Some of the products I am most proud of creating began long before Kouraz existed. They began when I was thirteen.

My skin changed dramatically during my teenage years. What started as acne became progressively worse, accompanied by persistent redness that was particularly noticeable across my nose. At an age when you are already painfully conscious of how you look, it became something other people noticed too.

I was mocked and called “Rudolph”.

It sounds almost trivial written down now, but when you are thirteen, it isn’t trivial at all. I remember how upsetting it was to feel that something happening to my skin had somehow become something other people believed they had permission to comment on.

That experience changed the way I looked at skin forever.

My First Introduction to Turmeric

Long before I understood formulation science, fatty-acid profiles or the chemistry of botanical ingredients, I understood that turmeric seemed to help my skin.

I used a turmeric-based cream and began to see an improvement. It was probably my first experience of recognising that the ingredients we put onto our skin could meaningfully influence how it looked and felt.

My acne eventually became severe enough that I was prescribed Roaccutane also known as isotretinoin.

My body did not respond particularly well to it.

Years later, after developing severe endometriosis, I have occasionally wondered whether some of the treatments or experiences my body went through earlier in life could have played a part in what happened later. I will never know, and I would never claim a connection that has not been established medically.

But it reinforced something that has stayed with me ever since: I want to understand what I put onto and into my body.

That philosophy eventually became fundamental to Kouraz.

Then Came Gold

Fast-forward to my thirties.

My fascination with ingredients had become considerably more sophisticated, but turmeric had never really left my skincare repertoire. I began creating my own turmeric masks. This took some refining as initially my face turned yellow due to the high content of the turmeric. 

Then, after applying the mask, I started placing sheets of 24K gold onto my face.

There was something extraordinarily beautiful about the ritual, but what fascinated me was not simply the luxury of gold. It was what I began to observe in my skin.

It looked calmer, more refined and more luminous.

The appearance of redness seemed diminished and my complexion looked more even and dewy. 

The girl who had once desperately wanted people not to notice her red skin had become a woman fascinated by discovering how to make skin appear beautifully radiant.

And eventually I realised that this deserved to become something more.

From My Bathroom to the Kouraz Laboratory

That early turmeric mask became part of the inspiration behind what would eventually become the Illuminating Skin Glow 3-in-1.

And my fascination with precious gold, sophisticated plant oils and high-performance ingredients ultimately led me to formulate the 23K Gold Elixir.

Neither product exists because gold looks beautiful in a bottle.

Every ingredient in Kouraz has to earn its place.

The objective was to create formulas that could support skin that, like mine, could look stressed, uneven, dull or visibly reactive, while leaving the complexion looking smoother, more refined and extraordinarily radiant.

Today, when I use them, I see skin that looks luminous and balanced rather than dominated by the redness I once felt so conscious of.

For me, that transformation is deeply personal.

Beauty Born From Resilience

There is a strange symmetry to it. At thirteen, my skin was something I wanted to hide.

Decades later, understanding skin has become one of the great fascinations of my life.

I became a certified organic skincare formulator. I learned to look beyond an ingredient’s fashionable name and examine its composition, provenance, behaviour and purpose within a formula.

And eventually, the very experience that once damaged my confidence became part of the knowledge that helped me create Kouraz.

That is why resilience sits at the heart of the brand. Not the idea that skin must be perfect. But that it can change.It can recover. It can be cared for intelligently and beautifully.

And sometimes the experiences we would never have chosen for ourselves become the beginning of something unexpectedly valuable.

For me, acne rosacea was one of them.

Kouraz: Radiance refined through resilience.

 

A special thank you to my younger teenage self. For always being strong and although it hurt being taunted, it made you who are you today and that is something to be very proud of.