Can Long Distance Relationships Work?

You are probably wondering what this topic has to do with Clean Beauty & Natural Living? Well in the case of Nourished it has everything to do with it!

Some of you may have noticed on instagram that it is rare to see Floor & I together in a photo (until the past year). Well the reason for this that some of you may not have realised is that we are in a long-distance (business) relationship. Floor lives in the Netherlands & I live in Sydney, Australia!

Nourished - the early days 

Floor and I met in Amsterdam whilst both working at a health care practice in the Oud Zuid, I am a Chiropractor & Floor is a Dietician. We had an instant connection over our shared love of all things natural! Floor would however be continually confused by my complaints about the lack of beautiful NATURAL skin care & beauty choices in the Netherlands. Sure, you could buy something from the Natuurwinkel, but it all felt so basic and harsh. I wanted something beautiful to nourish myself with every day, I always saw this as such an important ritual in my life, a gift to myself.

But it wasn’t until Floor visited me in Australia in 2016 that she really understood what I was talking about. One day she came out of my bathroom and she was like “babe I have just been trying on your deodorant!” It’s so nice! And it’s natural? And all of the things in your bathroom are natural?!! I have been trying them all!”  I had to laugh as that is not such an Australian thing to do… or at least if you were in your friends bathroom trying all her things you probably wouldn’t tell her about it. Floor asked where she could get the products from and I opened up one of the many online boutiques on my computer that I shop from in Australia. Floor looked at me shocked and said “ I can get all of these beautiful brands in the one place online? And they will deliver to me??!! We HAVE to do this in the Netherlands!” And so Nourished was born.

When we set up the company Floor & I decided that our first priority is our relationship, our company always comes second to that, and with that value guiding us through the maze of running a business we have made what would seem an almost impossible situation, a very long distance relationship, incredibly enjoyable & successful.

Working from opposite sides of the globe

Floor & I work together every single day, 7 days a week, from opposite sides of the globe. We communicate through email, Slack, What’s App, Messenger, Instagram, and over the phone. We are “on” from 5.30am Sydney time to 6pm Netherlands time, which encompasses a 20.5hr time span in the winter and an 18.5 hr time span in the Summer.

Our unique locations have allowed us to develop very defined roles within the business, which like any relationship allows clarity and means we can work very easily on our own and also as a team. Having worked together previously in the flesh also has allowed us to understand how each other works. We are lucky in that we both share an insane love of attention to detail & organisation. We also understand what each other strengths/weaknesses are and how we can support the other person by ‘filling in the gaps’.

Floor looks after our daily operations, stock & events, I take charge of sourcing our Australian & Kiwi brands, brand relationships and some of the longer view planning and our small team take care of the rest! I really enjoy being able to return to the Netherlands a every year for Floor and I to ‘reconnect’ in person, for me to be able to ‘feel’ our company, to meet all of the people who support us from our PR agency to many of our beautiful community of Clean & Green shoppers.    

The highs and lows of a long distance relationship 

Like any relationship we definitely have ups and downs, however we continually bring ourselves back to our top value of maintaining our relationship and our mission of bringing the very best of Clean Beauty & Natural Living to the Netherlands. 

I would like to personally thank each & every one of you for supporting our dream. We would not have been able to build Nourished without your trust or your passion for Clean Beauty & Natural Living . Love & sunshine, Erin xxx