interview with NATALIA ZAKHAROVA

Paradise: to live on a beautiful island kissed by the sun, surrounded by clear blue waters, while enjoying food from a simple garden existing in peace with nature. This state of blissful nirvana has been attained by our guest, Natalia Zakharova, and thanks to her generous and entrepreneurial spirit, a little part of her everyday utopian reality can be shared directly with you through her line of artisan cosmetics, Very Well Made”.

Zakharova entered the world of fashion through modeling quite by accident. Born in a small town in eastern Siberia to a strict family, she didn’t get much of a chance to leave the homestead and be seen in fashionable places. One night, Zakharova was able to venture away from her home and make an appearance in public. When she did, she was discovered. “At that time”, she says, “I just finished my twelve year long commitment with Olympic level rhythmic gymnastics. Suddenly, with too much time, I was bored. So I decided to give [modeling] a shot. This new life option also included the possibility of traveling, seeing the world and it seemed very attractive to me.”

Six years into modeling, she became a regular on the runways of New York, Paris and Milan. With her image splashed across the pages of major fashion magazines, Zakharova decided that it was time to find a new passion. “I always knew that I wanted and needed to do something else apart from modeling.  So I was, and still am, in a constant search of ‘what to do’.  What is waiting there to be ‘discovered’, to be ‘done’ in front of me and how I can take conscious control of my future, both as a person and as a professional.”

Just like modeling, the idea of creating Very Well Made, an all-natural, organic, handmade cosmetic line, came to her by accident. “It was not my ‘lifelong dream’, like some people have,” Zakharova notes. “So many coincidences, that I did not even realize or plan, came together all at the same time.”

Starting with her newfound love for cooking inspired by her husband, Zakharova learned to stay away superfluous “loud” tastes and smells, and try to achieve the same result with more finesse and delicate elegance. “Trust me”, she says, “when working with nature, beauty does not need to be loud. ”

Her passion for cooking was quickly followed by a passion for fragrances. “I really love the sense of smell. It’s probably the one [sense] that makes me dream the most. The one that makes me ‘see’ places, remember people, moments,” Zakharova says. “In the past, you could often catch me spending hours being in a ‘trance’, smelling different hard-to-find perfumes.  Isolating myself, in the middle of a busy mall, just trying to define and recognize different scents and nuances.”

Following her nose paid off. It was on a certain day that Zakharova paid more than usual attention to the bottle of one of her fancy creams, reading closely the label. When she discovered what it was really made of, she was shocked. “So many ingredients! And so many of them sounding from weird, to downright scary.  After a more in depth research my initial suspicion turned to fact. Most of these ingredients were actually ‘guilty’ of either not serving any real purpose to the consumer (they were just lowering the cost for the manufacturer) or actually being dangerous in a variety of ways.”

Zakharova knew she had to do something about this; it just wasn’t right. “Thanks to the internet, anyone could check this; see exactly what these products contain, so much stuff that they need bigger packaging than normal just to include all the ingredients. So that is what I did, I started checking what products are actually good for you. And in my case, this motivated me to figure out how to make them myself.  That’s how it all came together…”

Creating her own cosmetic line wasn’t such a simple process. Everything was a challenge to overcome, beginning even, with herself. “This project felt way too big, way too involved. What if I did not like it that much to put the effort and time needed? It’s not a relevant question anymore, my desire to make Very Well Made happen is clear. It is very difficult to be able to sell cosmetics. It’s easier to serve people food than to sell them hand soap. So when faced with the rules of ‘how to do it properly’ it felt like it could never happen. But I just wanted it so much, and was so passionate about it, that I finally found a way to turn my small-scale, home-based hobby into a proper, still small scale though, cosmetic line.” It is clear that Zakharova is nothing but passionate.

“I research every aspect of my products, including packaging labels. I make small batches and like that I am able to offer the highest quality products that are 100% natural and not only won’t harm you, but will also be beneficial to you. I substitute your fear about the products you used until now, and their tricky two page list of ingredients, with the joy and peace of mind that everything is really well made, with fully natural ingredients, on a small scale. You can’t even imagine how different it feels, even just simply holding ‘commercial’, chemical supermarket soap, and when you hold my home made one.  But mostly, the moment when actually using it. You will never go back to an industrial product anymore. Fact.”

Very Well Made is not just a cosmetic line; it is a journey, a story of Zakharova’s life, one of many aspects of wholesome living. “The whole idea came from the concept of organic, healthy, chemical-free, beautiful simple living that I follow in my life in general. Nothing pretentious, just ‘very well made’ and very good for you. It is a complete life concept. Making the right choices, from choosing the place where you live, to the food you grow and eat, until the choice of products that you put on your skin and hair.”

At the moment, Zakharova’s Very Well Made products are available in stores in Greece.  When asked about her future plans for the line Zakharova says: “I want to take my time trying new, maybe much more ‘daring’ experiments with raw materials and new scents, local stuff, you know. Like seawater, or sand. Also to define my selected outlets in key positions globally. Managing, of course, to remain small scale as I am now, but also available at the same time pretty much to everyone through an e-commerce platform. Time will tell. Immediate plans are more humble. Make me, my family and you happy.”