Taneesa Williamson A luxurious escape in the heart of London, now paired with a slice of Australia’s opulent spa scene.
Surrenne, an exclusive wellness club nestled within a fuse of modern innovation and elegance in London, offers an unparalleled journey of transformation, catering to every facet of health, fitness, and beauty. With a commitment to holistic wellbeing, Surrenne invites guests to explore a world where sophistication meets technology, setting a new standard for those who seek the ultimate in wellness.
Now, members of the exclusive club are set to experience the potency of our Australian native bush botanicals thanks to Aussie skincare brand Ipsum being used in the wet room experience treatments available at Surrenne. Ipsum Founder Janet Hayward tells us more about the exclusive partnership, but first, a little bit more about what makes Surrenne so special.
The club’s offerings are a seamless fusion of sophisticated design and state-of-the-art equipment, curated for the discerning wellness enthusiast, across seven treatment rooms inside their spa. Central to Surrenne’s ethos is a focus on core strength and holistic wellness, informed by protocols developed by Virtusan’s Scientific Advisory Board to ensure treatments are crafted to meet the highest standards of wellness.
Alongside wellness comes fitness and recovery, with Surrenne’s dedicated recovery spaces featuring specialty steam rooms, Hyperice tools, and Hypervolt massage machines, all designed to refresh and restore the body after intense physical activity.
Membership (which is application-based) at Surrenne grants access to a comprehensive range of services, each designed to elevate your wellbeing. The club’s signature spa experiences are tailored to soothe, rejuvenate, and invigorate. From luxurious massages and facials to wet room treatments that cleanse and detoxify, every service at Surrenne is a testament to the art of wellness.
Inside the spa and wet room, Australian-founded skincare range Ipsum (founded by Janet Hayward) supports the wellness club’s ethos and synergistically flows within the treatment menu, showcasing some of the best ingredients in skincare that Australia has to offer.
We caught up with Janet to learn more about the range, alongside how it is incorporated into the treatment menu at Surrenne.
Janet, why did you create Ipsum and how does it stand out from other skincare brands?
After many years of writing about beauty and interviewing lots of other beauty brand founders, I realised that I had the same strong passion for researching and understanding ingredients and finding the ‘holy grail’ of texture, performance and holistic benefits from a carefully considered formula. I have also been a longtime devotee of organic, plant-based formulations – and the opportunity to take time to learn more about the bioavailable potency of our Australian native bush botanicals was the real catalyst to create Ipsum.
I think it’s probably the same the world over, but it’s extraordinary how our own native ingredients are often overlooked – however, for example, the fact that significant international natural brands are now featuring our Kakakdu Plum in their skincare formulas, for its incredible concentration of vitamin C, should make us trust and feel proud of our Australian native plants!
Our formulas are predominantly COSMOS organic-certified – with the exception of the products featuring earth clays – and they are vegan, created only with sustainably-sourced, highest quality organic oils, waxes and extracts from plants grown in their natural habitat, that are supercharged with the unique potency of Australian native bush botanicals. They are carefully balanced formulations to ensure that they are tolerated by even the most sensitive skin types, yet active enough to work with the skin to restore equilibrium and produce radiantly healthy results.
Many of our Australian plant ingredients also work at a deeper level – for example, Fragonia is a wonderful ingredient because it has also been shown to not only help keep the respiratory tract free of infection, but it can also help influence the body’s regulation of melatonin production to restore a balanced circadian rhythm. This is why we include it in some of our spa treatments and also our Ipsum Best Skin Replenishing Mist – perfect for inflight cabin dryness plus it relieves the symptoms of jet lag!
The complex phytocompound composition of plant extracts, along with the naturally high concentrations of antioxidants found in Australian botanicals, is something that cannot be replicated by a laboratory-developed ingredient – and it’s the considered synergy of these ingredients in Ipsum formulas that amplifies the restorative and regenerative benefits for our skin – and also our mind and spirit.
