Why Sally Mueller traded added hormones for a morning habit

“I had not connected them.”

Sally Mueller heard that line from her own doctor and then repeated it to an old friend. The aches, the dry skin, the vaginal dryness, all pointed to menopause. She shared the news with Michelle Jacobs during a catchup, the sort of call they had held since meeting twenty years earlier at the start of their careers.

Jacobs had shaped brands for Polo Ralph Lauren and Lancome, spent time in publishing retail, and spent time with the Joy Mangano brand. Mueller had led brand launches as a Target marketing executive and as chief brand officer at Cherokee Inc. and Clique Brands. Both looked for clear guidance, steady support, and current products for this phase and did not find them. So they made what was missing.

Womaness began in 2021 with thirteen products for skincare, body, wellness, sexual health and incontinence, sold through its own site and through Target stores. The launch earned the 2021 Beacon Award for Best Brand Launch, added a sleep supplement named Let Me Sleep that same year, closed a 4 million dollar seed round led by Unilever Ventures and Obvious Ventures in 2022, and moved onto Amazon and QVC, with a store base the founders said would pass 1,800 doors with one more chain.

What The Daily Capsule noticed, and what others skip, is how the line works as a routine. Womaness says its formulas use potent, well researched plant based ingredients, with doctor, gynecologist, consumer and allergy testing, and no parabens, phthalates, sulphates, estrogen, phytoestrogen or added hormones. That is a label promise with records behind some of it, and blanks behind the rest. This talk traces the capsule forward into your day to ask when to take it, what to take it with, and how to check it.

You met twenty years ago and stayed creative partners and honest advisers for each other, then a doctor visit surprised Sally with a menopause diagnosis linked to aches plus dry skin and vaginal dryness as part of her morning routine check. What did that catchup change about how you plan work together and when you take time to reset during a busy day

Sally Mueller: Michelle and I go back twenty years. We were close friends, creative partners, candid advisers. Then on one catchup I passed along what my doctor had said. That shifts in my body I had felt were tied to menopause. I had missed the link. When we asked friends and work contacts, we saw how often that story repeated. There was little plain teaching, little backup, and few current products for this point in life. So we acted on it. We wanted to land the right messages, because our customer is in her 40s, 50s and older, moving through perimenopause, menopause and postmenopause. I believe many women are thinking, at last. At last a brand notices this chapter and addresses it head on.

Michelle Jacobs: We phrase it like this. By women, for women. We see you, we hear you, we are you in the same daily habit and routine together. We reject the pause. We aim to modernize aging through fresh answers, useful facts and steady encouragement. Live Fully. Age Well. That started with hearing people out. What the past year has shown is that women will speak openly about it. You only need to offer a setting where speaking feels safe.

Let Me Sleep joined in 2021 at 26.99 dollars as a night capsule to take before bed with water. A sleep capsule for a household that already keeps Me.No.Pause. on the shelf raises the same sourcing question in a new bedtime stacking form. How do the two supply chains compare for daily use and for spacing morning and night doses apart

Sally Mueller: Let Me Sleep entered the range in our first year because night after night without sleep kept surfacing beside hot flashes and dry skin. It is a dietary supplement for sleep, used daily as the label directs. The chain runs through the same stages. Bought in ingredients, dried and made to spec, mixed, filled to target weight, checked by lot. The contrast sits in the mix and in how the dose form behaves. A night formula can call for separate botanicals and separate helpers for flow and fill, so the other ingredients line looks different. That is why we ask careful shoppers to study both panels on each jar, not only the front.

Michelle Jacobs: Homes shop like that. For a partner, for a parent, for yourself. They hold a small set for years instead of chasing a fresh jar each month. They have tried the pricey option and want to know if it paid off. So we hold the wording in parallel. What it is, how it is taken, what it omits. No estrogen, phytoestrogen or added hormones in the full range. Vegan and gluten free as stated for easy daily use with or without food as directed. Neither label today prints grower names. The testing line is printed. That is the clear divide between what is tracked inside by lot and what a reader can see.

You launched in 2021 with thirteen products and went straight into Target stores as well as your own site for routine refills. For a new supplement line, what did that first assortment force you to decide about farms, formulas and fill for steady daily habits

Sally Mueller: It made us remain very lean because the business shifts so sharply across the first six to nine months, and only then do you see your true needs. We opened with thirteen products across skincare, body care, wellness, sexual health and incontinence. That is a broad set. You need to picture a funnel. Shoppers entering at the top might have caught the brand on tv, or in a magazine, so they come in aware, but then how do you walk them through each move toward purchase. Our customer still follows legacy media. She likes continuity. She likes to learn a person, she likes a fuller story.

