Fjör Skincare: Natalie Enslöw on Biotech Beauty, Simplicity and Confidence
Words: Luke Brown
Photography: Christian Tuckwell-Smith
Lighting Assistant: Jack Lai
MUA/Hair: Margherita Lascala
The cosmetic world is a battlefield. A constantly shifting terrain where corporate giants square up to start-ups, branding teams spar with scientists, and new entrants jostle for a few square inches on the Selfridges beauty floor.
One lap through Boots is enough to understand the scale of competition - and the sheer audacity required to break through it.
It is an industry fuelled by noise, marketing budgets the size of small economies, and an ever-expanding sea of serums, essences and overnight miracles.
Yet smaller, independent skincare brands are increasingly finding ways to compete. A growing number are building their reputations around more focused product ranges and a clearer understanding of what customers actually want.
Building Fjör from the Ground Up
Natalie wears: Jaeger-LeCoultre - Watch, £21,600, jaeger-lecoultre.com;
Norton & Sons - Velvet Suit, £2,750, nortonandsons.co.uk
But Natalie Enslöw, the founder of Fjör, is doing exactly that. Not through noise or hype, but through that old-fashioned concept many brands forget: a product that works.
And, crucially, a refusal to wait around. “I gave myself a deadline - one year, no extensions. We soft-launched in May 2022 and officially launched in August. I worked alone, so every decision was on me,” she says, perched calmly on set at our cover shoot, as if recounting a brisk weekend project rather than the launch of a biotech-driven skincare company.
There is determination, yes, but also an almost Scandinavian understatement about the whole endeavour.
For the record, I had tried Fjör before meeting Enslöw. Their flagship Hydrolytic Serum performed miracles on a face whose routine rarely extended beyond moisturiser. The hardest hurdle had been cleared: the product delivers.
A Product That Cuts Through the Noise
Natalie wears: Brunello Cucinelli - Double Breasted Jacket, £3,500, brunellocucinelli.com;
Panerai - Watch, £16,800, panerai.com
It is refreshing to experience in an industry where results often lag far behind the promise. And others seem to think so too. Fjör’s rise has been rapid, buoyed by admirers ranging from British model David Gandy to everyday customers who tell the brand it’s “the first time in years they’ve felt comfortable in their skin - people who’ve struggled since their teens.”
In the crowded universe of skincare metrics, that might be the only one that truly matters. Confidence is difficult to quantify in a spreadsheet, but easy to recognise when people begin writing to you.
Yet the road here was anything but linear. Enslöw’s story is stitched from two cultures and two philosophies.
“I had this gut feeling - it wasn’t right for me. I realised I wanted to build something that helped people feel their best...”
“I was born and raised in Singapore but spent a lot of time in Sweden growing up. Singapore is fast-paced and achievement-driven - finance, law, medicine - whereas Sweden is grounded in balance and nature,” she says smiling at the memory.
Her parents embody that duality. “My mum is Malaysian, came from very humble beginnings, and built her career through sheer determination - she bought a one-way ticket to Australia for college. My dad is Swedish and entrepreneurial.
“The corporate discipline and the creative risk-taking - they showed me there’s more than one path to success.” That duality has become part of Fjör’s genetic code: scientific precision wrapped in Nordic restraint, ambition tempered by clarity.
From Rolex to Founder
Natalie wears: Brunello Cucinelli - Blouse, £1,550, brunellocucinelli.com; Brunello Cucinelli - Trousers, £1,200, brunellocucinelli.com; Panerai - Watch, £16,800, panerai.com
Before Fjör, though, she took a more traditional route. After studying at Copenhagen Business School, she moved to London, working first in media planning, before landing what she calls her “dream role” in marketing at Rolex.
It was, on paper, the perfect trajectory. “It felt like a dream come true. I thought it would be my forever job,” she says. But on her first day, something shifted. “I had this gut feeling - it wasn’t right for me. I realised I wanted to build something that helped people feel their best.”
So she quit soon after. No safety net. No tidy five-year plan. Just a single aim: “I wanted to be in the business of confidence. Helping people feel comfortable in their skin - literally and emotionally.” Many founders talk about intuition; Enslöw actually listened to hers.
