Why Should Sensitive Skin Miss Out on Beautiful Skincare? This Founder Says it Doesn’t Have to
Main image – Nouri Bay
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Anyone with sensitive skin will know there’s plenty on the market that will do the job, but considerably less that will do it with any real sense of, well, style.
As someone whose skin will flare up at the merest hint of an ingredient it doesn’t approve of, I know firsthand the (ahem) joys of thick white medicated creams, inelegant formulas and packaging that looks like it’s come directly from a lab.
Yes, much of it works. But, frankly, it’s the skincare equivalent of an orthopaedic shoe – and I’m a little tired of it.
In the words of Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, “I want what everybody wants. I want what you want.” And in the case of sensitive skin types, that means being included in skincare that isn’t simply good for us – but offers a sensorial experience in its own right.
Enter Nouri Bay and its founder Rianne, a fellow lifelong sensitive skin sufferer who’s making it her mission to ensure we’re no longer excluded from the elegance, ritual and, frankly, fun of skincare.
Nouri Bay founder Rianne. Image – Nouri Bay
But the story behind her brand, whose debut product – Barrier Boosting Face Oil – launched on September 8th, goes much deeper than creating a beautiful product for reactive skin.
Here, I sit down with Rianne to talk about the Caribbean skincare rituals inspired by her late mother and how they led to the brand that sensitive skin types have been crying out for.
The Caribbean beauty rituals inspiring Nouri Bay
Beautifully, Nouri Bay is something of a love note to Rianne’s mum. Born in Jamaica, Rianne’s mother spent the first six years of her life there, living with her grandmother before being “sent for” to join her parents who were working in the UK. By then, her parents had begun building a life in Britain and she arrived to not only a new country, but siblings she had never met.
“She was the only one of her three siblings born in Jamaica,” Rianne tells me. “However, these formative years shaped her experience of how to care for her skin; learning Caribbean skincare rituals from her grandmother.”
Rianne with her mother. Image – Nouri Bay
She then went on to pass on many of the skincare rituals she had learned during her own childhood in Jamaica, once she became a mother herself. The result is that some of Rianne’s earliest memories of her mum caring for skin are rooted in those rituals passed down from one generation to another.
With sensitive, eczema-prone skin, Rianne remembers her mum cutting open fresh aloe vera and carefully rubbing the cooling flesh directly onto her irritated patches. Meanwhile, the cooling rind of a watermelon was regularly used to help soothe her eczema – an inspiration that eventually found its way into the first Nouri Bay formula.
The first push
The first version of that began, like so many lockdown projects, at home. With her sensitive skin reacting to seemingly everything during the pandemic, Rianne started experimenting with making her own soaps, oils and creams.
Her mum became an enthusiastic early tester – particularly taking a liking to one chia seed soap formula – and encouraged her daughter to start a business with the formulas she was creating.
Rianne was an overthinker though, and had her fears. “I gave my mum every reason under the sun of why I couldn’t do it,” she tells me. There were all the usual worries: what if it failed? What would people think? What if no-one buys it? What if it wasn’t the right time? So the idea was parked and left to sit as just that: an idea.
Then, in 2025, Rianne sadly lost her mum to bowel cancer. And as she began going through her belongings, memories she hadn’t thought about for years started coming back – including those early skincare rituals. So too did the memory of just how much her mum had believed in the effectiveness of the formulas she once created.
The unexpected loss of her mum, and the complex phases of grief that followed, shifted Rianne’s perspective on what was actually worth worrying about – and what wasn’t.
She tells me, “I had to remind myself that taking the first step to start something is commendable in itself. The fear of failure can be so overwhelming. Sometimes there isn’t a perfect time to start, but I knew the regret of never trying would feel far worse than the possibility of failing.”
When the doubts resurfaced, Rianne says she found herself imagining what her mum would have said: stop worrying about it – just do it.
This time, she listened. And suddenly Nouri Bay wasn’t simply an idea she’d toyed with during lockdown; it was a chance to finish the thing her mum saw her start but never finish.
