My Body Care Routine: Luna Daily’s Katy Cottam on prioritizing intimate care

For Cottam, creating an intimate body care brand praising women and their vulvas was extremely personal. After a round of intensive antibiotics impacting her gut and skin microbiome as a teenager, she developed thrush, an infection caused by a yeast fungus called candida albicans. As a result, she struggled to find body-care products that didn’t irritate the more intimate areas of her body.

“Ever since that moment, I’ve not been able to use traditional shower gels, soaps and other products,” she said. “I resented that the only options available to me were synthetic, outdated, fairly stigmatized products that mostly fell into the feminine hygiene category.”

The shame, embarrassment and confusion that came with the diagnosis were ultimately what led Cottam to explore clean alternatives to the products that were available to her at the time. Finally, after more than over a decade of hiding her experiences, despite a large population of women dealing with the same issues, she decided to create Luna Daily. Aside from her goal of destigmatizing intimate care for women, Cottam wanted to create a judgment-free community for the brand’s target consumers to be able to openly share and swap stories, experiences and education.

“No one’s journey is the same, and we try and cater to all of those experiences. … Our mission is to connect women to each other and our own bodies by pioneering a different category of products you can use everywhere. They’ve also been developed for different ages and [life] stages. In addition, we’re trying to revolutionize education [around the topic],” she said. “I’m the most comfortable I’ve ever been in my body, but that’ has’s definitely gone hand in hand with building Luna Daily.”

With Luna Daily slowly approaching its second anniversary, it has already made tremendous headway. In March, the brand announced its official launch into the U.S., through an exclusive deal with Sephora. The deal earned Luna Daily the position as the retailer’s first U.K.-based intimate care brand offered both in-store and online.

How Cottom makes time for scalp and intimate care , despite her busy schedule

My go-tos in the morning are, first of all, a cold shower. I got fairly addicted to reading up on the benefits of cold showers. The minimum time [to spend in a cold shower] is supposedly two minutes, but you can do just 30 seconds. It’s honestly phenomenal. I find it quite meditative because you literally can’t think of anything else apart from breathing and not screaming.

Then I cycle every morning. I live in London, which is fairly traffic-heavy, maybe worse than New York. But I find cycling to be meditative, because you can’t really do a lot else. You can’t be on the phone and you can’t be on Instagram.

I only wash my hair once a week — I’m so low maintenance. But, I’m a big fan of the Living Proof Pro Shampoo. It’s my best friend. I’m also a big fan of The Nue Co., in general. They have a scalp serum that’s amazing. I definitely feel that, with age, my hair is starting to thin, so I love that as an addition to my regimen.

Post-shower, my go-to is the Charlotte Tilbury Magic Cream. Believe the hype, it’s amazing. Then I use Maybelline’s Lash Sensational Mascara. My two other go-tos are the Refy Brow Sculpt and, once a week, Tan Luxe’s The Face Illuminating Self-Tan Drops.

I haven’t yet found the creme de la creme, no pun intended, of body lotion — but I’m also testing close to 10 million products in the bathroom.”

Shop Luna Daily’s Holy Grail products below

Plus, the must-have products in Cottam’s collection

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