# Marie W ## Facts | | | |---|---| | Founded | 2007 | | Origin | Germany | | Headquarters | Velbert | | Status | Active | | Manufacturing | Germany | | Distribution | Multi-channel | | Website | https://www.marie-w.de/ | Marie W (styled "marie w." by the company, and trading as marie w. Manufaktur Make-up) is a German maker of decorative natural cosmetics, based in Velbert [2]. It was founded in 2007 by Maria Wißler, who had earlier built one of Germany's first mail-order businesses for natural cosmetics [8]. The range covers face, eye and lip make-up together with brushes and small accessories, and the company says everything is made by hand in Germany. The brand is owner-managed and remains active. Since 2020 its day-to-day running has been led by Sonja Sironen, a longtime collaborator of the founder, while Wißler has turned her attention to cultivating organic raw materials. ## Origin & founders Maria Wißler came to make-up from the care side of natural cosmetics. After a degree in an environmental subject, she set up one of the early mail-order businesses dedicated to natural products, and the company credits her with helping to shape principles that still define the category: care based on plant extracts, raw materials preferably from organic farming, and no synthetic preservatives or petroleum-derived chemistry. The brand's own website calls her a pioneer of decorative natural cosmetics in Germany [1]. According to the trade magazine naturalBEAUTY, her first venture was B&W Naturpflege Fachversand, a mail-order company selling natural cosmetics that had not been tested on animals, where she also developed products under the B&W name. In 2007 she left that business to start a make-up label of her own [11]. In a 2020 interview, Wißler put it in her own words: she finally founded marie w. Manufaktur Make-up in 2007 [8]. The partnership behind the brand goes back further. In the same interview, Sironen recalled that the two women met in Sri Lanka more than twenty years earlier. At the time she was running an Ayurveda health resort, and Wißler was on a research trip looking into natural cosmetics. They found that they shared the same ideals, and went on to work together across continents, with Sironen contributing her knowledge of natural raw materials. Sironen, who trained as an ethnologist and holds an MBA, later moved back to Germany with her family after living in Hawaii, and from then on the two worked side by side. The company's logo, a small black cat, has its own origin story. According to the brand, Wißler was visiting vetiver-grass farmers on La Réunion in the Indian Ocean when she found an injured black kitten at the edge of the forest and brought it back to Germany by plane. She named it Trouvie, from the French words *trouver* ("to find") and *vie* ("life"). The cat became the model for the emblem that now appears on every product. ## History & milestones The brand's early history is thinly documented in public. Its products were already being sold through organic and natural-cosmetics shops in Germany by the mid-2010s: a 2017 post on the organic lifestyle blog Livona describes the author discovering the range a year earlier at a shop called Samt und Seide, and later finding the make-up and blush at a stockist in Dresden [9]. The same post was based on products supplied by the company for testing. The trade magazine naturalBEAUTY later marked the brand's tenth anniversary with a portrait feature [11]. In December 2020 the sustainability magazine LifeVERDE published a long interview with Wißler and Sironen, describing them as the two people behind the company. The interview set out the brand's history and philosophy and announced a change of roles: Wißler would concentrate on cultivating organic raw materials, while Sironen would take over the running of the business. The company has continued to run events alongside its online shop. Its contact page listed workshop dates in March and April 2025 [7]. ## Ownership Marie W is operated by M.W. Internationale Naturprodukte GmbH, a company registered at the brand's Velbert address [2]. The company describes itself as an owner-managed natural-cosmetics manufacturer. No parent group, outside investor or acquisition is documented, and there are no known sister brands. ## Philosophy & positioning The company sums up its approach in a three-word motto: "Einfach. Natürlich. Vollendet." – simple, natural, perfected. In the LifeVERDE interview, Wißler explained each part. "Simple" means make-up that fits into busy lives and can be applied in a few minutes. "Natural" refers to the raw materials and to the look the products are meant to create. "Perfected" is summed up in a line the brand also uses on its homepage: