A magazine editor, an investment analyst and five candles.

NEOM was founded in 2005 by Nicola Elliott and Oliver Mennell, and its name is made from their initials: the N and E of Nicola Elliott, the O and M of Oliver Mennell. Retail Gazette, profiling the company on 22 December 2021, reported that Elliott was then entertainment editor at Glamour magazine and that the pair “combined their initials to create NEOM.” Mennell described the partnership plainly: “I worked in private equity and Nic was a journalist.” The investor Piper, which backs the company, describes Elliott as a former national magazine journalist who trained as an aromatherapist and nutritionist, and Mennell as a former investment analyst.

The company tells its origin as a London story. Its about page says Elliott, working as a journalist in London, began creating scents “from her own kitchen using only 100% natural essential oils,” and that the brand launched with five candles. Retail Gazette likewise reported that NEOM started with candles and home fragrance before expanding into bath, body and skincare, and Piper says the business was initially focused on home fragrance and skincare. The company traded as NEOM Organics, English Wikipedia notes, before taking its present name, NEOM Wellbeing. Its about page now sums up the brand in a single line: “Just real wellbeing; made simple.”

Outside money came in stages. English Wikipedia, citing The Times of November 2021, says NEOM received investment in 2011 from Michael Warshaw, the former owner of Molton Brown. In late 2017 the British growth investor Piper made what it calls a significant minority investment, and Piper has held that minority stake since 2017; its website still lists NEOM Wellbeing among its current investments, and says it first met the NEOM team in 2009, eight years before investing. The Times reported the Piper deal on 24 December 2017. Retail Gazette quoted Mennell saying that by the time the founders raised money, the business was large enough that they did not have to give up much equity.

From Harrogate to the West Village.

NEOM is run from Harrogate in North Yorkshire, which Piper and the local news site The Stray Ferret both give as its headquarters. On 26 October 2023 The Stray Ferret reported a change at the top: Isabel Malbois, who had joined in 2021 as global commercial director and become managing director, succeeded co-founder Oliver Mennell as chief executive. Mennell stayed on as non-executive chair, and Nicola Elliott remained creative director. The same report said the business had grown internationally from its Harrogate base, where it is now based at Hornbeam Park.

The shops came early. English Wikipedia, citing The Telegraph, says NEOM opened its first high-street shop in Wimbledon Village in 2015, followed by Leeds in 2016 and Guildford in 2019, and a site near Liverpool Street station in London in October 2020, which it counts as the fifth of the company’s Wellbeing Hubs. By July 2024, WWD reported, there were six hubs. Wikipedia, citing WWD and the Yorkshire Post, also lists wholesale counters at John Lewis and Selfridges.

The American business followed. Retail Gazette reported in December 2021 that NEOM called itself digital-first and sold in the United States through Nordstrom and Amazon’s premium beauty store, and Wikipedia, citing the Yorkshire Post, records a fulfilment centre in Martinsville, Virginia. FashionUnited reported on 17 July 2024 that NEOM had opened its first shop in the United States, a 481-square-foot Wellbeing Hub on Bleecker Street in New York’s West Village. The report described the shop as a “sanctuary to escape the city” and repeated the company’s description of its scents as “100 percent natural fragrances.”

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group all make scented candles and home fragrance: Yankee Candle, NEOM, Homesick, Paddywax, Voluspa, NEST New York and LAFCO. Candle brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from founder-led companies that still pour under their original name to labels that now belong to much larger consumer-goods groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a supermarket aisle to a department-store counter.

A candle brand’s identity is usually carried less by the wax than by the vessel, the label and the name given to each scent, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the room where it started. A glass jar, a tin or a coloured tumbler often does the work a logo does elsewhere, and the names of the fragrances — places, seasons, memories — become part of the identity in their own right.

That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its candles are actually poured and its vessels made. Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its products are made and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A name made of two sets of initials.

The name is the brand’s plainest design fact. Because NEOM is built from two people’s initials rather than an existing word, the company writes it in capitals, and the move from NEOM Organics to NEOM Wellbeing kept those four letters while changing the word beside them.

The range has grown well past the original candles. The company’s website lists reed diffusers, Wellbeing Pods, sleep mists and balms alongside its candles, and Piper describes the products as organised around four themes: stress, sleep, happiness and energy. NEOM says it is a Certified B Corporation; Retail Gazette described it as “B Corp pending” in December 2021, and English Wikipedia, citing the New York Post in 2024, records the certification. On materials, the company says all of its candles use only RSPO segregated palm oil, and that its refillable hand-wash pouch uses 75 percent less plastic than the bottle it replaced. In 2021 Retail Gazette reported the company’s aim of becoming climate positive and zero waste by 2025.

For a design guide, NEOM shows how a founder-led British brand can turn its owners’ initials into a short, capitalised name that travels from a Harrogate office to a West Village shop. Compare Earl of East, another British candle brand, and NEST New York. For this guide we use deep teal, sage and oat with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep NEOM’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.