An Illuminating Chat with Johanna Paavilainen, General Manager at Lumene

We virtually sat down with Johanna Paavilainen, General Manager at Lumene North America LLC and talked all things Skincare, Lumene  and tips on how to Elevate your day. We hope you enjoy our conversation as much as we did. 

To kick things off, can you tell us more about your background?

I’ve been leading LUMENE’s North American operations for the past 5 years. I started my career at L’Oréal, two decades ago in Finland, where I was born and raised. From a beauty brand I later moved to management and strategic planning positions in branding and advertising agencies, while staying in close touch with the beauty industry with multiple beauty brands as my clients, from L’Oréal to Beiersdorf/Nivea to smaller private beauty labels. Ten years ago, I moved to the U.S., at the time running my own marketing consultancy business, serving various Nordic startups in their American GTM planning. Because I’m from Finland where also the LUMENE brand comes from, and is a household beauty staple, I have known our brand and products since I was little, and now I love to represent and run the business of this unique Nordic beauty brand here in the U.S.

Can you tell us more about the Lumene brand? 

LUMENE is a beauty brand all about naturalness, clinically tested, supercharged Nordic ingredients, and sustainability. We believe in beauty that comes naturally. Our story starts with the unique Nordic nature, and how after months of cold and dark comes a period of constant light that supercharges our plants and berries. We sustainably harvest these wild ingredients and enhance them in our lab to produce award-winning, skin-loving beauty products that really work. We’ve been pioneering this unique take on wild-crafted beauty for over twenty years. Two-time CEW Sustainability Award finalist, today we’re among the most circular beauty brands in the world – but our work isn’t done yet: always curious and inspired to improve, we want you to join us on the journey, to nurture skin as much as nature. 

Can you share more about the brand mission and ethos?

LUMENE’s mission is to offer high performing sustainable beauty products for a better future. As a leading Nordic beauty brand, our vision is to lead the change toward circular beauty and share the wisdom of Nordic beauty to empower authenticity, inner strength, and wellbeing of our community. Nordic beauty for LUMENE is deeper than selecting and using beauty products: It is a holistic way of life. For this reason, we have long been committed to never digitally retouching our models’ facial features, bodies or skin in our advertising.

What is/are the products from your line that you always carry with you?

I can’t live without our hero serum, the Nordic-C [Valo] Glow Boost Essence! It’s my everyday staple, like for so many of our consumers. This vitamin C serum is multiple times awarded, and no wonder, it gives such a beautiful, natural glow, while hydrating and plumping the skin – it has been our bestseller product for years. I also love our skincare infused CC Cream, I use it every day instead of a foundation, and since it’s a multi-task product, it’s also my concealer and highlighter at the same time! On the days when I wear more makeup, I add our Invisible Illumination liquid blush and bronzer and highlighter drops. My skin has lately been quite dry so I’m relying on our Nordic Hydra [Lähde] Intense Hydration Moisturizer which gives me a long-lasting hydration, yet feels lightweight, throughout the day, and in my night routine I currently use the pre- and postbiotic night cream from the same collection.

What is your inspiration and creative process when you come up with new products?

Creating new products for Baiobay is one of my favorite things to work on : figuring out how we can improve the experience of a product, its efficience, texture, design… It’s a creative process I truly enjoy. Traveling the world has always been an inspiration for both ingredients and our pastel-colored designs. We also always try to adapt to what our clients want : due to popular demand for the Body Care line, we decided to launch it earlier than originally planned.

Can you share more about the product featured in the Ambrosia box?

I wanted to include the hero serum Nordic-C Glow Boost Essence in the Ambrosia box, because I believe the subscribers will love it as much as me and the thousands of other fans of this product! The Glow Boost Essence is our bestselling, iconic serum, which we recently upgraded with all new radiance-boosting power. The serum is clinically tested* to boost glow and intensely hydrate for energized, visibly more radiant skin. It is supercharged with our unique blend of antioxidant-rich wild Arctic cloudberry and vitamin C, and now also boosted with three types of hyaluronic acid and polyglutamic acid for ultimate glow. The improved formula works to promote the appearance of more even looking skin that feels plumper, smoother and looks more radiant. The product is vegan and formulated with a high level of upcycled and wild-crafted ingredients. The packaging is made with recyclable and recycled materials.

Nordic-C [Valo] Glow Boost Essence is clinically tested to increase skin’s radiance by +81%*
In a self-evaluation study: 97% agree skin is more radiant** 100% agree skin is hydrated** 100% agree skin is plumper and supple** 100% would recommend to a friend** 96% agree skin tone looks unified**.

*Clinical expert evaluation, n=28, 4 weeks **Self-evaluation, n=28

What is your inspiration and creative process when you come up with new products?

Now I’m talking with the voice of our amazing in-house R&D and product development lab teams, who constantly have so inspiring and innovative new beauty products in our pipeline! The inspiration for our product development comes from multiple sources: from our research of the unique Nordic and Arctic ingredients, from industry research and trends analysis, and from our interactive consumer workshops, where we develop product ideas together with our diverse consumer groups as well as various key opinion leaders. The process is very thorough, and before any product sees the daylight, we test our products in clinical tests and consumer self-evaluations.

The theme of our spring box is Elevate – How do you like to Elevate your day?

My everyday elevation is my skincare routine, both in the morning and at night, I don’t give it up even when traveling or on busy days, because it makes me feel uplifted, poised, and confident about myself. Depending on the day, I also like to go for a peaceful walk in nature, or settle into my body with yoga, or enjoy meeting people in my favorite buzzy neighborhood café. I also love to have little elevating things at my home and my work environment, like a bouquet of fresh cut flowers, or a new beautifully packaged serum that I’m testing.

What is your favorite wellness ritual?

Born and raised in Finland, I love the Finnish sauna culture! For the Finns sauna is deeply rooted in our idea of wellness, it’s all about relaxation, purifying both body and mind. The bathing routine is often enriched with variety of different beauty products to create a more holistic, nourishing experience for both body and mind. Sauna is known to increase blood circulation, eliminate stress, and remove toxins from the skin. Sauna increases skin hydration level so that the skin is more hydrated 180 min after the sauna as compared to the baseline level (based on research with skin exposed only to heat, no showering). Unfortunately, I don’t have my own sauna, as compared to most Finns: in the country of 5.5 million inhabitants, there are 3.3 million saunas! Every time I go to Finland, the first thing I do is heat up a sauna. My wish is to get my own sauna built in my house here in the U.S. too.

What small habits make you feel good?

In addition to my daily skincare and wellness routines, for me feeling good follows the typical Nordic healthy lifestyle and balanced way of living: having a healthy diet and good work/life balance, prioritizing sleep, spending hours outside in fresh air, and being active are characteristic to the Nordic lifestyle, to its unique blend of resilience, mindfulness, and authenticity – and built into my every day, too. On how to lead your happiest life, I just add to make sure to have time for yourself every day, and a cup of good coffee.

What is next for your brand? What are you working on at the moment?

Our R&D team is busy developing our next innovations, as well as constantly improving our current strategic bestsellers. We have new product innovations coming for both our core skincare as well as our fast-growing skincare infused makeup portfolios. One of the continuous development areas that I’d like to highlight, is our sustainability work: We are currently in the verification phase to be B.Corp. certified before the end of this year, as the first Nordic beauty company. We recently innovated a new sustainable packaging form for our moisturizer jars, which is the package format that we use the most, and later this year we are ready to roll out this innovative upcycled, bio-based, biodegradable moisturizer jar in all our markets.