The skincare brand betting on CBD beauty in the Middle East

Written by Vivian Song, CNN

When mother-son entrepreneurs Yann Moujawaz and Juana Martini launch their skincare brand in the United Arab Emirates this winter, they will be the first to market CBD-based products in a region known for its zero-tolerance approach to drugs. .

Although there are some nuances (cosmetics made from hemp seed oil are legal in Dubai, for example), possession of CBD-based products is still largely prohibited within the United Arab Emirates. (Hemp seed oil does not contain CBD.)

However, with the approval of the Dubai authorities, Juana Skin’s line of products will bring CBD, or cannabidiol, found in the stem, leaves and flowers of the hemp plant, to consumers in the Middle East in form of brightening moisturizers, night creams, facial oils and body butters. Unlike its psychoactive cousin, THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, CBD does not produce a high and has been shown to help alleviate skin disorders such as eczema, psoriasis, itchy or itchy skin, and inflammation. .

“I wanted to go where no one else has dared to go.”

Yann Mujawaz

Moujawaz and Martini could have taken the easy way out and built their brand in markets where CBD-based beauty lines are already well established. According to a recent report by Data Bridge Market Research, the global CBD skin care market was valued at $952.9 million in 2021 and is expected to reach $7.58 billion by 2029.Yann Moujawaz and his mother Juana Martini.

Yann Moujawaz and his mother Juana Martini. Credit: Juana Skin

But Moujawaz says he wasn’t interested in serving consumers who already had plenty of choice. He wanted to break ground and bring the health benefits of CBD to a new market that was closed.

“I wanted to go where no one else has dared to go,” he said.

a joint venture

While studying at the London School of Economics in 2013, Moujawaz was part of a team that won first place (and €5,000 in prizes) in the French LH Forum economics and entrepreneurship competition with a proposal to turn leftover fruit into a sustainable skincare brand. . Moujawaz now admits that the idea largely repackaged the home remedies for skin care that her mother regularly prepared for her family from natural oils and food waste from her childhood in France.

It was a tradition rooted in Martini’s own childhood, when he lived on olive farms in Syria and made Aleppo soap, a Castile soap made from olive and laurel oils.

“I am very passionate about natural products, especially oil-based solutions, as I was born into a family that produced olive oil,” Martini said during a Zoom interview from Dubai. “I always watched my mother make all-natural remedies and I did the same with my children.”

A young Juana Martini, photographed on one of her family's olive farms.

A young Juana Martini, photographed on one of her family’s olive farms. Credit: Juana Skin

After graduating from the LSE, Moujawaz worked on major development projects in the Middle East as a Senior Consultant at the Dubai-based Boston Consulting Group. But the stress of his high-society lifestyle took a toll on his health; he was losing his hair, suffered from back pain and insomnia, and had his gallbladder removed.

“I had a moment of understanding where I told myself that no matter how brilliant my career was, I would never get back my lost organs,” said Moujawaz, 32. “I then understood the real cost of a poor quality of life.”

At the same time, Martini was struggling to navigate life as one empty-nest in Paris after her three children left home and went to live abroad.

Between his degrading health, exhaustion, and his mother’s deepening depression, the wheels in Moujawaz’s head began to turn, and he asked his mother to join him. Only this time, instead of orange peels and pieces of fruit, they would create a brand using the family’s new all-natural remedy obsession: CBD oil.

During a family vacation in California in 2019, Martini discovered the powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties of CBD oil, how it soothed her eczema in a matter of hours and speeded up the healing process of a scar.

“I’ve always used olive oil as the base for most of my remedies, but when I added CBD oil, my formulas took off to another level,” said Martini, who keeps handwritten records of different formulas in a notebook. “I was really so impressed.”

Moujawaz also became a convert as CBD helped alleviate his insomnia and stress levels. She read obsessively about their benefits and learned how they have been shown to help the body’s endocannabinoid system, a cell signaling network that regulates everything from sleep, appetite, memory, fertility and skin health, to function without problems.

Beyond dispelling myths and misinformation about CBD, Moujawaz says it was key to highlight these benefits. The brand’s strategy hinges on positioning its product line less as beauty offerings and more as pharmaceutical-grade natural treatments to help with skin disorders.

Given the region’s harsh desert environment and aggressive indoor air conditioning culture, demonstrating demand for such treatments was not difficult. One study estimates the prevalence of atopic dermatitis, or eczema, in Dubai to be four to five percent, twice that of the world’s population.

Maintain high standards

But the process of creating products that would break local drug bans and meet regulatory requirements took time and patience. Moujawaz and Martini partnered with registered organic hemp farms in Spain and Portugal to source their CBD strains, and pumped their products at two to four times the potency of the average Western market products to ensure efficiency. During the product development process, they implemented bans on some 2,000 filler ingredients, while approved formulas underwent clinical trials in France and Germany. He describes the laborious process as a “blessing in disguise.”

“Because the standards were so high here (in the United Arab Emirates) and we had to prove that we were a brand with strong medical-pharmaceutical value, we put effort into reformulating our products on a daily basis.”

For added safety, the couple also took their products to the US-based environmental watchdog task force, a nonprofit group that works with scientists and toxicologists to assess the safety of consumer products, and received the EWG Verified certification, a seal of approval given to products that meet its standards for health, safety, and transparency. In addition to being the first CBD-based skincare brand to receive approval for sale in the United Arab Emirates, Juana Skin is the first CBD-infused skincare brand outside of the EU and the Middle East to be certified. E.W.G. The products are paraben and fragrance free and come in glass bottles packed in hemp bags.

While Juana Skin may have cleared the administrative hurdles, Amna Abbas, a Middle East health and beauty consultant for market research group Euromonitor, says her next big hurdle will be successfully convincing Emirati consumers that CBD is safe. and cash.

“In this region, the awareness and knowledge of cannabis is not there yet,” he said. “If you say cannabis, it has a negative perception.”

Juana Skin refreshing gel.

Juana Skin refreshing gel. Credit: Juana Skin

Moujawaz understands this well, so when Juana Skin products officially launch in the United Arab Emirates this winter, they will be available for the first time in dermatology and healthcare clinics where consumers can ask questions and learn more about CBD from hands of trained professionals. Moujawaz also hosts educational conferences in the region to demystify CBD, one of which included a recent sold-out “TED Talks” style event at The Arts Club Dubai private members club.

In more mature CBD markets such as the UK, US and France, Juana Skin products are now available online. This summer, Juana Skin also made her debut at the Lanserhof, an exclusive private health clinic in London. CBD moisturizers, oils and body butters are used for hour-long facials and massages.

Abbas also notes that while many women in the region tend to wear full face makeup, the pandemic has led to increased interest in preventative skin care and a more natural look. This market change could play in favor of Juana Skin.

“After the pandemic, there is a greater interest in general well-being and self-care in the region,” he said. “And that includes a shift from color cosmetics to skin care.”

For Moujawaz, the launch of Juana Skin is also about breaking different moulds. He also points out that female plants, which produce the highest concentrations of cannabidiol, are the main source of CBD.

“For my mother, it was an opportunity to show that it is never too late to start over,” Moujawaz said. “She proved the opposite, that you can consider the craziest idea there is and launch a cannabis company in the Middle East.”

Source: news.google.com