Miranda Kerr almost requires no introduction with her multitude of achievements — but here’s one anyway. In 2007, Kerr made history as the first Australian Victoria’s Secret Angel, joining a league of top supermodels, including Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima and Heidi Klum, as the faces of the brand. Parallel to her modelling career in the early ’00s, Kerr was a pioneer of the celebrity beauty brand, broadening her skills by developing her beauty brand, KORA Organics in as early as 2009.
The multi-hyphenate was inspired to create her brand due to the lack of organic skincare products in the market. “Using clean and certified organic products became especially important to me when I was a teenager as my mom was diagnosed with cancerous tumours in her spleen,” she explains. “Our family started to do further research and learned that a lot of the everyday products we were using in our lives, from household cleaning products to packaged food items and skincare products, contain chemicals that are harmful to our health. We were shocked to see how potentially carcinogenic and unhealthy certain ingredients were readily available in the market yet deemed safe — even products that claimed to be natural really weren’t!”
Kerr views this as a turning point in her life, when she started prioritising holistic wellness in her lifestyle. “I learned so much from this experience,” she says. “I was encouraged to embrace caring for our body from a holistic point of view. This is what sparked my interest in certified organic products because, that way, you have the verification that the products and ingredients are as pure as they can be.”
As a result, Kerr felt compelled to create a skincare brand that is 100 per cent certified organic with effective results, something she found to be missing in the beauty industry back then. “Our skin is the largest organ in our body so, to me, it’s important to put the purest ingredients on it as what you put on your skin soaks in,” she adds.
Investing the money she made from modelling at the time to consult and research with chemists, as well as create samples, she built KORA Organics from the ground up. “I knew from day one that I wanted to create powerful, clinically active, yet healthy products that were certified organic by Cosmos, a strict world certification that guarantees products and the ingredients we use are genuinely organic and produced to the highest feasible sustainability practices,” she explains. “By having our products independently reviewed and accredited to this standard, our customers can trust that our products are what they claim to be. Everything from the ingredients to the manufacturing facilities and the packaging materials must be reviewed, approved and audited by Cosmos.”
Kerr elaborates: “By using strictly certified organic ingredients, these harvesting practices involve less pollution and soil erosion, and require less energy than non-organic ingredient harvesting practices. The organic farming techniques used to harvest our ingredients also provide a safer, more sustainable environment for everyone we impact with our products.”
To this day, Kerr finds it important to continuously improve her knowledge in the field of health and wellness, prompting her to get her certification as a health coach from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in 2010 to help her improve the way she runs her business. “I also recently took a Stanford University class online about health and nutrition through Coursera and I am learning more and more every day through KORA Organics,” she says.
As a model, businesswoman, health coach and mother of four, Kerr takes her multifaceted career head-on with a cheerful disposition and a determined mindset. “Always give 100 per cent in all that you do or don’t do it at all,” she replies when asked what is the best advice she has received. “This echoes through my head no matter what I’m doing. Whether I’m making business decisions or at home cleaning, I always make sure I’m putting in 100 per cent.”
Despite her many responsibilities, Kerr’s taken to juggling both family and work commitments in her stride, spending quality time with her family, having picnics in their garden, going on walks, baking, and doing arts and crafts with them on her days off. “My family is my number one priority and I’m grateful to have an incredible team who understand and support that,” she says.
As for self-care, it’s no surprise that Kerr prioritises holistic wellness. “Mindfulness plays a big part in my self-care routine to manage the day-to-day stress that comes with running a business and raising four boys,” she explains. How she does this? By getting up early to meditate and exercise before her children start their day. “This gives me a boost of energy to get through the day.”
“I have been using meditation as a tool for over 20 years,” she says. “My favourite thing to do when I wake up is my 20-minutes of meditation. It helps me start the day with a positive mindset. I also have wind down rituals at night, which help me relax after a busy day.”
Another big part of her self-care ritual includes her beauty routine, which has evolved with her pregnancies. “I have found during all of my pregnancies and postpartum that I have struggled with pigmentation so I have been religiously using our Noni Bright Vitamin C Serum, which has 12 per cent Vitamin C. It has kakadu plum, acerola cherry, and orange peel to help even the skin tone and brighten the complexion,” says Kerr as she takes us through her KORA Organics-heavy regime.
“Our Noni Glow Body Oil and Nourishing Hand and Body Lotion have also been getting a good workout recently. I apply our lotion followed by the oil all over my body each morning and night. I swear by them to help prevent stretch marks and support my skin through pregnancy and postpartum,” she adds.
As for what to expect next from Kerr, we’re keeping our eyes peeled for two launches from her brand later this year. She tells us: “I know our Singapore-based customers will love these products and I am so excited to share more with you soon.”