Isangs

Isangs is a Danish hair and body care brand based in the Vesterbro district of Copenhagen, where it runs a combined shop and open production workshop. It makes handmade products from organic, fair-trade and vegan ingredients, and positions itself around what it sums up in its tagline as "old traditions meet new thinking." The company was founded in 2012 by Sundra Essien, a former human rights lawyer, and remains a small, independently run operation selling through its own shop, a webshop and a handful of independent stockists.

Isangs traces back to Sundra Essien, whom the company describes as its product developer and founder [5]. Her route into cosmetics was unusual. According to a founder profile in Mermaid Stories, she studied business with a focus on social entrepreneurship, made an early and unsuccessful attempt to build a fair-trade maternity-clothing venture with Nigerian tailors, then went to law school and spent about a year working in international mergers and acquisitions before leaving law behind [7]. A period of travel followed — volunteering at an NGO in Paris, time in Nigeria, Spanish study in Granada, and stints at a permaculture research farm in Belize and on small farms in Costa Rica and Nigeria — after which she settled in Copenhagen and worked in the legal department of an international NGO before starting the business [7].

By her own account she had been extracting herbs and blending hair and body preparations for close to a decade, alongside formal and informal study of chemistry, before Isangs existed [7]. She recalls making soap for the first time in a Central American jungle, leaching lye from ash and pressing oils to produce what she calls a very crude early bar.

The company dates its founding to 2012 [5]. The Mermaid Stories profile does not give a founding year, so the date rests on the company's own account rather than independent confirmation. Sources also differ on how many founders there were: the brand's own "people behind Isangs" page names only Sundra Essien [5], while the Copenhagen city guide CREME GUIDES writes that "Sundra and Lasse founded the small but wonderful company," crediting a co-founder named Lasse and describing Sundra as the "mix-master" behind all of the products [6]. The company's own pages present Essien as the sole named founder and product developer.

Isangs frames itself as sustainable hair and body care that actually works — Essien's stated founding goal was to create, in the company's Danish phrasing, "truly sustainable hair and body care products that work" [5]. Its manifesto sets out six pillars: organic and natural sourcing free of pesticides, GMOs and artificial colours or fragrances; fair trade, which the company describes as a matter of "solidarity, not charity" [3]; a fully vegan and cruelty-free range; recyclable paper, glass or metal packaging; products built to be effective; and pricing kept, in its words, affordable through streamlined supply chains.

On ingredients the company is emphatic, saying its products contain no parabens, phthalates, sulfates, synthetic fragrance "or anything synthetic whatsoever" [1]. It states that everything is 100% vegan and cruelty-free, with no animal fats, by-products or traces of animal substances [3]. The manufacturing claim is central to the identity: products are described as handmade in Copenhagen, in a workshop that customers can look into directly. The Vesterbro premises, the founder notes, had earlier lives as a dairy shop, a brothel and a furniture shop. While the company describes its range as organic, fair-trade and vegan, it names no external certifying body, and no third-party certification is documented.

The range spans skincare, hair care and body care, alongside shaving and beard products, accessories and gift sets. Signature items include shampoo bars, handmade soaps that the founder says take roughly five weeks to cure, body cream and face masks made from natural ingredients such as pink clay, seaweed and licorice [7]. An aluminium-free natural deodorant, launched in November 2017, is singled out in the Mermaid Stories profile as having resonated with customers who had struggled to find a natural deodorant that works [7]. Essien has described herself, only half seriously, as "a bit of a self-centered product designer" who makes the products she needs and treats it as a bonus that others can use them too.

Third-party coverage is limited but present. The Mermaid Stories founder profile and the CREME GUIDES Copenhagen city-guide feature are the two independently published pieces, the latter characterising Isangs as a store where every product on the shelves is made and mixed by hand [6]. The company's own press page additionally displays logos from outlets including the New York Times, Berlingske, Børsen, M! Magasin and Easyjet Traveller [4]; these are presented as a gallery of mentions without article titles or dates and are stated by the company rather than independently verified.

Isangs remains active. It operates its Vesterbro shop and workshop together with a webshop offering the full range, and its products continue to be carried by a small number of independent retailers. The brand's footprint is that of a single-country independent maker rather than a multi-market company.