the perfect make-up is the one you cannot see. The aim, as the company describes it, is a complexion that looks un-made-up and naturally flawless. Several practical claims follow from that idea. Marie W says its formulas are highly concentrated and lightweight, with no bulking agents or fillers, and that they are designed to be tolerated even by very sensitive skin. The company states that its make-up is free from synthetic preservatives, fragrances, silicones and paraffins from the petroleum industry, and that its colours come only from natural pigments [3]. It describes its products as certified natural cosmetics and says it uses organic and fair-trade raw materials wherever it can. Rather than offering a wide spectrum of shades, the brand presents its face range as a small, coordinated system. Its make-up powders, concealers, blushers and effect powders are designed to work with one another, and the company says its tones are composed to suit a broad range of complexions, from very fair to sun-tanned skin. A "teint finder" on its website helps customers match a shade. Wißler also told LifeVERDE that, besides everyday users, the products are used by professional make-up artists and on theatre stages and television [8]. That claim is the company's own and is not independently documented. Sustainability is part of how the brand presents itself. On its website the company says that sustainable business, care for the environment, nature and climate, and fair and social production conditions are a matter of course. Some of this is tied to specific ingredients, described below. ## Products & innovation The centrepiece of the face range is Make-up Poudre Monádé, which the company describes as both a foundation and a powder in one product. It looks like an ordinary loose powder but, according to Marie W, is lighter and more voluminous, so that a single jar lasts at least five months. The name is drawn from the Greek word *monás*, meaning "unit" or "oneness"; the brand uses it to express the idea of a product built from a few highly pure ingredients. Around it sit concealers, blushers, a set of effect powders, including one meant to hide redness, and a range of brushes and accessories, such as a porcelain dish for powder. For the eyes, the line includes mascaras, kohl pencils, eyeshadow pencils, brow pencils and the MondDuo eyeshadows. The company says organic aloe vera is the main ingredient of its mascaras, listed first on the label in place of the water that usually heads mascara formulas. One mascara also contains a silica-rich substance from the bamboo species *Bambusa arundinacea*, traditionally known as "bamboo silk" and used in Ayurvedic practice to strengthen hair and nails, according to the brand. The MondDuo eyeshadows draw their colour from mineral pigments and iron oxides of the kind found naturally in the earth. The kohl and brow pencils are described as vegan formulas, though veganism is not claimed for the whole range. The lip range is where the brand's best-known ingredient appears. Its natural lipsticks, offered in eleven shades, and its Gloss Serum, offered in three, contain high-purity gold. The company describes the gold as a moisture-binding alternative to conventional shine that also soothes irritated lips, and says it is sourced from a traditional German manufacturer working with certified suppliers. The Gloss Serum combines the gold with mango butter and organic hyaluronic acid, which the company says helps counter premature skin ageing. The mango butter has a story of its own. Marie W says it uses only mango butter from an organic network in Burkina Faso, where the kernels left over from drying the fruit are processed by hand in women's projects [5]. The company presents this as a way of giving the women an additional source of income. Independent coverage repeats the connection: the senior-focused website hallo-oma.de noted that the lipsticks use cold-pressed organic oils from African women's projects [10]. Reviewers have generally focused on how the products wear in daily use. In a 2017 test, the Livona blog looked at the long-and-thick mascara and a MondDuo eyeshadow, both supplied by the company. The hallo-oma.de test, carried out by an older reviewer who received the products free of charge, covered the gloss serum, a lipstick, concealer, make-up powder, blush and a corrector, and singled out the gold-containing gloss as her favourite. ## Distribution Marie W sells directly through its own online shop and through trade partners. Its business-to-business programme is aimed at three groups: independent beauticians and cosmetic studios, specialist natural-cosmetics shops and organic supermarkets with natural-cosmetics departments, and vocational