NOBE Nordic Beauty

NOBE Nordic Beauty is a Finnish natural skincare brand based in Helsinki. It launched in 2023 as an in-house label of NBI Nordic Beauty Import Oy, a regional beauty distributor, and was founded by Johanna Rönkkö, who had spent more than a decade bringing international cosmetics brands to the Nordic market [13]. The brand builds its products around Finnish forest science and upcycled food-industry ingredients, and frames its work around the idea of "Nordic beauty" — or N-beauty — as a wider movement comparable to the global rise of Korean beauty [9].

The company remains active, with award wins through 2023 and 2024 and new product launches continuing into 2026.

NOBE was created by Johanna Rönkkö, who serves as chief executive of the parent company. Before starting the brand, she worked for close to a decade importing cosmetics brands into the Nordics, and according to the company she wanted to "establish a brand authentically rooted in the healing essence of nature." The label was developed in Helsinki and announced in April 2023, with a public launch the following month.

Rather than sourcing a single hero ingredient and building outward, the brand was assembled through two research and supply partnerships: Uute Scientific, a Finnish company spun out of university research, and Fazer Foodtech, the technology arm of the Finnish food group Fazer [9]. These collaborations shaped both the science and the sustainability story that NOBE tells about itself.

NOBE is owned and operated by NBI Nordic Beauty Import Oy, registered in Helsinki and also identified in company records as S2 Innovaatiot Oy [13]. The parent describes its core business as introducing premium international beauty brands to the Nordic and European markets, with NOBE positioned as its own in-house line. The company also operates a sister brand, Scandy.

The brand draws its imagery from Nordic nature — forests, ice swimming, and what it calls wisdom "passed down by ancestors." Its stated mission is to bring the ingredients of Nordic nature into skincare worldwide and to push "Nordic beauty" toward the kind of global recognition Korean beauty has achieved [9]. The products are presented as inclusive and unisex, and the company says its formulations contain at least 97 percent natural ingredients. NOBE markets itself within the clean-beauty space, listing its products as vegan, cruelty-free, and free of parabens, sulfates, and mineral oil. The brand's tagline is "It's in your nature."

NOBE's range is organised into three named lines. Forest Elixir is a microbiome-focused line built on the brand's signature forest microbial extract; Oat Wonder centres on Nordic oat oil for soothing and barrier support; and Cooling Care, inspired by ice swimming, uses xylitol and a botanical blend the company markets as Soothing Cooler for de-puffing and hydration. The catalogue spans cleansers, toners, serums and oils, moisturisers, eye and lip care, body care, and face masks.

The brand's central innovation is Re-Connecting Nature, a forest microbial extract developed with Uute Scientific and described as derived from Finnish university research into the role of biodiversity in human health [14]. The company presents it as the first natural ingredient to replicate the diversity of Finnish forest species without disturbing the forest floor, and founder Rönkkö has called it "a forest bath in a bottle" [8]. NOBE states that the extract is intended to balance the skin's microbiome and strengthen its barrier. A second strand of the formulation story is upcycling: the brand uses oat oil and xylitol drawn from food-production side streams through its Fazer partnership.

Several products carry third-party certification. The Forest Drops line is certified COSMOS Natural by Ecocert and carries the Allergy Symbol of Finland's Allergy, Skin and Asthma Federation; the brand states it is 99.34 percent natural in origin with no added fragrance [10]. NOBE's nominated products have been manufactured at an eco-certified factory in Loviisa, Finland [10].

NOBE drew industry attention quickly after launch. Four of its products were nominated at the 2023 European Natural Beauty Awards, and it received recognition from Cosmetic Executive Women the same year [10]. At the 2024 European Natural Beauty Awards, held in Stockholm, the Oat Wonder Luminous Lip Oil was named "European Excellence of 2024," and the Forest Elixir Microbiome Repairing Hand Cream was also recognised [12]. The brand's founder was profiled by the trade outlet Beauty Innovation in 2025, and the New York trend-forecasting firm Fashion Snoops identified NOBE as a notable Nordic beauty trend.

Sustainability is woven through the brand's sourcing and its public commitments. The upcycling partnership with Fazer Foodtech repurposes oat and xylitol from food-industry side streams, which the company frames as a way to reduce waste across both food and cosmetics production. NOBE also states that a portion of each sale is donated to the Helsinki Foundation to support forest growth and offset carbon emissions [8].

NOBE Nordic Beauty is active. The brand sells through department stores and beauty and lifestyle retailers in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Estonia, and ships directly to consumers across several other European countries. New products continued to appear into 2026, with items marked as new or available for pre-order on the brand's site, and its founder was featured in trade press in late 2025.