In conversation with Adam Woodhouse:CFO of NEOM Wellbeing

The brand was founded 20 years ago by Nicola Elliott and
Oliver Mennell - the name NEOM comes from their initials.

NEOM Wellbeing is one of the best-known wellness brands to have come out of the UK in recent years. Starting life as an aromatherapy-inspired candle line, it has since expanded to include new category areas, including bath and body, reed diffusers and electronic diffusers, with stores across the country, concessions in department stores like John Lewis, and expansion into the US and Ireland.

Here, CFO Adam Woodhouse discusses NEOM Wellbeing’s success and future with Rosie Burbidge, IP lawyer and Partner.

Rosie Burbidge: How did being a British brand inspire the origins of NEOM Wellbeing and its growth story? And how have you used that as you move into the US and other markets?

Adam Woodhouse:

The brand was founded 20 years ago by Nicola Elliott and Oliver Mennell - the name NEOM comes from their initials. The origin story of the brand comes from Nicola’s own wellbeing needs. She had previously worked in journalism for Marie Claire, working long hours, and realised that she was dealing with issues around stress and sleep. She had an interest in aromatherapy and started making her own blends of aromatherapy oils in her kitchen, developing fragrances she thought would have some palpable benefit to relaxation and sleep, and that’s where it all sparked from.

She started making candles and selling them at trade fairs, before then looking for wholesale buyers. It was predominantly a wholesale business at first and then moved into other sales channels, including our own website and Amazon. In 2017, we received private equity funding, which allowed the business to grow further. Of course, during Covid, we also saw another uplift, as people were looking for ways to invest in experiences that they could do at home.

Since then, the business has evolved from home fragrance to bath and beauty and electronic diffuser pods. So there’s been a strong correlation between category expansion and channel expansion.

RB: Has being based in the UK been helpful in ensuring the quality of all-natural ingredients?

AW:

Yes, it’s practically easier to see into your supply chain when you’re only a two-hour train journey away, rather than having to jump on a plane to another location. We make everything except for the electronic diffuser pods in the UK. NEOM Wellbeing became a certified B Corp in 2022 and has since published two impact reports in 2023 and 2025 so we’re quite far down the journey of being more sophisticated in terms of supply chain control and oversight.

Having said that, there’s always more to do and when you are a small business with just a handful of people, it’s just easier to see who is making your products and the manufacturing standards if it’s all on your doorstep.

RB: From a geographic perspective, the UK is your home market, but you have a large presence in airports, which must help raise awareness in the international community. Which markets have you found are particularly good for growth and what are you looking at?

AW:

So we have a presence in various European markets, with our biggest European market being Ireland. We do have distribution in EU markets outside of Ireland, but the focus is on the US. We’ve been there for a year and ULTA is our key distribution partner: we were originally in 70 stores, and now we’re at 300, with the goal being to reach 1,000 next year.

We’ve also got a US GM who has been building out a small team over there. Most of the growth opportunity and what’s going to move the dial on the size of the business for the next 3-4 years is really the US market. We understand that it’s not just about finding a great partner like ULTA, but being on the ground, educating store managers and sales staff, and getting our product into the hands of ULTA staff and potential customers.

It’s a wildly competitive market and you have to be there essentially shouting about why NEOM Wellbeing is special and what its point of difference is.

RB: Are you focused on particular regions in the US?

AW:

We’ve got six regional target areas. For us it’s about scale, and thinking about what makes the most economic sense in terms of certain metro locations, and how we can become a meaningful size within those certain target demographics. So it’s not about being in as many locations as possible, it’s about focusing your effort on a handful of very valuable cities and extended metro locations in the US.

RB: How has the trade war impacted business?

AW:

It’s only really impacted on our electronic diffuser pods, which are manufactured in China and shipped to the US. The fortunate thing for us is that the biggest area for growth for us in the US is the bath and body category. It’s not that we don’t care about selling pods – they are massively valuable in terms of getting into people’s homes, and they usually drive more sales of the blended oils, but they’re less of an important growth factor in the US than some of our UK-manufactured bathroom beauty products, which although there is a tariff now, at least it’s stable.

RB: You’ve talked a bit about the diffusers as a method of regular repeat revenue. Is that indicative of a move away from some of the original reed diffusers and candles?

AW:

No, home fragrance is still our core in the UK, and it would be reckless to give up on that. I think it’s what’s got us to where we are in a lot of ways. We’ve innovated and spent a lot of time, effort and money on keeping up to date on those subcategories.

For example, in the last year, all of our essential oil reed diffusers all got what we call a “re-stage” – a full redesign in a brand new glass vessel, with different reeds, and a new kind of refill, an aluminium bottle. So we’ve continued to invest in that category.

There are lots of different reasons why you might light a candle in a room versus putting on an electronic diffuser.

RB: In the last few years you’ve rebranded in a relatively subtle way. What was the thought process behind that?

AW:

It’s definitely subtle. It was driven by feedback from customers, panels and retailers and the desire to ensure we were ahead of expectations.

Things like removing cursive scripts to create a cleaner aesthetic, which we’ve received positive feedback on. Our assets – from products to emails – now look more harmonious. It was part of tightening everything up and being clearer that our USP is wellbeing powered by 100% natural fragrance.

RB: Are you looking to align with influencers with the particular metropolitan locations that you’re working on?

AW:

Yes, especially around US-targeted bath and body categories. The influencer space now feels far more structured than the “Wild West” of 10 years ago.

There are good tech integration platforms that let brands scale activity in commercially viable ways. It’s become more transactional and trackable.

RB: You’ve recently opened on Regent Street, and it looks like you have a mixture of owned stores and concessions. How are you finding managing the real estate side of things?

AW:

NEOM Wellbeing essentially runs four businesses: DTC, wholesale, stores and Amazon.

Each channel has a different P&L structure and different non-financial KPIs. Stores are where customers can get the full NEOM experience with expert advice and the ability to try products.

We don’t see a future where the brand has hundreds of stores – it’s unnecessary. New channels naturally start as lean “hobbies” to test viability, but as they grow, they must be run with expertise.

RB: AI search seems to be a much bigger thing now than it used to be. Is that something that’s affecting conversions to the website? Is it something you’re looking to improve?

AW:

Yes, it’s part of our thinking. AI-driven search results still draw heavily from traditional SEO signals, though traffic is gradually shifting.

We see this as a gradual evolution rather than a sudden disruptive overhaul.