"You know, we’re in a phase now where women are tired of being punked by the big beauty brands," Olive + M's founder, Mariska Nicholson, commented in a recent one-on-one interview.

With all the hype from the big brands, cleansing and moisturizing the skin using plant-based oils seemed downright counter-intuitive to many of us. But women in Italy and Spain have long known how beneficial plant-based oils can be when used regularly as part of a natural skincare regime.

"I'd always used oil on my skin. But it wasn’t until I was at the end of a bottle one day that I got curious and read the ingredient deck." Curiosity stoked, Mariska started down the rabbit-hole of doing some serious online research into plant-based oils.

What she found was that these oils were excellent natural skincare agents. Loaded with vitamins, antioxidants, amino acids and more, natural oils cleanse, moisturize and restore the skin without affecting its delicate moisture balance. And in olive oil specifically, she found that its close molecular kinship to the skin's natural sebum meant that it was very readily absorbed by the skin.

Next, using her extensive culinary arts background, she began experimenting in her kitchen and producing products for her own use. Soon afterwards, as friends began taking notice of her glowing skin, a business was born. With a nod to her main ingredient, olive oil, she named her company Olive + M.

More people began using Olive + M's products but it’s still "an education-based process", Mariska tells us, "folks use it and see the results. They make that transition from 'you're asking me to wash my face with oil' to 'you’ve changed my life and I’m digging it'."