When It Comes to Clean Beauty, Miranda Kerr's Kora Organics Stands Purposely Apart

Growing up in the small town of Gunnedah in rural New South Wales, Australia, Miranda Kerr was steeped in homeopathic remedies and natural foods from an early age. Her grandfather tended an organic vegetable garden, and her grandmother reached for herbs and superfruits to soothe a variety of ailments. But when her mother was diagnosed with cancer, Kerr, who was a teenager at the time, says there was a top-to-bottom reckoning with everything in their household. “We thought we were so healthy, but we started researching haircare, skincare, cleaning products, packaged goods,” says the former Victoria’s Secret Angel and supermodel-mogul. “We were shocked to see how carcinogenic certain ingredients could be and how readily available they were on the market.” While her mother recovered, the experience made a lasting impression on Kerr and, whether consciously or not, set her on the path to creating Kora Organics, the side hustle she debuted in Australia in 2009. After percolating the skincare brand for eight years in her home country, she began expanding it into Europe, Asia, the U.S. and Canada—30 countries in all, and it's still growing—which led her to double down on her financial commitment and everyday responsibilities. Kerr, a published author and mom to three young sons, was ahead of the curve on “clean beauty”—she has some thoughts on where it is today—and doesn’t consider Kora to be a typical boldface play. In other words, it’s her full-time gig as founder and CEO, not a licensing or endorsement deal. Even the name, a play on the word "core," has personal meaning for Kerr (see sidebar). Ahead of Adweek’s Elevate: Health and Wellness virtual event, Kerr spoke with us about identifying a white space in the beauty aisle, bulking up her investment in marketing and learning to ask for advice (nudged by her tech titan husband, Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap). Adweek: Where did the inspiration come from to launch this company?Miranda Kerr: Back in 2006, I had the original concept of creating organic beauty products. I’d said to a friend of mine that I was interested in eating organic, but when I’d looked for beauty products that were organic, I hadn’t really been able to find anything in the market. She introduced me to an aromatherapist who made certified organic oils. And then she put me in touch with an organic lab and organic chemists, and I just started the conversation. I asked them if it would be possible to create powerful, results-driven products that were certified organic. I wondered why no one else was doing it. This origin story involves a mango-sized fruit called noni, often referred to as “cheese fruit.”Ever since I was 13, my grandmother had been drinking noni juice, and if I ever had acne or a sunburn, she would put it directly onto my skin. It has powerful antioxidants, tons of vitamins and minerals. It’s an acquired taste for sure, but it’s known to be anti-aging, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory. So I asked the organic chemists if we could use noni extract, along with other powerful ingredients, and they said they’d never done that before. We did know that noni is very pungent, which is probably one of the reasons people hadn’t considered it for skincare before. We went back and forth for three years with samples that were quite stinky. Then they found a way to freeze-dry it, and I started giving samples to my friends and family. I got to see the incredible results firsthand. What were your goals for the brand? Did you intend to take it beyond your home country?You know, I never looked at this as an actual business opportunity. I just looked at it as giving people something that I was personally looking for myself and providing them with something that was different than products that were out there. And so I guess from day one, it's just been a passion of mine to provide people with this healthy option of powerful skincare that's really results-driven and had a nurturing aspect to it as well so that when people use the products, they felt not only the results, but they also felt the loving energy and intention behind everything. It wasn’t there for me to make money out of it. I created it out of love and passion for health and wellness. I have three boys, but this is my baby girl. You bootstrapped this company?Yes, from the beginning, I was really specific about that because I wanted to make sure that my vision was fully executed and that I didn’t have anyone trying to dilute that. I own 95%, and I’ve only ever had one other investor, who owns 5%. I’ve had people who wanted to invest at one time or another, but I want to take it as far as I can on my own. "It's just been a passion of mine to provide people with this healthy option of powerful skincare that's really results-driven and had a nurturing aspect to it as well so that when people use the products, they felt not only the results, but they also felt the loving energy and intention behind everything." —Miranda Kerr, founder and CEO, Kora Organics Did you have mentors along the way?My mentality was I didn’t want to bother anyone or interrupt their lives. Because I’d been in the modeling industry for so long, I was exposed to CEOs and business professionals, and I heard them talk about the way they did things. But I never called on them for specific advice on Kora. And Evan told me that I shouldn’t be afraid to ask because people really love to help. So it was a really great shift for me to know that. It was a different perspective, and I found out that people were actually flattered when I reached out to ask their opinions. And my mother gave me the greatest piece of advice. She’s always said, "If you’re going to do something, do it right and give it your