Meet Mouna Abbassy, who grew up in Morocco, a country where beauty rituals take the form of social affairs, where her mother, sisters, and friends would bring their own natural recipes prepared at home with the finest ingredients.
For female members, it was a time of joy, sharing, and celebration, the joy of being with loved ones, sharing beauty secrets, and the joy of celebrating femininity.
In her words, “The beauty recipes were judged for the experience they provide as much as for the final result thus, the ingredients were chosen for their capacity to exalt all our senses and create that unique moment where time and space don’t matter anymore, a moment where we focused solely on our well-being.”
Once a gathering was over, everyone would look forward to the next one. Mouna moved to Dubai in 2005, and she immediately fell in love with the growing, multicultural, dynamic city that is full of energy and opportunity. Soon she joined one of the largest beauty corporations in the world, where she fed her passion for beauty care.
However, Mouna soon found herself longing for the connection with mother nature that would reveal her inner beauty. She always wanted the feeling of being beautiful inside and out; above all, Mouna missed the boost of energy to shine as the woman she wanted to be. So, this hunger eventually marked the beginning of IZIL.
“The world ‘IZIL’ was derived from the ancient Amazigh language. It means ‘Pure,’ which is the brand’s foundation.”
izil is an all-natural skincare line entirely inspired by the ancient recipes of Moroccan women. These recipes are made from purely natural ingredients that provide pure moments of joy and happiness, just as they did for Mouna, her mother, her grandmother, and a countless generation before them.
Diversifying Products
Thanks to her educational background in marketing and a successful career behind her, Mouna realized a gap in the beauty market for a natural, chemical-free brand that works and merged it with the secret beauty recipes from her Moroccan heritage. She feels modern women nowadays want to feel beautiful inside and out without compromising their time or exposing their skin to harmful chemicals. These women are comfortable in their own skin and want to become the best version of themselves; that is what izil offers them.
Along with skincare, izil also has its range of body care, hair care, and man care products, as the organization believes self-care is not gender-specific. It also offers premium hammam and spa services at its bespoke spa facility, where it only uses izil’s premium products to provide the best experience possible.
The flagship store in The Dubai Mall is all about the experience. The company has built it in such a way that as soon as a client steps in, that individual feels completely immersed in the world of izil and disconnected from the outside world, as the person has instantly been teleported to Morocco.
The beauty product brand grabs the best nature has to offer and mixes it with Moroccan beauty rituals and secrets in order to offer it to the world.
Greatest Accomplishments
At the age of 10, Mouna was diagnosed with a very rare syndrome named Guillain Barre Syndrom, which affects all the muscles and leaves people completely paralyzed. It also affected her breathing, leaving her hospitalized for several months. She had to learn how to walk all over again. Surviving that was like a rebirth for her. This experience has made Mouna what she is today, a person who genuinely believes ‘Nothing is impossible’ and ‘miracles do happen’ as long as you put your mind, heart, and lot of hard work to realize your dreams.
As a female entrepreneur, Mouna feels proud and humbled to have been the first in so many awards. In 2015, she was the winner of Hadafi Women’s Entrepreneurship Season 3 and received Cartier Women’s Initiative Award. Later, she was also featured in several articles and news.
“However, my greatest achievement, as a Founder of izil, is building a beauty brand from scratch and with limited resources and making it one of the fastest-growing natural beauty brands in GCC and making it the 1st reference for Moroccan beauty, a brand endorsed by biggest celebrities and influencers, with customers from all over the world.”– says Mouna.
This has also earned her recognition from various channels and magazines of the region, including Forbes Middle East.
Preparing for the Future
Izil’s strategy for the future includes many objectives that will eventually help the brand drive its business forward and set the foundation for international expansion in the coming years. The brand’s primary objective is to streamline the processes through fully integrated ERP and IT infrastructure, enabling accelerated growth in GCC and outside of the GCC.
The brand has further planned to drive online growth through direct and consumer in GCC, Europe, and Asia through e-tailers distribution.
Izil also plans to obtain various brand certifications and further expand offline by opening new concept stores and spas in the GCC market.
On the other hand, the launch of multiple izil products are lined up, and it plans on investing more in ‘hair care’ and ‘face care’ range to cater to wider skin and hair concerns, backed by scientific and clinical research.