How a move from the Baltic to Ballyjamesduff inspired a skincare brand

While Kasia O’Reilly has many customers who swear by her Sana Naturals skincare products, she admits defeat when it comes to convincing one person about the benefits of cleansing and moisturising.

Husband – and part-time dairy farmer – David.

“He is just non-convertible!” she laughs. “I just don’t think a farming guy would apply anything onto their skin, apart from whatever they use to wash their body!”

Still, it was the move to David’s family dairy farm in Ballyjamesduff, Co Cavan – where his family have farmed for eight generations – that spurred Kasia to leave the corporate world and pursue her dream of setting up her own skincare business; and where she has never been happier, despite challenges along the way.

Baltic to Ballyjamesduff

Kasia is originally from the port city of Gdynia on Poland’s Baltic coast, where her father was the captain of a cargo ship, and her mother worked at home.

Her happiest childhood memories, however, all involve the countryside; whether it was exploring the forest beside her grandmother’s house, or visiting a local farm to buy eggs and milk with her mother.

“Since I was a little girl, she was telling me that I should marry a farmer!” laughs Kasia.

Not that an Irish farmer was part of the plan. Although she had spent time in Ireland in 2002 learning English, after completing her studies in political science and management, Kasia began working in retail in Poland, but admits that she wasn’t very happy.

Unfortunately, soon afterwards, she broke her leg.

Which, fortunately, gave her plenty of time to think about what she wanted to do with her life.

“I wanted some adventure and when my cast was taken off, I just decided I’m going to pack my suitcase and go to Ireland and see what happens,” she recalls.

After a few roles in retail in Dublin, Kasia started working with Allianz Insurance, where she became a project manager. She jokes that it is also where she “discovered the term culchie” after her colleagues got wind that she had met a Cavan man at a house party that she had gone along to with a friend, somewhat reluctantly.

“She dragged me there, he opened the door, and the rest is history,” says Kasia of meeting her now-husband David. “I was so much slagged about the traits of the Cavan men; but despite that I married him!”

Starting Sana

Like Kasia, David was working in Dublin also, but as a project manager in construction.

But while Kasia felt it was the right decision for them, it was a struggle in the early days, especially as a new mother.

“It was really, really challenging because my little boy was only three months when we moved down here, my husband was commuting to Dublin and working on the farm as well helping his dad and then all of a sudden from being in Dublin, I found myself in the middle of nowhere,” she recalls. “I didn’t have people visiting me and I just lived in total isolation… it was really, really hard.”

Moreover, Leon suffered from reflux and had difficulties feeding, and while Kasia had originally planned to commute to work in Dublin after her maternity leave ended, “it quickly became apparent that it was not possible”.

“He didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat, it was very, very hard and to be honest I didn’t know how I could go back to work like that,” she says.

“I could just get stuck in traffic sometimes for two hours and it just was not possible to go back to work in Dublin – even though I really liked my job, I really wanted to go back – but it was just not feasible.”

Fortunately, Kasia had another avenue in mind. As a teenager, she had struggled with challenging skin, which led her to study natural skincare and start formulating her own products as a hobby.

“Even for all those years I worked in corporations, I was visualising myself, ‘What if I actually launched this skincare collection? What if I start selling them?’ It was this passion inside me,” she says.

“I just thought, ‘You know what, I’m just going to give it a try. I’m just going to see what happens.’”

That said, it was still a “huge leap of faith” to leave her steady job and instead invest approximately €10,000 of her savings in starting Sana Naturals; though she was fortunate to receive a priming grant through her local enterprise office to help convert the playroom at home into a production workshop, as well as availing of mentoring and training through programmes like New Frontiers, the Cavan Business Women’s Club and the ACORNS programme for early stage female entrepreneurs in rural Ireland.

She “soft launched” the range at the farmers’ market at Sheridan’s Cheesemongers near Kells in Co Meath in 2017, where she says she “discovered this amazing Irish trait that I had never experienced living in Poland or living in Dublin”.

“And it’s the support of the local community,” says Kasia. “Things just changed when I set up the business, because then all of a sudden I started going outside, I started talking to people and I know it sounds so funny, but my customers, people buying from me and this personal connection with others just revived me.”

Skincare made simple

Kasia’s mission with Sana Naturals is to create a “minimalist skincare collection” that is an alternative to “overcomplicated” skin care routines.

“There are so many skincare products out there,” she says. “There are retinols, there are peels, there are acids and women basically don’t know what to use and when to use them and what order to use them, and there is so much confusion out there.

“So I really want to spread the message that women don’t have to be slaves to over-complicated skincare routines using dozens of skincare products.”

That is why she has streamlined her own collection to just five products – a face wash, serum, heavenly balm, teeth whitener and rose quartz roller – though each one is multi-purpose.

For instance, the face wash – made from a simple blend of oats, clay and coconut powder – works as a cleanser and gentle exfoliator, but can also be used as a face mask when mixed with water or raw honey, while the heavenly balm – with essential oils including sweet orange and ylang-ylang flower – can be applied wherever the skin needs some TLC.

Prior to bringing her products to market, Kasia had them safety tested through the Oxford Biosciences lab in the UK, and endeavours to source the highest quality certified organic ingredients where possible; though in this regard, Brexit has been a challenge.

COVID-19, unsurprisingly, has also been problematic. Prior to the pandemic, most of Kasia’s sales were made at farmers’ markets and events like Taste of Cavan, but now she is solely online, with An Post for deliveries.

“It’s not very easy because nothing will ever replace the face-to-face,” she says, though she finds Instagram and Facebook useful for creating connections with customers, as well as the bi-monthly newsletter she sends to subscribers.

She is currently on the ACORNS follow-up programme, where she is being mentored by Lulu O’Sullivan of GiftsDirect.com, with plans to grow her online sales and get Sana Naturals on the shop shelves too. Though while running your own skincare brand might look glamourous, she says that the reality is that it is a long game.

“I’m still not there in a way that I have not found a stable ground and a stable income to contribute to the household to the degree that I would want to,” she says.

“It really takes money, a lot of determination, a lot of hard work; and you constantly doubt yourself as well.”

Giving back

Nonetheless, while still building her brand, Kasia has already started to give back.

In 2020, she donated a percentage of profits to the Irish Cancer Society after she experienced a scare in 2019 and was referred for a womb ultrasound, which fortunately, had a happy ending for the family, and led inadvertently to the arrival of daughter, Elena.

“Thankfully I was actually given an all clear, but what the doctor actually told me was that one of the follicles was about to drop an egg and if there was ever a good moment to conceive a baby, that was it,” she explains. “We hit the jackpot that day and our little girl was born in August 2020.”

I was expecting a baby and I was really worried about my husband as well who has underlying lung conditions

Kasia also ran a fundraiser for Mental Health Ireland, having experienced anxiety at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I was expecting a baby and I was really worried about my husband as well who has underlying lung conditions, so I was really anxious,” says Kasia, explaining how she struggled to sleep and was “obsessively disinfecting” everything that came into the house at the beginning.

What helped Kasia overcome her anxiety at that time was spending time outside on the farm; and while as a little girl she never imagined living in Ireland, she would not be anywhere else now.

“I’ve built this amazing community around me,” she says, “and I’m just the happiest I’ve ever been.”

www.sananaturals.ie

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