be classified as ‘parfum’ on the ingredients label – but it was the one product that I couldn’t find a beautiful, natural substitute for. I would spray it in my hair and on my clothes so it wouldn’t get on my skin which just took away the whole luxury of using perfume. And I really thought there should be a beautiful, natural fragrance brand out there. So I started investigating the idea of creating one. I started Recreation over two years ago and launched it in Feb 2019.
2. Where do you source your natural ingredients from?
All over. We start first with Australia and try to source as much as we can locally, and then if we hit a roadblock here we then go internationally for our ingredients. Everything is ethically sourced.
3. Is there a story behind the name ‘Recreation Beauty’?
I wanted the name to reflect all the values behind the brand without sounding “hippie” or “organic” – I feel like the market is full of those brands and they have that covered. You know, I didn’t want to call it “Aura”. Recreation is everything we stand for: fun, healthy, playful and all about a total lifestyle – the leisure aspect of life that we often neglect but which is really the most important part.
4. What is your favourite fragrance and why?
My favourite fragrance is This Love Of Mine. It’s gardenia + jasmine, which are my two favourite notes. It’s also the one that took the longest to develop. We didn’t launch with it as it wasn’t ready yet. It was a good three years in the making. Creating natural fragrances is much harder than creating synthetic fragrances because there are fewer ingredients to create from and they’re much more expensive than synthetics. It makes the whole process of creating a fragrance much more satisfying when you get it right!
Check out the full Recreation range of fragrances here.