We are also proud supporters of Bush Heritage Australia which is a non-profit organisation that works with First Nations communities to regenerate and protect the biodiversity of our unique landscape and animals – it’s very important to me that if we are producing products that are good for you and your skin, they need to be good for the planet too. As part of the strict COSMOS regulations, all our packaging is either reusable or recyclable.
The current collection comprises 9 facial care products and 5 body care products, and this year we will add an additional product to each of our face and body ranges. Our Spa trainer is currently working on some lovely new protocols, combining facial acupressure and cranial reflexology to add to our treatment menu.
How did the partnership with Surrenne come about?
The partnership with Surrenne has been the result of a really lovely relationship that I established with a Buying Director at Fortnum&Mason in London. Ipsum launched into the UK market at Fortnum&Mason and in particular, Ipsum Best Skin Face Oil Intense Treatment generated a real fan base – but then COVID happened and the physical retail world came to a standstill… then the Buying Director moved on to work with the Maybourne Group, mentioning to me that she would love to bring Ipsum on board.
I launched Ipsum SPA Body Balm Vetiver Citrus at a lovely event at the new Claridges spa and when I told them about the upcoming Ipsum SPA Hammam collection, they were really interested in finding our all about it and trying the first samples, but they couldn’t reveal that it was for the new project in Mayfair, Surrenne (I thought they were considering it for Claridges spa wet room treatments).
The focus for Surrenne was on natural and organic products that are of the earth and that they are sustainably and consciously produced. Our SPA Hammam Soap, used in the wet room treatments at Surrenne, is based on the ancient tradition of soap making in Syria and Turkey, but it is made here in Australia with biodynamically-grown, organic olives from Mt Zero that go through a traditional saponification process to create the jam-like soap – and that’s it!
Transparency in provenance of ingredients and method of manufacture is vital to ensure the highest quality of the final product. Surrenne, as you can imagine, was an immense and very carefully crafted project, and their signature treatment protocols for Ipsum wet room treatments were being developed and fine-tuned for over a year before they finally opened their 4-levels of Wellness and Longevity in April 2024.
Can you describe some of the treatments on offer there using Ipsum?
Ipsum is used in the wet room experience treatments available at Surrenne – the wet rooms are really beautifully and impeccably crafted, made of white onyx with a heated white onyx treatment table and a personal steam room in each wet room. The Signature Purifying White Onyx Wet Spa Experience is a full body Hammam-style experience starting with a steam bath and then a generous massage over the body with the SPA Hammam Soap to deep cleanse and start the exfoliation process.
The soap is removed by a gentle massage with our SPA Hammam Mitt for a full-body polish and to leave the skin ready to receive a full-body mask with our SPA Hammam Mask which features both Australian white and Rhassoul clays, omega-rich plant butters and oils and a trio of Australian Limes – Caviar, Desert and Native – rich in ferulic acid and vitamin C to brighten and even-out skin tone, firm skin and boost collagen production.
The Mask is formulated as a facial mask so this can be extended to neck and face. The SPA Mask is then gently removed with warm water and the treatment is completed with an all over body massage with our silky, naturally warm-scented SPA Body Oil. Other wet room treatments focus on deep-cleansing the body with the SPA Soap and the SPA Mask and also include a lovely scalp massage therapy using a London-based brand called Mon Pure.
What kind of spa/wellness business would Ipsum fit into?
I would really love to introduce Ipsum into an Australian-based spa and wellness business. I personally feel any spa with a focus on wellness as a truly holistic experience would be a perfect fit!
From a performance aspect, our supercharged-formulas achieve visibly, wonderful, radiant and healthy skin results and have helped to calm, rebalance and restore issues including rosacea and acne, while also rejuvenating an enlivened healthy glow in dehydrated and mature skin.
Ipsum products work to nurture and restore equilibrium to the skin and our wellbeing and our unique treatment protocols are based on principles of ancient rituals to amplify the benefits of our ingredients, to relieve the stresses of modern day living that affect our skin, mind and our spirit.
We offer full training in all our signature protocols for face and body and they are designed to easily slot into an existing menu to complement other treatments or to stand alone as a alternative, COSMOS-certified organic treatments offer that are suitable for everyone, including during pregnancy.
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