When I meet Neal’s Yard CEO Anabel Kindersley for the first time we talk about the Covent Garden store and its signature blue glass bottles – in my view, these are as synonymous with wellness as yoga mats and green juice. I remember buying my first trio of skincare products in the early aughts after moving to London and browsing the shops of Seven Dials one summer afternoon.
The brand began life in 1981, not with a gorgeous shopfront, but in a corner where the wheelbarrows for the flower market were stored. Back then, activist and entrepreneur Nicholas Saunders had imagined a community of like-minded businesses working side by side and among them was Neal’s Yard Apothecary, a small shop blending traditional knowledge of aromatherapy with an exclusive brand personality.
By 1983, the business had become Neal’s Yard Remedies – and in time, Anabel Kindersley would step in to lead it. Like the brand’s founder Romy Fraser, Kindersley was a homeopath, instinctively drawn to the idea of making product knowledge and non-toxic formulations available to the public.
“It was about helping people to take charge of their own health,” she tells me. “So fundamentally, that’s what we’ve been talking about for the last 44 years. The tree logo hasn’t changed and it absolutely symbolises that. The tree is our beauty and the roots are our health and the two should be in perfect balance – if you look after the roots, the tree will flourish.”
That balance has become Kindersley’s life’s work. Sitting on the British Beauty Council and at the helm of one of the UK’s most recognisable heritage wellness brands, she has spent years influencing the landscape of health, beauty and wellbeing.
In 2011, she joined forces with Greenpeace and Flora and Fauna International to pressure the government into banning microbeads – the tiny plastic beads once found in face scrubs and toothpastes. More recently, she spearheaded a coalition of 110 British businesses, forcing Westminster to take a stand on hazardous pesticides.
“We’ve been campaigning to protect bees at Neal’s Yard since 2001. We fund conservation, grassroots, helping with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, but we also work on policy change, asking the government to cut hazardous pesticides. We were doing that until 2008 when a neonicotinoid ban came in – a single teaspoon is enough to kill one and a quarter billion bees. The government had been granting special commissions to use this pesticide, even though it had been banned. I just thought it was totally inexcusable.
“I gathered together a coalition of 110 businesses and began campaigning, pretty much every month for the last three years. We managed to get the full ban this January. So it was such a win. And it does show that the power of an individual, a citizen, someone who cares, can actually make change.”
Leading by example
Her role as both activist and CEO means that Kindersley stands out in an industry often criticised for its glossy veneer and lack of substance. Beauty and wellness benefits from business leaders who talk about soil health, biodiversity and fair farming practices in the same breath as serums and sun salutations, and Kindersley takes every one of these subjects seriously.
“All the things that we stand for centre on wellbeing – our customer’s wellbeing, the wellbeing of the planet and how we do business. We treat farmers fairly and we care about soil structure and we care about biodiversity… It’s really the holistic piece. The word ‘holistic’ is so branded and I think not many people really understand what that means, but it’s really looking at the whole all the time with everything that we do.”
That insistence on “the whole” has long set Neal’s Yard apart. While much of the industry is tangled in greenwashing – selling “eco” or “clean” credentials that don’t always stand up to scrutiny – Neal’s Yard pushed for independent certification decades ago and continues to set an example.
“We were the first brand to be certified organic in the UK and we actually asked for that. It used to just be food that was certified organic but we helped the Soil Association do it for beauty back in the 90s. We believe in not marking your own homework. You have to have an independent assessment and it costs a lot of money to be honest. But we’re proud to have made that happen and we believe firmly in third party certification. I think that’s essential, really.”
It’s a refreshing level of transparency in a sector where the difference between “80 per cent organic” and “contains organic ingredients” is often lost in translation. Neal’s Yard chose to be upfront, even when it risked confusing shoppers more accustomed to sleeker simpler marketing messages.
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Wellness washing and authenticity
When I ask her about the current “wellness boom”, Kindersley explains she is wary of the word itself. “I’m always a bit nervous about the word wellness. It’s just not a trend. It’s about really fundamentally looking after your health and making sure that you take notice of it.”
She admits she sees a darker side to the wellness hype: the pressure to be perfect, the sense that if you aren’t meditating at dawn or meal-prepping chia puddings, you’re doing it wrong.
“There are people who are going to always hijack the word ‘wellness’ to make money and that’s pretty sad but it’s really real, isn’t it? It happens. I do think if you’re very transparent and sincere and have integrity and you do what you do and you do it properly then that eventually permeates and the good separate from the ones who are not so good. Hopefully we are becoming, as a society, more knowledgeable. Hopefully with that knowledge comes that discerning customer that understands right from a sort of fake wellness.
“Knowledge is power and we are all being empowered. And that’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it? This is about when we all share knowledge and I do believe that the experts that we have who work in all our stores and our teams are really knowledgeable and really, really understand and care. We’re not in it for the money. We’re in it because we actually care deeply about people’s wellbeing. Importantly, we’re helping this younger generation who are consumers of beauty. We need to help them so that they don’t ruin their skin barriers – they’re using things that are way too toxic for their skin.”
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Ahead of the curve
This blend of traditional herbalist knowledge and clinical science runs through everything Neal’s Yard does, from herbal tinctures to supplements and aromatherapy, Kindersley tells me. Their frankincense range remains a bestseller, but it’s the philosophy that matters most: a belief that scent and ritual can impact the nervous system long-term. This is just another example of how the brand has always been ahead of its time. Now, we’re witnessing the neurocosmetic boom, low-tox living as a TikTok trend and a firm belief in the power of ritualistic self care.
“We’ve always wanted to help everyone who comes to us to find the solutions for their own wellbeing. So they come to us for sleep issues, they might come to us for stress issues, they might come with irritated skin. Obviously our core is aromatherapy and that is really important because it’s really about really being in touch with your own olfactory sense.
“That olfactory sense is attached to the limbic system in the brain, which controls emotion. Setting those practices in your daily life – actually just in your morning routine, early enough – you can actually start to contribute to your wellbeing before you’ve even got out of your house to go to work.”
Kindersley’s own mornings are gentle but not performative. She’s quick to explain that sometimes she falls out of her routine due to work commitments. Generally, it starts with warm lemon water and a double cleanse with Neal’s Yard products. A quick facial massage, vitamin C, a few drops of rosehip oil and moisturiser complete her skincare. Sometimes she squeezes in a sun salutation to stretch. Always, she walks her two dachshunds in the communal gardens by her home.
“I’m not perfect, but I think that moment where you look at the sky and you look at nature around you and you’re present helps you to connect with yourself.”
Cooking, being outside, breathing fresh air – these are her wellness non-negotiables. She tells me that if she could give one piece of advice to anyone thinking about their wellness journey it would be to just begin.
“I would advise anyone to just take the first step. Don’t be daunted by everything that’s out there. Seek advice and start on that journey, just don’t delay it. Start by looking in your bathroom cabinet, have a look at what you’re putting on your skin and at what you eat as well. I think if you take that little moment of peace to really understand what you actually need, then there’s an abundance of help available.”
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