Meet The Founder - Olga Ringquist

Below is an excerpt from Olga's Interview with Because Magazine, read the full article here.

"Who here has had to force themselves to finish one serum before starting another?! Sure, recyclable and compostable packaging, and refills have helped to assuage our worries but to some degree, these processes still involve tossing the product in the bin or sending it off. But what if we had a product that we could keep forever? Even once we’ve finished the benefit-boasting formula? That’s exactly what the father-daughter duo Olga and Pavel Babneev have created with Oquist cosmetics.

“Working in the beauty field, I started to question the way we produce and consume conventional beauty today. So dad and I decided to unite our expertise and views on the future of beauty, and created Oquist Cosmetics,” said Olga. And Oquist is anything but conventional, just look at how beautifully their waterless formulas are housed in terracotta sculptures – the first skincare brand to do so. We had to ask, “Why go waterless?” Most often known to be a good thing for our health and ‘natural’, we wondered if we had missed something. Olga explains, “We found that one of the most efficient ways to reduce a beauty company's carbon footprint is by having waterless formulas, since water is usually added in skincare as a so-called 'filler', creating unnecessary volumes for packaging and shipment. Another perk with waterless skincare is that one doesn't need to add preservatives, known to irritate the skin and harm aquatic life and ecosystems.” 

Continuing the conversation with Olga, we asked our 8Qs to learn more about her entrepreneurial lifestyle.

What is a book that you always come back to and why?
"The Theory of Everything" by Stephen W. Hawking. I'm a huge consumer of popular science about space and Hawking's book amazes me every time. After a bad day my go-to is a bottle of weissbier and some space content.

What is your morning ritual like?
After getting my son to preschool at around 8 am I get back home to my ceremonial tea space and have at least three bowls of tea, which is a sort of meditation. This helps me ground and start the day in a peaceful mind (unlike what it's like before getting to that preschool). Since I prefer lunch as my biggest meal of the day, I tend to have a smaller breakfast usually containing some sort of sandwich. Then I put on a podcast and walk to the gym where I spend most of my time working while taking breaks in the hamam, the pool and gym restaurant. Compared to my corporate career this is heaven!

What's your party trick?
Haha, I have this recurring pantomime ritual with an invisible wall that I break with an invisible electric saw and then crawl out on the other side of the wall through the invisible hole. This usually happens on the dance floor for no apparent reason.

If you could travel anywhere right now, where would it be?
Probably to dad and the production in Riga. Since the pandemic we only saw each other once during the two years since starting Oquist.

Name something that you're grateful for.
So hard to only name one thing, there's so much! If only one thing it would be the fact that mum and I emigrated to Sweden when I was 6 years old. I'd imagine my life would be quite different if we didn't.

Name three things that you can't live without.
My family, tea and Sicilian green olives.