I AM ICONIC: Miranda Kerr on Certified Organic Skincare and the Products She Can’t Live Without

I want to start with KORA Organics. It wasn’t very long ago that options for certified organic beauty products were quite limited. KORA has really paved the way as a successful brand delivering certified organic beauty products that are incredible and truly work. 

Can you tell us a bit about how the journey started? When did you first think ‘there is a gap here’, and how long did it take to get KORA up and running?
Yeah, it's a long story, but I'll tell you the short version. When I was a teenager, my mum was diagnosed with cancer in her spleen. As a family, we thought that we were healthy because we were eating from an organic vegetable patch and we were taking care of ourselves that way. But then what we realised was that in our home there were so many different ingredients that we were using with different products, whether that be skincare, hair care – even packaged goods. So that sparked our interest as a family to really look for healthier alternatives. I continued on the hunt for quite some time. I wasn't able to find anything that was certified organic because back then, there could be a product that would claim that maybe it was natural or organic if it had one natural organic ingredient. But if you're certified organic, every single thing that you do has to be approved by the certification body, Ecocert/COSMOS. 

I was talking to a friend of mine in 2006, and I said to her “I still haven’t been able to find a certified organic skincare brand that gives me the results that I need”. And she said, “Why don't you speak to my friend who makes certified organic aromatherapy and see if she has any ideas?”. I then spoke to her friend who said, “Why don't you speak to the lab that I work with down in Melbourne and create your own?”. So we sent samples back and forth for three years before we launched in Australia in 2009. It was honestly because I was personally looking for something that was certified organic and results-driven. What's interesting is that everyone now is becoming so much more aware of what they're putting on their skin and they're wanting efficacious ingredients that are also healthy for them. And that's what KORA is, it's not just clean beauty, it's certified organic beauty.

I started this company not knowing really how to run a business, or what to do. It just started from a passion and to this day, the company's still 95% mine. I have a 5% investor, and I haven't taken a cent out of the company – I just continually grow it. And I invest in the products and the people to help me get the message out there, because I truly feel that people should have this opportunity to have highly effective skincare that is healthy for them.

It’s a really big undertaking for a beauty brand to become certified organic and create products that are effective. Taking retinol as an example of a really commonly used ingredient in beauty products, how did you go about finding a replacement for that?
Luckily we have some of the best chemists in the world, and we still work with those chemists from Melbourne who source ingredients that are highly effective. For instance, in our eye oil instead of using retinol, we use Kahai Oil. Kahai Oil has a super high concentration of Vitamin A, so when combined with the coffee seed extract in our eye oil, it’s super powerful and you don't need to use the retinol to get the same results. We also use other ingredients like turmeric with our famous Turmeric Brightening & Exfoliating Scrub and the Turmeric Glow Moisturiser and people are getting incredible results from that with its brightening, calming and anti-inflammation properties. The Noni Bright Vitamin C Serum has Kakadu plum, which is an Australian ingredient and it's the highest naturally occurring Vitamin C that's available. So we've made the first certified organic Vitamin C serum in the world with the Kakadu plum that originates from Australia because of its high Vitamin C content along with other active ingredients in there as well. 

The thing about that scrub is that it's multipurpose – you can use it as a scrub or you can use it as a mask. Some people love it as a mask. Some people love it as a scrub. I love it as a scrub because it invigorates your senses, it has the peppermint essential oil to uplift your senses, and turmeric to brighten your skin so you see instant results. It's got the papaya enzymes, the Aspen bark, the rosehip seeds, it really just kind of refreshes your skin and it's also great prep for makeup.

What wellness rituals do you swear by?
Well, this morning, I was up at 2:30am. And I was like, “Hmm, I'm going to meditate because I was jet-lagged because I just got here yesterday”. Normally I would have a ritual of doing a little meditation in the morning before the kids wake up and doing either a few yoga stretches or a Tracy Anderson workout that I do just on my computer, or on my phone if I'm not able to get to my computer. Having those little things that you can do for yourself really helps set the day, even if it's just a 10-minute meditation. It’s about having little things that feed you – for me, I like guided meditation, but I've also learned TM meditation and this other yoga-type of meditation, and Kundalini Yoga is something that I've really enjoyed my whole life. But sometimes when you're a busy working mum, you don't have much time. So I do simple things like go outside, put my feet in the grass or put my hands open to the sun and like feel the energy of the sun kind of energising my whole body. That's a good little tip that you can do and it helps like recentre and re-energise even if you just have one minute. Also, eating healthily – celery juice is my big thing.

You can only use three beauty products to get ready for an event – what are they?
Well, you know that less is more these days so I would scrub my face with the Turmeric Brightening & Exfoliating Scrub, then we have to put the Turmeric Glow Moisturiser on top so we've got a nice glow and then just a little concealer.