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“I can’t believe I did it, and if all this were to go out the window tomorrow, I would be proud of what I’ve done,” beauty blogger Estée Lalonde reflects at Brasserie of Light, an art-deco-style British eatery tucked inside London’s Selfridges. She’s speaking about her wellness brand, Mirror Water (a body-care brand focusing on mindful self-care), launching downstairs in the renowned British department store. On this unexpectedly sunny day—rare given the capital’s rainy reputation—she’s fresh-faced with a dewy glow, catching the morning light as we enjoy ham-and-cheese omelettes. There’s a quiet confidence about her—a sense of calm that mirrors the ethos behind her brand.
Image via Instagram/mirrorwater.earth
Looking back, beauty has always been intertwined with Lalonde’s formative years. She recalls getting ready with her mother in a shared bathroom in Waterloo, Ont., watching her dust blush across her cheeks and spread lotion on her body regardless of how late they were. “That really stuck with me,” says the Canadian expat. “Self-care wasn’t a trend; it was an essential ritual.” Her interest in beauty was never about glamour—it was rooted in self-expression. Experimenting with products, she found that something as simple as silver eyeshadow could shift her mood. “That was the hook for me,” Lalonde says. “Beauty became this tool for exploring identity, and I’ve never really let that go.” As a teen grappling with anxiety, she turned to body products, face masks and at-home rituals for comfort. At 19, Lalonde moved to London for a relationship. “It was a huge leap at the time, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. That relationship ended, but the city? I fell head over heels,” she shares. Feeling unmoored in a new place, she launched a beauty blog in 2010 in search of connection. A year later, it evolved into a YouTube channel—well before influencer culture had taken hold. “It was the wild west back then. No one really knew what it could become, which made it all the more exciting.” Her audience quickly grew through honest content on beauty and fashion coupled with candid mental-health chats; today, she has amassed over two million followers across platforms. But with her legacy in beauty well cemented, she has turned her attention to her latest project: Mirror Water.
Courtesy of Mirror Water
Inspired by the podcast How I Built This, Lalonde began to wonder if she could build something of her own. “It took me a lot of time to feel empowered to even try,” she says. During the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the idea took shape, born from quiet moments, mirror pep talks and the grounding practice of baths. “They’ve become this ritual of coming back to myself; it’s a time to unplug and just be,” she says. Launched in 2021, the brand reflects her roots, with products infused with Canadian scents like black spruce and cedarwood.
“Beauty became this tool for exploring identity, and I’ve never really let that go.”
Her mission became clear when she realized that wellness culture often left her feeling inadequate and unsupported. “Redefining self-care as softness” became her North Star. “I’m trying to start the conversation around taking the guilt away from just chilling out,” Lalonde says. It’s a sentiment that lands softly but hits hard.
Photography by Rebecca Munroe, via Instagram/mirrorwater.earth
“Although I talked about beauty products on my YouTube channel, I also talked a lot about mental health, which is how I grew and what my audience connected with,” she says. “I always talked about self-care as being a coping tool. When I thought about starting my own brand, I needed to do something that was truly aligned with who I am as a person, and I’m so passionate about relaxation.” Far from frivolous, creating Mirror Water was her way of turning personal healing into something empowering and purposeful. Today, at four years old, the brand is a bestseller in U.K. beauty retailers like Space NK and Liberty, and it continues to grow. In Canada, it’s available at Formula Fig locations, and Lalonde aims to expand it further across the country. But what remains with her through this success is the belief that beauty doesn’t have to be loud and performative; instead, it can be slow, thoughtful and personal. “I’m not interested in just pushing products; I want to create space for people to feel something,” she says—because, truthfully, that’s always been at the heart of her journey. [content_module id=”1″] This article first appeared in FASHION’s September 2025 issue. Find out more here. Continue Reading
