Olly puts pause on menopause with new supplement
Olly is continuing its mission of focusing on women’s needs throughout an array of product launches and company initiatives.
To roll out its newest Mellow Menopause supplement, the brand held an informational meeting with its CEO Hanneke Willenborg, actress Hilarie Burton (the newest spokesperson for Olly) and women’s wellness expert Dr. Kiarra King, OB/GYN.
Mellow Menopause is formulated with two essential ingredients, EstroG-100 Proprietary Herbal Extract and GABA, to support all stages of menopause. It provides multi-symptom relief for hot flashes, night sweats, mood, fatigue and sleep.
“So much of menopause is viewed as something that we need to fix,” Burton shared at the event. “But I will say, from personal experience, the righteous rage I feel sometimes is a good thing. I have felt really empowered in some of my business settings to be like, ‘You know what? I’m not doing this shit anymore,’ and so perhaps that’s the part of aging and this biological process, that’s a gift.”
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In light of this launch, Olly also showcased its new menopause policy for employees, which is designed to support those experiencing menopause symptoms that can impact work life, including flexible work hours for employees, additional work from home accommodations, in-office arrangements like access to a quiet wellness room and access to extended reproductive care benefits.
“Women’s health matters, honestly, are kind of swept under the rug,” Dr. King said at the event. “What I would want to tell patients is that education is empowerment. The more that we can educate ourselves on whatever it may be about our bodies, the better.”
To learn more about why now was the right time for Olly to tackle menopause, DSN spoke to Willenborg about the launch and the new company policy.
Drug Store News: Can you share a little about the new products and how it helps women going through menopause and perimenopause?
Hanneke Willenborg: Let me start by saying that Olly is a proud San Francisco-based corporation, and we have benefits-driven science-backed products that are serving women through each of their life stages. Most of the women that we serve are millennial women who are getting older, of course, and starting to get perimenopausal and menopausal. So we really wanted to develop a product that addresses many symptoms that are accompanying symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats and vaginal dryness so we developed a product that goes after 11 symptoms.
DSN: Olly conducted research regarding menopause. What did you find?
HW: The first thing we discovered is that there is still a lot of unknown and stigma around menopause. Seventy two percent of women do not know enough about what’s going to be happening to them, and I was definitely one. The other thing that we researched with our medical advisors is that there is a little bit of a thing within the society that when you come to a medical practitioner with certain symptoms, that it’s really focused, the treatments are focused on the symptoms instead of the treatment on the root causes. And what’s available for the root causes is hormonal therapy or other medication. We wanted to develop something that is hormonal free and drug free.
DSN: Do you mind sharing a little bit about your experience and how the supplement has helped you?
HW: One of my biggest symptoms was moodiness and irritability. And when I used to have my periods regularly, I used to be moody just before. It was one day and it was over because it was predictable. But now I started to be moody and irritable all through the months, and it’s not fun. So what Mellow Menopause does mostly for me is help with my irritability and my mood swings. I feel more balanced, I feel more equipped, I feel more ready for the day. So in that sense, Olly is really doing well by making sure that they serve their CEO, the product that is making her more balanced. It’s helped me to show up as the best version of myself.
DSN: Obviously this a new category for the brand, but are there plans to expand additional products? Is this a first step towards something bigger for Olly?
HW: Women’s health will always be a very big opportunity for us, and we will continue to make sure that we support women with benefits-led science products all through their lifestyles. So we will be looking at other opportunities as they come up.