There is something familiar about that determination to carve out an individual path. Actor Kwabena Peprah spoke about a similar instinct when we met him to discuss his work on Netflix's The Tower and the challenges of building a career on his own terms. Different industries, certainly, but a shared reluctance to let convention dictate what comes next.
That conviction carried her into the most daunting stage: the science. “I had no background in biotech,” she says, “but I started researching and reaching out to labs in Sweden.”
Entering Biotech Without a Blueprint
Natalie wears: Jaeger-LeCoultre - Watch, £21,600, jaeger-lecoultre.com;
Norton & Sons - Velvet Suit, £2,750, nortonandsons.co.uk
Eventually she found a group of enzyme engineers - brilliant, obsessive, and with thirty years of breakthroughs behind them.
They weren’t planning to launch skincare; she wasn’t planning to become a biotech founder. But the chemistry was instant.
“I met with the lab and said, ‘I have this idea - can we do it together?’” she recalls, laughing. “The key in any startup is knowing what you don’t know. They had the science; I had the vision.”
A neat yin-yang that became Fjör’s foundation.
The Science Behind Fjör
Natalie wears: Jaeger-LeCoultre - Watch, £21,600, jaeger-lecoultre.com; Jaeger-LeCoultre - Watch, £66,000, jaeger-lecoultre.com; Jaeger-LeCoultre - Watch, £12,500, jaeger-lecoultre.com; Norton & Sons - Double Breasted Three Piece Suit, £3,280, nortonandsons.co.uk
And the science is genuinely distinct. Fjör’s patented hydrolytic enzyme technology activates only on the skin - breaking down bad bacteria, clearing dead cells, and creating space for good bacteria to thrive.
It works with the skin’s microbiome rather than waging war on it. In an industry addicted to over-cleansing and ten-step routines, the logic feels refreshingly sane. It is personalised skincare without the personalised faff: clever without being complicated.
“Simplicity is everything,” Enslöw says. “We’re helping people support their skin’s function, not replace it with layers of product. You don’t need ten steps - just two or three exceptional ones that work with your biology, not against it.”
And this philosophy extends far beyond the pipette. “I wanted to make biotech feel human. For too long, skincare has been either overly scientific or overly commercial - endless steps, endless jargon. Fjör is about balance: science that serves people.”
Building a Brand Beyond Product
Natalie wears: Jaeger-LeCoultre - Watch, £21,600, jaeger-lecoultre.com;
Norton & Sons - Velvet Suit, £2,750, nortonandsons.co.uk
Even the name carries this clarity. Fjör - Icelandic for life, vitality and merriment - captures the Nordic backbone of the brand. “Early on, I wrote down three words that every decision had to reflect: simple, powerful, accessible. Those guided everything - from design to partnerships.” And they still do.
That clarity of purpose extends well beyond skincare. When we spoke with textile designer Antonia Claudie about her approach to sustainable design, a similar emphasis on materials, process and considered production emerged. In both cases, the decisions behind the finished product are as important as the product itself.
Exhibit A: a recent collaboration with Bicester Village, where Fjör hosted an intimate morning at the National Gallery followed by breakfast.
The partnership wasn’t engineered; Bicester reached out organically, a marker of the momentum the brand is generating.
“It was such a special experience,” Enslöw says. “Everyone showed up, even during a tube strike. It reminded me that community is everything.”
What Comes Next for Fjör
Natalie wears: Brunello Cucinelli - Blouse, £1,550, brunellocucinelli.com
That sense of community - and the appetite for what Fjör represents - bodes well for the future, which Enslöw has in sharp focus.
Alongside new products in development, she sees the brand widening its scope. “Beyond product, we’re building Fjör into a platform for longevity, wellness and confidence. This is just the beginning.”
Where Fjör goes next is anyone’s guess - though Enslöw’s track record suggests it won’t be small. She has already married biotech with beauty, simplicity with precision, and ambition with a rare kind of steadiness.
In a sector crowded with noise, Fjör’s strength is its certainty: a brand built on science, clarity and the belief that good skin should feel effortless. If this is just the beginning, the industry would be wise to pay attention.
