Scan Magazine | Product of the Month | Denmark
Left: Apart from looking like something out of a James Bond film, the firming serum capsules are a natural, well-documented, effective alternative to Botox. Serum is the main ingredient of most night creams. Right: One of Søgaard’s favourite products is the fragrance-free peel mask, which helps smooth the skin and lessen the appearance of wrinkles.
Ecooking to keep the world good-looking When Tina Søgaard began putting together various skincare ingredients to make a lotion for herself in her kitchen one night in late 2015, little did she suspect that her subsequent output would be well underway to reaching 30 countries by 2022. Despite its humble beginnings, Søgaard’s product range Ecooking has proven hugely popular thanks to its mild, non-allergenic properties, honest and natural ingredients and, of course, its obvious effects on the skin. By Louise Older Steffensen | Photos: Ecooking
Søgaard is no stranger to the skincare business. Though she was trained as a typographer, she was forced to give up her job following a car crash in her late 20s. Soon afterwards, however, her unusually well-developed sense of smell got her a job at a cosmetics manufacturer. “I’d always been able to distinguish between different smells very easily, which meant I had a natural interest in the beauty industry,” she explains, “but I didn’t realise 72 | Issue 113 | June 2018
I could turn that into a career at first.” In 2001, she opened House of Cosmetics, the private-label company behind the recipes of many ‘own brands’ and celebrity lines of cosmetics and beauty products. “The skin is our largest organ. Wear and tear as well as trauma can really manifest itself in the skin, so it’s important we take care of it,” she says. The residual trauma of her own accident coupled with
sudden, significant weight loss took their toll. “For me, my face became increasingly grey and tired-looking, particularly after the weight loss. So I brought home all the ingredients from work I thought would help the most without considering cost or anything other than their effectiveness. Then I experimented until I found the ideal solution for my skin.”
Word of mouth Friends started noticing Søgaard’s invigorated skin, and she was soon handing out samples and finding solutions for her friends’ own problems as well as acne- laden teenagers. “It wasn’t anything like a brand back then; I wasn’t looking to sell at all,” she says. “I was cooking up these lotions, scrubs and oils and throwing them in Tupperware boxes, jam jars