Tanja Gregersen & Tine Emilie Svendsen, Creators of Miild

Started out of their own need for chemical free makeup, two young, Danish women started their entrepreneurial journey of creating their very own makeup brand. Their dreams came true by putting in lots of hard work and keeping high quality standards.

In our series Cool Copenhageners, we interview exciting creative people with a vision and an own view on the world. We recently had the pleasure to talk to many great entrepreneurs who have created interesting businesses and inspire others to do the same. 

This time, we have talked to Tanja Gregersen and Tine Emilie Svendsen and asked them why allergy-friendly, sustainable makeup is so important for them. Their Danish makeup brand Miild is a success story and currently even sold out on their website. The two also choose to travel around, showing their products "live" to as many customers as possible to show them the difference their products make. Tanja and Tine have a clear picture of how to improve not only the lives of people with allergies, but also not the environment too much with their packaging. 

Dear Tine and Tanja, thank you for giving us a little glimpse into your world of pure ingredients, hard work and of course beauty. We would like to start by asking you about the beginning. Who are you and where did you meet each other?

Tine is twenty-seven, Tanja is thirty years old. We are both makeup artists and Tine is also a cosmetician. We met each other about nine years ago at the cosmetic school where we took the basic class together. Tanja decided to drop out of the school, because she wanted to save up money to go to the makeup school instead. We have been together ever since and had the same problem with makeup – we suffer from allergies. Tanja has had allergies for as long as she can remember, where Tine has developed it because of all the makeup. We were very frustrated about the absence of certified makeup products we could use. Therefore, we started our big journey together three years ago.

At what point did you decide that you wanted to create your own makeup brand?

It started with a selfish need, but then we later figured out that a lot of other women would have the same need for a pure makeup brand, where they could understand the ingredient list. Since we could not find any makeup we actually could use on our skin. We both agreed that it was too hard to find some pure makeup where we understood the ingredient lists. Therefore we liked to create transparency in the makeup products we develop. There should be certifications on, which live up to a high standard for allergy, environmental friendliness and ecology.

We think it's important to see it in a bigger picture. It isn’t just the makeup you use, its also your skincare, beauty products etc. It’s the combination of it all together that makes the big difference.

We know everything about the hard choices you have to make when designing a product, so we are curious about your journey from the first idea to the finished product.

It's very difficult to create certified makeup because we have to only use “good” ingredients, and we wouldn’t compromise with the quality of the products like texture and durability. Everyone has been put on hard work here. We searched for three months to find a factory that could help us to develop the products. We found a factory in Italy that could help us with our needs. They are so talented and we have used such a long time to develop the best makeup collection we ever could. We have also received help with our certifications. We had an idea and we knew what we wanted, but we haven’t tried it before, so we searched for help from outside to learn about this procedure. After three years we have an organic makeup collection and we are still working on getting more products.

The two of you go to many different stores where your products are sold and show the customers how to use your products. This is something not many companies do as much as you. Why have you chosen to work this way?

Because we want to meet our costumers. We want to hear their stories. We want to get a personal relation with all of the beautiful women and men who have problems with their skin as we have. We want to make a strong connection with the people out there.

Miild's inspiring Instagram account, where Tanja and Tine share information about their products, videos of how to apply the makeup and lots of inspiration to avoid damaging products in your everyday life. 

You both have allergies, and as makeup artists you have seen a lot of different products. Which product category would you consider the worst for our skin? Or, differently asked: What should we replace first if we wanted to get started with more clean beauty?

We think it's important to see it in a bigger picture. It isn’t just the makeup you use, its also your skincare, beauty products etc. It’s the combination of it all together that makes the big difference. Choose products that are certified and which are without perfume and hormone-disrupting substances. Choose products with ingredients that makes your skin super hydrated instead of dry and irritated. Try not to use products that you actually don’t need. You have to start from the beginning and look at all the products you use.

We read that as the first makeup brand in the world, you have three cosmetic certificates, which is so cool. Can you tell us about these?

Thanks for your kind words! We would like to create transparency, and the certifications are helping us to be sure that the products we developing are as pure as we say they are. The people behind the certificates are checking where all the raw materials come from and what packaging we are allowed to use. It takes a lot of time and put us on a lot of work, but when we have the finished product in our hands it is worth it. Our three certifications stand for allergy, sustainability, and ecology.

Right now you are doing a project with Global Climate Institute called “Buy One – Plant One”. What is it about? 

We liked the vision behind the Global Climate Institute and decided to make a campaign with them. We try to be as transparent and sustainable as possible. So, every time you buy one product in this box, you are planting a tree in India. We have now planted 3000 trees and hope for many more.

The founders of Miild: Tine (l.) and Tanja (r.) behind the successful makeup brand both have allergies themselves, and have therefore created a makeup brand with focus on allergy-friendly ingredients. 

Why is it so important for you to be a sustainable makeup brand?

There is a lot of waste in this industry and a lot of plastic. We want to stop that, therefore we use 90% reusable cardbox as packaking. Nobody can be a 100% sustainable, but in all our choices we try to think it in. 

We are in love with your beautiful color palette, and that there are only few products within each category. Wasn’t it difficult to choose the few colors that should match a lot of different women? 

We have both worked a lot with makeup, so it has actually been very natural to choose the different colors. It was important that the colors could fit more that one specific face tone. Therefore we have developed four colors in our blush. It's great to see makeup on so many women and to see how it works on their skin. It simply shows how good the work with all the undertones have been.

This might be a forbidden question, but can you say anything about new products?

We are working as hard as we can on new products. We are hopefully going to launch our mascara and foundation in March. We come out with lipstick with color and eyeliner in 2018. Then the next two products in our pipeline are tended lip balm and a black and a brown eyeliner. We want to keep on making more beautiful products and it is very important for us to interact with our customers, so we get feedback and ideas of, what kind of makeup products they miss in their life.

As the last question, we would like you to recommend three inspiring Instagram accounts or blogs that you think we should all go follow right away.

@Rudolphcare – Danish skincare product.

@Res___Res – Danish fashion store with focus on sustainable brands.

@miildmakeup – you already know.

Thank you so much, Tanja and Tine!

➸ You want to try out what we have talked about? Take a look at Miild's Instagram account or head over to their webshop and discover the brand's beautiful selection. Both Tine and Tanja also share a lot of beauty tips on their own Instagram pages, so you can also find lots of great advice there! 

If you have liked this interview, you might also enjoy reading about gourmet candy entrepreneur Emma Bülow from Copenhagen or the popular flower artist Poppykalas on our blog. More beauty? Discover the inspiring story of Josephine Förster who is the creator of the hyped Berlin-based brand Lovely Day Botanicals.

Interview by Mermaid Stories
Photos by Miild Makeup