In a rare and raw interview, endota Founder Melanie Gleeson ran Hannah Gay through her industry insights, the company’s exceptional history, and future plans.
endota is celebrating 25 years of operation this year. Recall for me what the Australian beauty landscape looked like at the time of endota’s launch, and what it was you wanted to achieve by launching the business.
“We actually nearly didn’t get our first permit, because services [we advertised] were going to include massage, facials, body treatments, and so the council thought we’re going to be a brothel! [laughs] It took a lot of education in the first few years, just for people to understand what we were. There were probably about four [spas] at the time, and they were within hotels. There’s been massive growth, massive change. I mean, people are drinking smoothies now, there’s Instagram, people wear yoga gear out… there was none of that!
Flash forward, and now we’ve got evidence. When we started, people thought [spas were] quite ‘woo woo’. There was nothing like a physio for massage, or beauty for beauty, all under one roof. What we’ve really been able to do is, yes massage, but also results from high performance facials, under the one roof. We had to have a slow progression because we started with a $5,000 credit card. And I was 26… I had no idea what I was doing. I was so naive, which was a good thing, because I probably wouldn’t have done it. We’ve grown with it.
We started off franchising… not that I knew what franchising was… but it was a business model that could help us grow, because we had no money. In about 2004-2006, we started making skincare. Then, we did the training school – the RTO in Docklands where we see about 200 students a year qualifying in beauty therapy. And if [students] don’t come to us, we place them with people we know in the industry. Then, we did our online platform, where we recently bought back about half of the spas. Now, we’re taking baby steps into other countries. In New Zealand, we bought an existing spa chain of nine, and that was a good test to see whether we could make it in another market. We also have a product distributor in Thailand that opened up an indoor spa. We will expand into hotels.”
Compared to when the brand first started, do you believe endota has greater or fewer competitors in the market, both from a spa and retail POV?
“There are definitely more [competitors], but they come and they go. I acknowledge how hard business is. Because we’re Mornington Peninsula-based – and we don’t look too closely at what others are doing, we’re driven more by what our customers tell us they want – that has allowed us to just slowly chip away, introduce the products and treatments that they’re already asking for. More competitors puts up the rents [for all spas].”
The brand has long reflected a deep connection to nature and integrating the Earth’s elements, both in its retail products and spa services. Has this connection changed at all in this time, particularly with the increased social awareness of things like climate change?
“For me, it’s always been. I was fortunate enough to go to a very forward-thinking school on The Mornington Peninsula that had three rules: respect for self, respect for others, and respect for the environment. So from a very early age, I have understood our connection in the cosmos, that we’re all part of it, that every action has an effect, and to be conscious of that. The first yoga retreat I ever did was in year 10 where we went to stay at an ashram in Daylesford.
For endota, the values that [our long-standing therapists and franchisees] share are similar. We were one of the first certified organic ranges when there were only two manufacturers working with organics. We don’t just do things that are environmentally-friendly because it’s trendy. Because I haven’t been out much in the media, and don’t have Instagram myself, we’ve been fortunate in that we could just do what we thought was the way; made our own rules. We’re mostly women, our leadership team is mostly women. We’ve always made conscious decisions – our values, our intent, connect, truth and balance, and we really hammer those right through the organisation; they’re not just words on a page.
I could have made my product offshore and made way more money, yes, but would I have been happy with that decision? Not necessarily. I feel like we’ve done things the hard way, but for me, they’re right and I can sleep at night. I feel very lucky that I can [produce products] here, and everything that’s happening in the world at the minute, it’s actually beautiful that we’re Australian made. It doesn’t mean I haven’t made mistakes… I’ve made hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in mistakes, but I’m happy with the way we’ve done it. I feel like because we have done things that way, we’ve earned the trust that the customer now gives us, and we’ve got strong foundations.”
How many product SKUs does the brand house today?
“We now have about 260 SKUs, professional and retail.”
In an interview with Professional Beauty in 2020, you said “having a massage or a treatment is no longer a luxury – it is a healthy habit and our spas have become a haven for emotional replenishment.” While the spa and wellness industries are now valued in the trillions, do you maintain this philosophy given the boom in invasive and injectable treatments of the last decade? Do you see that massage and non-invasive skincare has retained its relevance?
“I feel like there was a time when invasive was a thing, but the pendulum’s coming back. We’re seeing it in the spa. People still want high performance – so we still do LED, EMT, microdermabrasion, Laser Genesis, but they want skin health. And we know that injectables do other things that are not skin health. I think people are more aware. There seems to be a change from overfilled, over-puffed and frozen; people want movement. They want good skin, good hair; healthy, vital. So our high performance facials have risen dramatically [in popularity], especially over the last two years. It matches up with what we’re seeing in the longevity space – you want to look good, but you want to feel good. People are craving human connection still, definitely after COVID. The more digitally connected we get, we’re less physically connected.
