Meet Maria Robson and Suzanna Urszuly

We had the good fortune of connecting with Maria Robson and Suzanna Urszuly and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Maria Robson and Suzanna Urszuly, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Maria and I worked together in Tokyo as fashion models. We were always very interested in a natural and holistic life style and we definitely bonded over it.. We both created our own body oils, face masks at a time, just for fun.
Then she moved back to the US and me to Europe and lost touch. Finally we reconnected over 10 years later in Los Angeles.
We ended up creating a company which was based on healthy living, food blogging, fun recipes and beauty tips.
Maria struggled with health issues and cystic acne when she was younger.
After digging deeper into the skincare industry we discovered how toxic most of the products are. Even the ones that say are “organic’, “natural” etc.
i think this was definitely a turning point for us.
We went back to school and studied skin care formulation and natural preservation of the products.
And the rest is history, MAHINA BEAUTE was born.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
We are an organic, plant based, cruelty free and toxic free skincare brand. We use ORMUS, Orbitally Rearranged Monotomic Elements, in our products. Ormus is basically a very small group of minerals present in rain water, sea water but as our world is more and more toxic there is less of Ormus out there. Its very healing and mineralizing for our skin and it also helps other ingredients in the skincare to penetrate deeper to the skin.

Our biggest challenge was the preservation of our products. We wanted a 1-2 year shelf life but didn’t want to use harsh, toxic preservatives that will harm our customers health. It took us a bit of time and testing but we were able to figure it out.
We now sell in holistic practitioners’ offices who deal with people who struggle with health issues. It’s very important that we all pay attention to what we put on our skin, the skin absorbs everything.

I think the other obstacle was is that we lounged at the end of 2019 and then the pandemic hit a few months later.
We were still selling but as a new brand it was a lot more challenging.

We do think though that It was very beneficial to go through all of these events since it really made us stronger and smarter. We are dedicated to create beautiful clean products that are good for our customers, they don’t harm their health, or the environment or the animals.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I personally love the Getty museum, the grounds are beautiful , the art collection obviously is one of the best in the world, and the cafeteria is fun for lunch or a latte.
Maria and i are both avid hikers, we love the Mulholland Westridge trailhead.
And we love the beach, would take our friends to the Marina, walk on the beach, look at the seals and eat at our favorite restaurant Planta Cocina in Marina del bay. Amazing plant based food, and the patio overlooks the bay.
One more thing that we would have to do is take our friends to the Hollywood bowl for a concert! They cant miss that!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
We are very grateful to Barry Carter for educating us on the healing properties of Ormus that we use in multiple of our products. Barry is no longer with us but his dedication and love for Ormus continue to live through the Ormus loving communities and companies like Mahina Beaute.
And a shout out to our wonderful team, Ann Moores who created our labels, Gabe Kovacs who built our website and guided us through many of our fundamental business decisions, and Art Tarbi Bhavanishankar, our magical Ormus supplier.

Website: https://www.mahinabeaute.com/

Instagram: @Mahinabeaute

Facebook: Mahina Beaute

Image Credits
Model @lara_estrada
photographer : @rajailiya