Cosmetics founder, Maddie Burton, on chronic illness and low-tox beauty

Maddie Burton is a 29-year-old business owner and the face behind the low-tox fragrance company, Your Bliss. Residing in Brisbane, along with her husband and fur babies, she also battles multiple chronic illnesses.

Endo Articles chatted to Maddie about some of the ups and downs of working with endometriosis, as well as the relationship between chronic illness and low-tox living.

On the message behind Your Bliss 

When I was 21, I was diagnosed with PCOS and then when I was 22, I got diagnosed with endometriosis.  Essentially, that's how Your Bliss was born. It was not something that I went into being like, ‘I'm going to start a brand’, it was more that I couldn't find anything on the market that was what I wanted to buy, so I decided to make it for myself. It led to a fully-fledged perfume business without the hormone-disrupting chemicals. It’s something that a lot of women who have endo, and those who don't, now have the ability to buy and use every day. 

On non-toxic products 

I remember starting my endo journey. It was my surgeon and my doctor at the time that said, ‘you should look at the things that you're putting in and on your body’. It's quite overwhelming if you want to move to a non-tox life and swap everything, because there's so many things that we use every day. Perfume was one of those things where I didn't think there was anything in the market that was really a low-tox version. There were either commercial fragrances or essential oils, and there was nothing in between. Perfume is one of the only beauty products where you don’t have to put your ingredients on the box, which I think is crazy. In your commercial fragrances, parabens, phthalates, synthetic dyes, and preservatives are hormone disrupting chemicals and can exacerbate your endo symptoms. We took them out of our perfumes because they’re just not necessary. 

On founding Your Bliss 

I started the process of finding a manufacturer and the behind-the-scenes stuff in 2019. Finding a manufacturer who would source low-tox ingredients was really difficult. A lot of the samples that I received were really terrible; they smelled gross! It took a really long time to figure out. Then we launched in 2020, around the same two weeks that COVID hit. It was a really interesting time to try to sell perfume to people online that they couldn't smell in person. Perfume is one of those things that, in the past, we would all go into a department store for, but it's becoming such a different experience now where perfume buying online is more accepted. Maybe we've gotten better at explaining what scents smell like. 

On receiving a diagnosis

Since I first got a period, I always had really bad pain. I remember multiple times being in the foetal position. No one could figure out what was wrong with me; that was just normal. It got so bad getting older that I just couldn't keep a job because I was the girl who was in pain all the time, or sick all the time. It took nine to ten years of pain to get diagnosed. With my PCOS, the diagnosis was like a throwaway comment. I didn't feel like it was taken very seriously or explained to me. Then my endo diagnosis was completely random, where I was having a lot of pain in my bowels. I had never heard of it before! I went into surgery just a couple weeks after that initial consultation and they found endo embedded all over my bowels. I was so grateful to have a reason for why I'd been sick all these years. I almost wasn't scared of it because I just was happy that I wasn't crazy. 

On finding balance with chronic illness

I've had two laparoscopies and I have a much higher quality of life now than I did. When I first started the business it was really good because the benefit of working for yourself means that you can dictate the hours which you work. On a good day, I'll get up at 5am and I'll exercise. I love pilates and I do strength classes with some of my friends near where I live. Then I'll take my dogs for a walk, and start work around 8-8:30am. As we're still a small business, I wear all of the hats. Some days I'll be doing a photo shoot and taking all of our content for us, or I'll be working with our affiliates or fixing our website. I always make sure that I'm doing some kind of self-care like journaling, meditating, or walking with my mom or my friends, or giving someone a call. To this day, if I have a flare-up, I know that I have the ability to work from bed. I still work, but it's under the conditions that meet my needs. 

On the future of endometriosis care

I actually looked at my vision board that I started before the business launched, and a part of my goal was the support of endo and PCOS as a major component of the brand. We've already come a really long way. If I look at when I was diagnosed, no one around me knew what it was, and it was really hard to be able to get support for it. Now it's so much more well-known, so the feeling of loneliness is a lot better. The thing that I'd love to see would be the ability to get diagnosed without having surgery, as well as doctors taking people more seriously so it didn't take the average seven-eight years to get diagnosed. That was the hardest part about the whole journey for me, not feeling supported and things taking so long.

On community and support

As a brand we just donated to Endo Articles in March. We also did a collaboration with Bangin' Body, and we both ended up donating. I love what Endo Articles do, I think they’re amazing. I'm friends with a bunch of women who shaped their businesses around their endo journeys, so being a part of groups like that is great. In Endo Awareness Month, I did one of the runs for endo as well, which was with a bunch of people who are there to support endo. I try to find those groups in whatever area, whether that be business or health or friends, even Facebook groups are really great as well. 

On anyone beginning their endo journey

I remember those days really well. The thing that I did the second time around with a chronic illness was to actually let myself feel emotion about it. The first time, because it was not really explained to me, I pushed it to the side. Prioritise giving yourself time to just readjust to this life, whatever the emotion is. Then find people who can be your support system, whether that be health professionals, family, friends, or groups of people like Endo Articles. Those things are really important so that you don't feel like you're going through it alone. There can be so much information out there and it can be so overwhelming. Having people that can be there when you need it is super important.