Bella Hadid ‘Never Thought’ She’d Put Out a Product—Until Orebella Came Along

Like most people, Bella Hadid picked up a pandemic project. During quarantine she would visit a health food store in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, near where the model was living on her family farm, and go shopping for natural ingredients and oils to test on her skin. At first her lotions and potions were something fun to pass time; little did she know that her homemade concoctions would go on to become the foundation of her new fragrance line, Orebella.

“I never thought I’d put out a product,” Hadid tells Glamour. “There are so many out in the world, but it felt really kismet a couple years ago. We already make a lot of lavender oil on our farm, and I would get glycerin and different weird essential oils from our little health food store. I would make things, and they would smell really unique. If I wanted to add a little spiciness, I would add ginger and peppercorn, then I would add a little bit of lemon. Then all of a sudden I’m deep into this whole cycle of making all of these really interesting scents.”

Hadid quickly realized there was a gap in the market for skin-care-based fragrance, inspiring her to launch three alcohol-free perfumes—Window2Soul, Salted Muse, and Blooming Fire—all enriched with nourishing ingredients like camellia, almond, olive, jojoba, and shea. Hadid recognizes the influx of celebrity beauty brands but stands by her decision to release a product she truly believes in. After receiving “so many compliments” on her homemade fragrances, she decided to take the leap after the name Orebella came to her “in the middle of the night.”

“At one point I was just like, ‘I can’t keep this to myself anymore,’” she says. “I do feel like I can make this something really big that people will be excited about and not feeling like there’s just another something on the market as a money grab. This is just genuinely something after so many years that I was like, ‘I feel this is important to share.’”

Despite her determination, Hadid admits that the process came with a few hurdles. She felt the pressure of presenting her ideas to “20 very intelligent New York businessmen” and worked long nights to create decks for her pitch. “Going through the process of [presenting] a company to somebody is extremely humbling,” she says. “It wasn’t like somebody came to me and were like, ‘We have this idea for you, and this is how it’s going to be set up, and these are going to be the three first scents, and you’ll be the face of it. Let’s go. We’ll make a lot of money.’”

Another important crowd to impress? Her mother, Yolanda Hadid, and sister, Gigi Hadid. “These are two tough critics,” she says. “But not even in a bad way. My mom doesn’t like super-sweet things but does a more floral smell. And my sister loves Salted Muse and Blooming Fire. Blooming Fire at the end of the day was an ode to Gigi. One of her favorite places growing up was Tahiti, and she would go with her friends. She loved it there. What we have in Blooming Fire is this Tahitian monoi flower, which is one of my favorite smells.”

Ahead, Hadid shares her number one beauty rule, her favorite ways to unwind, and why representing her heritage is so important.

Glamour: How does Orebella cross over to skin care and wellness?

Bella Hadid: I want you to be able to wake up in the morning, take a shower, and put this over your entire body, and it would moisturize you. It would make you smell good. It would act with your pH to be able to make it a unique smell for you. For me, growing up in an Arab family, when it comes to scents there was this beauty of being able to have a personality on your skin. And that’s something that I’ve written down for so many years, is that our auras are our best accessories.

I really wanted to have something that was still accessible to people, that is sexy. It is cool and fun. But also just for people to know that you don’t need anything else. It’s just you and your skin. The bi-phase formula—shake to activate—was a cool theory we thought of a couple years ago. Just being able to get out of the shower, lather it all over your body, or even going to sleep at night and to be able to put it on not only for yourself but for your significant other, and your skin feels amazing afterwards. That’s something that differentiates us from the rest of the products that are out there right now.

Why was it important to you to represent your family and your heritage and your brand?

When I close my eyes and these references come to me, it always ends up going back to my family and my Uncle Mahmood, who made essential oils in the ’70s and ’80s. After a long path of me already working on Orebella, I found a bottle of his, and everything felt like it came together full circle. Which is really crazy to have this passion for something, but also knowing that my family lines were also as passionate about it as I was. I love my family so much, and I love where I came from, and I always want to be able to in any way support and acknowledge that.

What’s your favorite way to take a moment for yourself?

Before, when I was in treatment [for Lyme disease] every day, I would wake up, I do my vitamins, do all of my health ritual stuff. I would make my protein coffee and have a juice and go outside and sit next to this tree and write in my journal, my morning pages, five pages. And with that would probably trigger some poetry. I would play with my dog and be outside. That was on the off days of my treatment when I didn’t have to do anything. Now I like to make sure that every day I do one thing that makes me feel good, and one thing that makes me feel unique or different or excited about the day, whether it is just jumping into my—I want to say a cold plunge, but it’s literally just my pool and a pipe burst so it won’t heat up—and I jump in there in the morning and it makes me feel good.

What beauty rule do you swear by?

I stand by always washing your face before you go to sleep. A hundred percent. I have some friends that have the most beautiful skin, and they will literally wake up in the morning and I’ll be like, ‘Did you just not, you didn’t wash your face?’ And they’re like, ‘No.’ Obviously do you, because your skin is perfect. But me, if I leave my makeup on one night, I wake up and I’m breaking out. I stand by making sure I wash my face before I go to sleep every night, making sure I do my skin care, at least putting lotion on and drinking a big bottle of water.

Fill in the blank. I feel most beautiful when ____.

When I’m with the people I love, I feel confident in myself. And when I’m in the sun. Honestly, when I’m in the sun, I feel like I a hundred percent feel most beautiful.

Ariana Yaptangco is the senior beauty editor at Glamour. Follow her @arianayap.

Originally Appeared on Glamour