about

melted started in my kitchen in December 2025, with a kilo of soy wax, shea butter and vanilla jojoba oil, making massage candles as Christmas gifts for my favourite people. a month later, it became a startup project in an incubator.

turning it into a real brand meant taking a closer look at the beauty industry. according to the British Beauty Council, it produces more than 120 billion units of packaging a year, and 70% of its plastic waste isn’t recycled. ingredient lists are often a long string of names in Latin and chemistry that most brands don’t bother to explain.

so i set myself three rules: use as little plastic as possible, keep the ingredient list as short as possible, and choose ingredients of natural origin.

for the packaging, we went with aluminium, which can be recycled again and again. our mission is to take as much plastic out of your bathroom as we can. to make sure your tube actually gets recycled, squeeze out what’s left, take off the cap, and put it in the yellow packaging bin.

choosing the first products was personal. honestly, i didn’t even use a cleanser until i read that washing your face properly is the first step in slowing down skin aging, together with keeping it hydrated and protecting it from the sun. that’s why a cleanser and a cream were the first two products we developed.

for the formulas, i wanted a specialist with the right knowledge, and that’s where Olja came in. she’s a microbiologist with a PhD, spent nine years in pharmaceutical quality at Lek, and holds an accredited diploma in cosmetic chemistry from Australia. she also makes every batch by hand in Slovenia.

every ingredient is there for a reason, whether it’s texture, preservation or the active that does the work. when choosing the key ingredients, i went back to our tradition, to how grandmothers made remedies at home, which is where elderflower comes from. planika was suggested by herbalist Mirjam from Aelita, and since it’s protected in Slovenia, ours is grown specifically for use in cosmetics. each product is built around clinically studied ingredients, and if you’re curious, we’re happy to share the research behind them.

Olja made several versions of each formula, and we gave out more than 100 samples to test them. people told us what they thought of the texture, the scent and how it felt on their skin, and we adapted the formulas to what they wanted.

and last but not least, melted was never a one-person project: Olja, my mentors Dejan, Maruša, Blaž and Ana, our graphic designer Špela, Mirjam from Aelita, and my beautiful family and friends, who tested the first products and were the first to buy them. melted always was, and always will be, about the people who brought it to life, and about you, for supporting it and helping it grow.