Leif's new Flannel Flower product range harnesses an innovative method of cellular extraction. Image courtesy of Leif. From as early as we can remember we’ve been encouraged to not judge books by their covers – an idiom that makes sense in relation to people, though not so much for product design. In fact, the team behind the Australian personal care brand Leif — co-founded by Jonnie Vigar and Brenan Liston of Sydney-based design studio Container — actively encourage cover judgement. It’s what got them into this business in the first place.
“We started Container over 20 years ago,” says Vigar, whose background is in magazine design. “The thing that we always tried to impress on the clients was spend time on the packaging, spend time on the design to make it unique.” Container built up a solid industry reputation for functional yet luxurious packaging, calling high profile beauty labels such as OAM and Kevin Murphy clients. A form study resulted in a fine necked bottle prototype that the team left on display in their studio. It was a striking vessel — one that friends and clients would regularly comment on when they visited. Eventually, Vigar and Liston decided to fill it themselves; a back-to-front approach that, in 2010, became Leif.
Heroing native ingredients, a unique alchemy of essential oils and extracts, and scents such as lemon myrtle, desert lime and buddha wood, Leif adopted a narrow focus, offering natural, plant-derived body and hair formulations encased in clear or opaque versions of its signature bottle. “I don’t see us moving into skincare, I think that’s a very difficult place to be,” says Vigar. “With body care we can set ourselves apart as that person, or that player. And I think that the packaging innovation is thing that’s going to set us apart going forward.”
Over the past decade, Leif has embraced an unhurried growth mentality. “The lovely thing about Leif is it’s our own brand. We’re not beholden to other people, it’s not other people’s money that we have to worry about,” he says. “And we can take our own time — it’s slow cosmetics.
“Procrastination, to us, has actually been quite a good thing. Often you just need time with an idea to think about it, and not be pressured into making the decision just purely because of the speed of it.”
The team has evolved organically from three (Vigar, Liston and their colleague, the designer Mark Evans), to 10, and they are currently managing site works on a heritage-listed property they purchased in Redfern that will serve as both an office space and retail outpost. “We hope to move in by the end of the year,” says Vigar. “It’s taken a while to get that through council, but we’re hoping that that’s going to be the new home of Leif.”
At present Leif has over 100 Australian wholesale accounts, but this property marks a new chapter for the business as its first dedicated brick-and-mortar space. “It’s nice to start to think about what Leif is as a physical retail environment, as opposed to, at the moment, it’s purely been about the product.”
The launch of a new product range, Flannel Flower, brings more cause for celebration. It is Leif’s first formula to harness cellular extraction — a process that transforms water-soluble plant extracts into a liquid without compromising the plant matter. “I don’t want Leif to become a super technical kind of brand. I think there’s a lot of [greenwashing] around that with some beauty brands where it’s all highly technical and performance based,” says Vigar. “The cellular extraction, which is offered to us through a partner, is kind of interesting, and is something unique to them. It really is about keeping the kind of the plants cell structure as pure as it can be and not breaking down.”
On the nose, Flannel Flower (available in both a hand wash and balm) offers a sensory journey that is distinctly Australian, featuring the fresh, grassy, aroma of newly cut flowers alongside notes of cedarwood and vetiver. The blend’s bottles are also crafted from a material known as RPET, comprised of 50 per cent recycled content, with Leif’s goal to have the entire range available in the material within 18 months (while concurrently reducing the inclusion of virgin plastic).
For Vigar, the brand’s future is tied to three pillars. The first: Celebrating Australian produce and ingredients on a global scale. “There’s a great opportunity for the brand here, but also overseas, to really promote Australian natives, because they are totally unique,” he says. The second: Design. “It should be the touchpoint of everything we do as a brand,” he continues. Third: Environmental innovation, including packaging materials, refillable bottles and partnering with other likeminded brands in this space (Vigar nods to an upcoming collaboration with a B Corp certified Australian rug brand).
“There’s so much creativity within the Australian design community, but I think often it’s overlooked,” he says. “We want to really outreach and connect with these people that are doing these amazing kind of interiors, building projects, and it’s obviously a perfect home for Leif to be.”