all." She means there are no shortcuts. That rings in my head multiple times a day, and it’s the way I live my life, thanks to her. It seems like there was a turning point in 2017 when the brand expanded for the first time outside Australia.I decided to be involved on a daily basis, where previously there had been a great team in Australia running the day-to-day business while I was working like crazy in America [with Victoria’s Secret and other brands]. I really took a leap of faith because I had to invest more money, time and energy. I chose to make it my priority. My husband had said to me, "What are you doing working for all these other people when you’ve got an incredible brand here in Kora?" Since you got a jump on what would become the “clean beauty” movement, what do you think of it today?It’s definitely a step in the right direction, but what people unfortunately don’t realize is that it’s not regulated at all. Each brand or retailer may have their own definition of what they consider "clean," which can be very confusing to the customer. And often the products say what they don’t have, like no parabens, rather than what they do have as ingredients. When you’re certified organic, that means there’s outside auditing and certification. It’s not me making the rules. And to me, it was just logical to go certified organic, like a no-brainer, to create products that are healthy for you and give you more powerful results. What kind of hurdles did you face as a model-turned-entrepreneur?I was harder on myself because I knew there’s this perception about models. I was more critical than anyone else was. And I just had such a passion to create these products and share them with the world, but I wanted to make sure that people took me seriously. And I think the proof is really in the pudding, and I knew the products were super effective and gave people the results they needed. What's in a name? Beauty brands from Jeffree Star, Kylie Jenner, Salma Hayek, Rihanna and Victoria Beckham are all named after the celebrities. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, or so says Shakespeare, but would lotions and potions and lipsticks not named after their celebrity founders sell as briskly? Hollywood’s A-listers have gone both ways in choosing monikers for the beauty brands they’ve inspired or created—some lend their well-known names, while others don’t. For instance, Kylie Jenner is front and center in Kylie Cosmetics, taking full advantage of the Jenner-Kardashian social media fame to propel the brand to a valuation north of $1 billion (with 51% sold to Coty for $600 million). And Rihanna’s inclusive, game-changing products, which generated $558 million in their first full year, are dubbed Fenty Beauty, which is actually her given surname. (As superfans know, she was born Robyn Rihanna Fenty.) But Lady Gaga (Haus Laboratories), Halsey (About-Face), Selena Gomez (Rare Beauty) and Pharrell Williams (Humanrace) had different ideas for their “namesake” products, as did Miranda Kerr, a former Victoria’s Secret Angel who launched Kora Organics in her native Australia in 2009. Kerr, whose line debuted at Sephora in the U.S. in 2017, wanted the brand to have its own identity apart from her, she says. She also meant to share some of the company values in the label. “I wanted Kora to be a brand that nurtured your mind, your body and your skin,” she says of the line that's blossomed from oils, masks and cleansers to wellness supplements. “It’s taking care of yourself at a core level—360 degrees—and that is at the core of who you are.” In playing around with the word “core,” she landed on Kora, with its atypical spelling. It reflects her “holistic point of view,” she says, and provides “an added touch to the brand, like the affirmations on each package.” What are your thoughts on celebrity beauty lines, which continue to explode in number?I'm not really sure of the specifics on how much celebrities are involved, and if they've financed the brands themselves, or if this has been a true genuine passion of theirs for their whole life. I feel like Kora is an authentic brand that I’ve created and nurtured and grown from the ground up. It’s not a celebrity brand that I’ve recently launched. On the back of the products, it does say, "Created with love by Miranda,” but I specifically called it Kora Organics. I never called it Miranda Kerr. I feel like it stands alone with or without me. Your sales have been mostly, well, organic up to this point.I’ve invested so much into the actual products themselves and the team that when it came to marketing, even to this day, we haven’t really done much paid advertising—mostly minimal, like Google and social ads. So most of our growth has come from word of mouth and the press and interviews I do. But this is the first year that I’ve put a little bit of money aside for marketing. And we’ll see how that goes. We’ll have to work out where it’ll be most beneficial to spend it, though we’re thinking of podcasts and maybe sampling. How are you broadening your business scope beyond the Kora beauty and supplements line?I’m working on a second furniture line with Universal—the first [called Love. Joy. Bliss.] launched last year with 50 pieces on One Kings Lane. And I’m really excited about the "Miranda loves" section on the Kora website because it features not just skincare, but it has wellness products that I love. It’s a retail business with diffusers, books, blue light glasses, a mini Theragun, rose quartz necklaces. My dream is to continue building on that so that people can go there for self-care. I like sharing those tools with people because I believe wholeheartedly that health is wealth. We can give so much more of ourselves to our families, our friends and our work if our cup is full and we're feeling the best and the healthiest we can feel.