The Interview: Elle Sera's founder on inside-out beauty, intelligent formulation and community power

In a wellness landscape often dominated by trends, celebrity endorsements, and one-size-fits-all solutions, Elle Sera has carved out a distinctive space.

Founded during the quiet of lockdown, the UK-based brand emerged from a simple yet powerful insight: women’s supplements didn’t reflect the ambition, sophistication, or lived reality of modern women.

With a focus on intelligent formulation, inside-out beauty, and timeless design, Elle Sera blends performance with elevated aesthetics, drawing inspiration from the confidence and grace of French women.

In this interview with TheIndustry.beauty, founder Elissa Corrigan discusses the journey behind the brand, the philosophy driving its products, and the community-centred approach that continues to shape its evolution.

What inspired you to launch Elle Sera and what journey led you to start this brand?

Elle Sera, to be brutally honest, started with boredom, lockdown, and a single Facebook message. I was running health retreats and had always had a keen interest in supplements. Then, during lockdown, a woman I’d met on one messaged me, frustrated by how patronising and uninspiring women’s supplements felt. It hit a nerve because I’d been thinking the same thing. Everything aimed at women felt either dumbed down, overly soft, or stripped of any sense of power or desire. It didn’t reflect how modern women actually live - ambitious, switched on, and demanding more from themselves.

So instead of overthinking it, I built what I wanted to exist. Elle Sera is about intelligent formulation paired with confidence, edge and unapologetic femininity. Also, the French influence was completely intentional. Elle Sera literally means “she will be” in French,  a statement of confidence, inevitability and evolution. French women don’t fear ageing, they don’t apologise for ambition, and they don’t chase youth at the expense of identity. They age visibly, powerfully and beautifully - and that philosophy felt far more honest than the anti-ageing panic that dominates wellness.

France celebrates women at every stage, just like it celebrates art, architecture and design that deepen with time. That mindset shaped everything. I wanted Elle Sera to feel less like a supplement brand and more like a French perfume house - elevated, sensual and timeless. The packaging, the gold, the restraint - none of it is accidental. Elle Sera isn’t about fixing women or slowing time. It’s about supporting women as they become more themselves. And frankly, the French have always understood that better than anyone.

Wellness is booming right now. In your opinion, why is the concept of ‘inside-out’ beauty becoming so important?

Because it’s obvious. Great skin, hair, energy and vibrancy don’t start in a jar you slap on the top layer of dead skin cells on your face. They start with what you put in your body. It’s a simple principle: garbage in, garbage out. Put goodness in... it shows.

Women are finally connecting the dots. You can have the best skincare in the world, but if you’re depleted, stressed, under-nourished or running on empty, it will always show in your skin, your hair, your mood, your confidence. Inside-out beauty is just honesty. It’s understanding that your body reflects how you treat it. Wellness is booming because women are done with surface-level fixes and empty promises. They want things that work with their bodies, not against them. Inside-out beauty gives women back control - and the results last longer than any cream ever will.

Given the competitive nature of the wellness industry, what key factors set Elle Sera apart from other brands in the market?

Elle Sera is different because we don’t chase trends; we build products women genuinely need. I’m selfishly customer number one. I want the products I take to be built with the best available knowledge, by manufacturers I trust, whose standards I know inside out. I’m not willing to accept shortcuts, and I’m certainly not building anything I wouldn’t use myself.

I don’t care about TikTok trends or wellness buzzwords. I care about what works. That means seeking out the brightest minds I can find, innovating properly, making products that actually pack a punch and then making them look brilliant, glamorous and memorable. Performance comes first. Aesthetics follow - but they matter too.

If we put a product into the world, it has to earn its place. Women have less disposable income than men, and I take that seriously. If someone chooses to spend their hard-earned money with Elle Sera, I see that as trust and I refuse to disrespect it with anything mediocre.

What role do you believe education plays in helping consumers make better wellness choices - and how does Elle Sera contribute to this?

Education matters, to me anyway, even if the industry often acts like it doesn’t. The reality is, the wellness market still believes celebrities sell better than science - and most of the time, they do. That frustrates me, but it doesn’t change my standards. I’m not interested in shouting the loudest or borrowing credibility from a famous face. I care about women actually understanding what they’re putting in their bodies.