Making sensitive skincare something to covet
Rianne tells me, though, that she was determined that Nouri Bay wouldn’t look like a typically clinical sensitive skincare brand.
She designed the branding and packaging herself, with an aesthetic that evokes quiet luxury meets minimalism. Heavy glass amber bottles sit alongside flashes of yellowy-green soft-touch cartons and plenty of white space, feeling much closer to fragrance or fashion than anything remotely medicinal.
And the fragrance vibe here isn’t entirely accidental. Going through her mum’s belongings after she died, Rianne discovered a frankly impressive perfume collection – and realised she’d inherited more of her mum’s love of beautiful bottles and packaging than she’d perhaps known. Nouri Bay carries a little of that with it too – just, ironically, without the fragrance.
Image – Nouri Bay
The brand’s first launch, the Barrier Boosting Face Oil, takes one of those childhood memories and brings it neatly full circle. Watermelon seed oil – a nod to the watermelon rind her mum once used on Rianne’s skin – sits at the heart of a blend of eight botanical oils and skin-conditioning ingredients.
Designed in conjunction with a cosmetic chemist, the finished formula also pairs jojoba, squalane and meadowfoam with kiwi and camellia seed oils, bisabolol and vitamin E, with the aim of both soothing skin now and supporting its barrier longer term.
It’s also been dermatologically tested by an independent third-party laboratory – something Rianne felt was particularly important when asking people with reactive skin to put their trust in a completely new brand.
For Rianne, the sensory experience matters here too. The oil is fragrance and essential-oil free, but she was equally determined that this shouldn’t translate into something medicinal-feeling.
Texture-wise, Rianne wanted none of the drag or lingering grease that can make face oils such a commitment either – not least the tell-tale oily pillowcase the following morning (the bane of any face oil lover’s life).
Even the name gets in on the act. “Nouri” comes from nourishment, while “Bay” conjures the idea of a fictional Caribbean retreat: somewhere calm, restorative and, crucially, safe for sensitive skin.
And, it has to be said, Rianne herself makes a pretty convincing advert for the barrier-first approach. Her skin is incredible – the kind of clear, luminous complexion that inevitably makes a beauty editor want to know exactly what someone is putting on it.
But it’s not just for sensitive skin
Sensitive skin may be where Nouri Bay started, but Rianne doesn’t want it to be where the brand ends.
After all, barrier support is for everyone – including acne-prone skin. Or, as Rianne and I agree, “People with sensitive skin can’t use all products, but all people can use sensitive skin products.”
The lack of fragrance and essential oils is part of that thinking too. Not because Rianne considers either inherently “bad”, she stresses, but because if you’re truly formulating for everyone, why add potential irritants you don’t actually need?
In reality, not all oils behave in the same way. The right lightweight, non-comedogenic formula can work for oilier and acne-prone skin too, while a face oil can be as simple as a few drops pressed over moisturiser to help seal in hydration – morning or night. In fact, one of my favourite things about a good face oil isn’t simply the extra moisture it gives my skin, but the fact it’s helping to seal in the skincare I’ve used underneath it.
The takeaway
As for what’s next, Rianne isn’t in any great rush to map out Nouri Bay’s next five years. She’s bootstrapping the brand, plans to reinvest in future formulas and, refreshingly, wants to hear what her first customers actually want before deciding what comes next.
But there’s also a sense that, for Rianne, the most important part has already happened. “I said to my husband, even if one person buys it, I’ve done it,” she tells me of launch day. “I feel like I’ve already won.”
And perhaps that’s the loveliest thing about Nouri Bay. The aloe vera, the watermelon rind, the mum telling her daughter to stop worrying and just go for it – they’re all still there. They’ve simply found their way into something Rianne can now pass on to other people – and their skin.
Nouri Bay’s Barrier Boosting Face Oil is £39 and available now at NouriBay.com. Live That Glow readers can use code LTGLOW10 for 10% off.