schools that train beauticians, make-up artists and stage make-up specialists [6]. Partners are offered discounted starter packages and online ordering. ## Current status Marie W is active. Its website, online shop and reseller registration were all operating in October 2026, and its legal notice names Sonja Sironen as managing director. The most recent dated activity found is the series of workshops the company offered in spring 2025. No product launches or news from the following months are documented. ## Timeline {#belagg-timeline} | Year | Event | Source | |---|---|---| | 2007 | Maria Wißler founds marie w. Manufaktur Make-up (per naturalbeauty.de after leaving the B&W Naturpflege mail-order business) | https://www.lifeverde.de/nachhaltigkeitsmagazin/gruene-wirtschaft/dekorative-naturkosmetik-von-marie-w-frauenpower-fuer-die-schoenheit | | 2020 | Role change announced: Maria Wißler to focus on cultivating organic raw materials; Sonja Sironen takes over running the business (interview dated 15.12.2020) | https://www.lifeverde.de/nachhaltigkeitsmagazin/gruene-wirtschaft/dekorative-naturkosmetik-von-marie-w-frauenpower-fuer-die-schoenheit | | 2025 | Contact form lists marie w. workshop dates on 07.03.2025, 21.03.2025 and 04.04.2025 | https://www.marie-w.de/contactus | | — | Described as the first decorative natural cosmetics certified to NATRUE criteria (no year given in source) | https://hallo-oma.de/produkttests/naturkosmetik-von-marie-w/ | | — | 10-year anniversary ('10 Jahre marie w.') referenced in a naturalBEAUTY jubilee feature | https://naturalbeauty.de/allgemein/marie_w/ | ## Certifications {#belagg-certifications} - **NATRUE** — International standard for natural cosmetics — “marie w. Manufaktur Make-up ist die erste dekorative Naturkosmetik, die nach den strengen Kriterien von NATRUE zertifiziert wurde.” — https://hallo-oma.de/produkttests/naturkosmetik-von-marie-w/ ## Signature products {#belagg-products} - **Make-up Poudre Monádé (Make-up Puder)** — Poudre Monádé ist anders, wirkt anders und wird anders angewendet. Denn es ist Make-up und Puder zugleich. — https://www.marie-w.de/teint - **Lidschatten MondDuo** — Ihre natürliche Ausstrahlung verdanken die MondDuos Mineralpigmenten und Eisenoxiden, wie sie auch von Natur aus in der Erde vorkommen. — https://www.marie-w.de/eyes - **Aloe Wimperntusche** — aus biologischem Anbau ist der Hauptinhaltsstoff der marie w. Wimperntuschen. — https://www.marie-w.de/eyes - **Gloss Serum** — Die Wirkstoff-Kombination aus Gold, wertvoller Mangobutter und biologischer Hyaluronsäure wirkt vorzeitiger Hautalterung entgegen. — https://www.marie-w.de/lips - **Natur Lippenstifte** — Die magische, natürlich-schöne Ausstrahlung entsteht durch die Kombination ausgewählter Eisenoxide, die sich perfekt mit dem natürlichen Ton Ihrer Lippen verbinden. — https://www.marie-w.de/lips ## Key ingredients {#belagg-ingredients} hochreines Gold (high-purity gold) · Bio-Mangobutter aus Burkina Faso (organic fair-trade mango butter) · biologische Hyaluronsäure · Bio-Aloe Vera · Bambus-Seide (Bambusa arundinacea) · Eisenoxide / Mineralpigmente Source: https://www.marie-w.de/lips ## Mentioned in {#belagg-press} - **LifeVERDE (Nachhaltigkeitsmagazin)** (2020) — Interview with Maria Wißler and Sonja Sironen on company history, philosophy, sustainability and price positioning — https://www.lifeverde.de/nachhaltigkeitsmagazin/gruene-wirtschaft/dekorative-naturkosmetik-von-marie-w-frauenpower-fuer-die-schoenheit - **Livona Bio-Blog** (2017) — Product test of Wimperntusche 03 'lang & dicht' and MondDuo Lidschatten 02, products provided by marie w. — https://www.livona.de/marie-w-dekorative-naturkosmetik-rein-und-fein/ - **hallo-oma.de** — Product test by a senior reviewer of gloss serum, lipstick, concealer, make-up, rouge and corrector; products provided free of charge — https://hallo-oma.de/produkttests/naturkosmetik-von-marie-w/ - **naturalBEAUTY (naturalbeauty.de)** — Brand portrait 'Bio-Make-up der Extraklasse' covering founder background and products — https://naturalbeauty.de/allgemein/marie_w/ ## Sources 1. (T1) https://www.marie-w.de/ 2. (T2) https://www.marie-w.de/impressum 3. (T2) https://www.marie-w.de/teint 5. (T2) https://www.marie-w.de/lips 6. (T2) https://www.marie-w.de/b2b 7. (T2) https://www.marie-w.de/contactus 8. (T3) https://www.lifeverde.de/nachhaltigkeitsmagazin/gruene-wirtschaft/dekorative-naturkosmetik-von-marie-w-frauenpower-fuer-die-schoenheit 9. (T3) https://www.livona.de/marie-w-dekorative-naturkosmetik-rein-und-fein/ 10. (T3) https://hallo-oma.de/produkttests/naturkosmetik-von-marie-w/ 11. (T3) https://naturalbeauty.de/allgemein/marie_w/ --- Glowpedia · · Published 2026-10-01 Please cite with a link to the article URL.