I feel very fortunate that despite all the advancements in technology, as that happens for our industry, the need for touch and physical connection grows. I just think we’re in a lovely spot, our whole industry, where we can provide that care that is missing in so many other areas. We’re up [financially] on last year in these uncertain times.
[Clients] were coming every four to six weeks, and are now pushing that out to eight to 12, people are more discerning with what they spend. They want good quality, to go somewhere they know to be a lovely experience, and they want products that are going to make them feel and look good. I feel good about where we’re at as an industry.”
Any challenges?
“Our biggest challenge as an industry is labour and finding people that want to join and stay in our industry. It’s a beautiful industry to be in, so we have to look at how we can facilitate people wanting to join. We get great numbers at our school, but I want that to grow. No doubt it’s not a consumer challenge, which is awesome because a lot of people are having consumer challenges.
Because we’re experienced [at endota], we get that many calls from global brands asking if they can put our products in our spas. Why? Because service is the heart [of the business]. And service is really hard, especially at scale. It’s hard enough when you’ve got one, never mind trying to have consistency when you’ve got loads [of spas]. Retail brands won’t always spend on training and care and the time that’s needed to help the people providing the service. Everybody’s talking about experiential retail, our industry’s got it in spades. We’re so lucky – it’s not like we’re a retailer trying to get into service, we’re a service provider that’s gone into retail, which I love. It’s been harder for us as an industry, but it serves us well for experience retail and things moving forward. It’s a bloody exciting time for our industry. We forget because it is hard, and you’re in it everyday. We forget what it is that makes us so special, and as a collective, we need to remember that and be really proud of what we provide.”
Let’s talk about education. I’d love to hear your honest thoughts on the current state of the industry in terms of training and staff retention, and whether you see more could be done to ensure the viability of the industry in the future.
“Yes, I think we just have to think differently. We need to acknowledge that in any of the industries where we’re caring for others, we need more care around the people doing the caring – whether it’s our therapists, hairdressers, childcare, aged care, nurses… In our online platform, we’ve got meditation, yoga, recipes… we give that to our people at endota so they can come home, log on, do a meditation, go to sleep. I’ve started speaking with hospitals about giving that to their people, because they don’t spend on their people.
We’re about to send out a massive survey, to 2000 therapists, and ask ‘what could this look like for you?’ Sometimes, they just want to mix up their working week… it’s a lot when you’re doing treatments all week. Maybe we can work with gyms, offer a membership at a discounted rate, or can we subsidise? There are things we haven’t even thought of yet where I think we need to reshape what it might look like to join this industry. So we’re in a bit of a research phase, talking to others and talking to the actual therapists.
In saying that, we [at endota] have a lot of people who’ve been with us for a long time, or they’ll go and have kids, come back, do part-time. [Flexibility] is harder in spa because of the customer-facing hours, but we’re very flexible at head office.”
Following on from that last question, endota has recently joined forces with The Aesthetic and Beauty Industry Council (ABIC) here in Australia. Why was it so important to you to work with them?
“[The partnership] came to us. One of our franchisees from Albury had been a member, who said ‘it’s awesome’. [Our decision to join] was driven by what’s happening in the education space. We thought, ‘we’re a voice, we should join’. When I spoke to Stef [Milla], I thought ‘she’s a firecracker’… [we need] someone like that from an industry body that speaks on our behalf… because the people making the decisions don’t often know what it means [for us]. We’ll give her what she needs to [share with the] government, ‘Listen, what are we doing for women in these industries? How can we make it better?’ And it might be a joining of resources, but we need think tanks, and we should bring [the industry] together and think of ideas. We’re doing that within our own network now, but certainly new ideas and new thoughts are valued.
Our school joined as an education member, followed by our head office. I think we have to be [a part of the conversation]. I think we’ve got to a point now that we’ve been doing what we’ve been doing. It feels like I can take a breath, I’ve got an amazing senior team, we’ve got a big network. Now, we can start to give back a little bit to our industry that’s helped us. It feels like that’s the next step for us, for industry.
I say, ‘well done’ to everyone who’s in it, it’s a hard slog, and I love the people in our industry. I’m very connected with lots of them. There’s a lot of things in this industry – not everything we’re doing right, but a lot we’re doing right – that could even be transferred to other industries. And I think as small business owners, it’s very hard and it can be lonely. I think we’ve got people with good intentions doing good work, and I think that’s nice.”
endota’s New Age range has now been replaced by Performance Plus, a line of high performance serums that can be integrated into endota’s professional, customisable treatments.
This article originally appeared in the Issue 02 2025 print issue of Professional Beauty magazine. Read it here.
Photography: Supplied
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