At Elle Sera, we educate because it’s the right thing to do. We create educational content, explain our thinking, and run a podcast, because informed women make better decisions long term. It might not be the fastest route to sales, but it builds trust - and trust lasts. I won’t stop doing it, even if the market rewards hype more than knowledge. I respect women’s intelligence too much for that. And frankly, I’m building for the long game, not a viral moment, with people who take a cheque.

Could you share some insights into how Elle Sera has evolved since its inception? How has the brand grown in terms of product offerings, sales, and community engagement?

Elle Sera has evolved by becoming more precise, more confident and more uncompromising - even if that’s just me. In the early days, the focus was proving the concept that women wanted supplements that worked and felt elevated.

Since then, the brand has grown by doubling down on what we do best: intelligent formulation, clear positioning, and products that earn their place in women’s routines. Our product range has expanded deliberately, not quickly. Every launch is built around a genuine need, not a trend, and each one raises the bar on innovation, performance and design.

As a result, sales growth has been steady and healthy, driven far more by repeat customers than hype. That’s something I’m proud of. What’s grown most noticeably is the community. We attract women who ask questions, care about quality, and want to understand what they’re taking. Through our educational content, podcast, and direct conversations with customers, that engagement keeps strengthening.

Can you tell us about Liposomal Tripeptide Collagen? What makes it superior, how you incorporate it and what kind of response you’ve seen from your customers?

Liposomal Tripeptide Collagen is collagen done properly. Most collagen products are bulky powders or pills with poor absorption. Ours uses tripeptide collagen - shorter chains the body can actually recognise and use - delivered via liposomal technology to improve uptake. In simple terms: more gets absorbed, less gets wasted. It’s world-class. Every brand wishes they had it.

We didn’t add collagen just to tick a box. We built it with supporting nutrients that make collagen work harder, because throwing collagen at the body without context is lazy formulation.

The response has been exactly what I expected. Women don’t just notice changes - they feel them. Firmer skin, stronger hair and nails, better elasticity, more vibrancy. The feedback we hear again and again is: "This is the first collagen I can actually feel working". And that’s the standard. If we make a product, it has to perform. Anything less isn’t interesting to me or respectful to the women buying it.

How does Elle Sera actively engage with its community and gather feedback to continuously enhance its products and customer experience?

We engage by being genuinely available - whether I like it or not. Elle Sera isn’t a faceless brand. People stop me at the nursery drop-off, in M&S, at the gym, even when I’m out for dinner. They message us on every platform imaginable.

Instead of hiding behind a customer service inbox, I lean into it. I regularly ask customers to jump on Zoom with me for an hour at a time. No surveys - real conversations. I ask them what’s working, what isn’t, what they’re confused about, and what they wish existed. The feedback is dynamite. And honestly, who better to ask than the women actually taking the products?

That insight feeds directly back into how we evolve - from formulation tweaks to education to communication. Community isn’t a marketing strategy for us; it’s how the brand is built. Listening properly is inconvenient sometimes, but it’s also why our products keep getting better.

How do you feel about the brand’s progress since launch? Any challenges? Any milestone moments?

I’m so in the thick of it that I rarely stop to reflect. Challenges are constant - they don’t disappear, they just change shape. That’s part of building anything worthwhile, and I’ve never expected it to be easy or smooth.

In terms of progress, I don’t measure success by revenue milestones or headlines. Of course, growth matters, but it’s not what sticks with me. The real milestones are the messages from women telling me how much the products have helped them - and, quite literally, how many babies exist because of them. That will always matter more to me than numbers on a spreadsheet. Those moments are the reminder that what we’re building has a real impact on real lives. And that’s enough to keep going, head down, doing the work.

Looking ahead, what are your biggest ambitions and goals for Elle Sera?

I want Elle Sera to be the brand women trust when they’re serious about how they feel, how they age, and how they show up. Not the loudest brand in the room, but the one people quietly recommend because it works. Growth matters, of course - expanding the range, reaching more women, and entering new markets - but never at the expense of standards.

I’m far more interested in building something enduring than something fast. Ultimately, I want Elle Sera to sit in women’s lives the way certain fashion houses or beauty brands do: timeless, recognisable, and respected. A brand you grow with, not out of.