Michelle Jacobs: I feel much of the new thinking lands after you open. That is when real grit shows. What your slide deck said would land does not always land. We knew the sexual wellness piece mattered in the range, but we never guessed it would perform at the level it has. Post launch listening showed where the next effort belonged, whether in a neck serum with a rollerball or a daily capsule. The range taught us to hold the chain tight enough to revise it.

Your promise is to modernize aging and to refuse parabens, phthalates, sulphates, estrogen, phytoestrogen and added hormones in every daily bottle. How does that refusal shape the Me.No.Pause. formula on paper and in a daily with food routine

Sally Mueller: We prefer tested plant based ingredients over estrogen or added hormones. That call dates to day one. Our formulas hold no estrogen, phytoestrogen or added hormones and are vegan and gluten free. They are produced without parabens, phthalates or sulphates. For Me.No.Pause., which is our natural, clinically tested and doctor approved supplement for menopause and perimenopause, the Supplement Facts box must do the talking. Which plants, at which levels, in which form. What the other ingredients row lists for the shell and flow helpers. We favor vanity worthy products over awkward ones, yet the label must still scan clearly.

Michelle Jacobs: Clean products built from potent, proven, well researched plant based ingredients. That sentence counts only when files support it. We point to doctor, gynecologist, consumer and allergy testing. The terms natural, clinically tested and doctor approved sit on Me.No.Pause. because the brand words it that way. Viewed for origin, the open issue is one we take to heart. Which farmer, which crop, which lot. The label gives ingredients and daily use. It leaves off the farm. That is the part shoppers still ask us to make clearer.

Me.No.Pause. is described as natural, clinically tested and doctor approved, sold at 46.99 dollars as a daily dietary supplement to take each morning. Walk us from the capsule in hand at the kitchen shelf backwards to the plant lot and morning dose. What is traceable lot by lot when you restock the bottle and track whether the routine is doing anything

Michelle Jacobs: Begin with the capsule held in the hand. It carries a fill weight, a shell, and a lot code that links to a batch. Behind that batch sits a powder or extract formed by drying and extraction of plant matter. Behind that sits a crop from a grower. What we can follow lot by lot is the document chain. The spec for every ingredient, the certificate of analysis for identity and for heavy metals and microbe caps, plus outside lab rechecks where used. That is how you confirm contents. You match the shipment to the spec, you file the lot record, you keep the hold sample.

Sally Mueller: Where exactly does this come from for your daily habit, and how do you know it holds up That query is fair. What we give today is the formula, the daily use, and the testing statement. What we have yet to print is the grower name and crop site for each herb lot on the pack. That stretch stays hidden from the buyer. To reveal it we would need to list farms per ingredient, note the extract form and standardisation if any, and hold the certificate of analysis linked to the code on the jar. We kept lean at first to allow learning. This is where that learning leads.

You sell through your own site, Target, Amazon and QVC, toward more than 1,800 doors with another chain for easy routine refills. What does that distribution require from encapsulation, testing and lot records to keep a daily habit steady

Sally Mueller: It takes rigor. Every retail partner holds separate rules for labeling, for seals, for adverse event handling, for lot tracing. You need to see a funnel forward through each move to checkout, but also in reverse through sourcing to origin. One jar on a Target shelf must map to its batch file. The same holds for Amazon and QVC and our site. Memory cannot carry that. Papers carry it. Spec sheet, purchase order, inbound lot, certificate of analysis, mix log, fill log, finished test, hold sample.

Michelle Jacobs: Holding lean paid off there. The business shifts so sharply across the first six to nine months. If you staff up before you grasp your true needs, you neglect the records that count. We trained ourselves to request the paper behind words like pure. When a vendor says pure, we seek the assay, the heavy metals panel, the micro panel, the allergen note. When they say natural, we ask how the spec defines it. That runs slower, but it is how a small crew can stock many doors while keeping the line from field to capsule.

In 2022 you raised a 4 million dollar seed round led by Unilever Ventures and Obvious Ventures to support routine supply. What did outside capital change about sourcing and testing for a steady daily habit

Sally Mueller: Funding allowed us to look past the next order. It allowed us to carry proper stock, reorder to spec instead of to scarcity, and hold testing steady from lot to lot. It left the bar unchanged. No parabens, phthalates, sulphates. Absolutely no estrogen, phytoestrogen, or added hormones in this daily stacking routine. It gave space to uphold that bar while we saw what moved, what called for a rework, and what called for stronger sourcing. True grit after launch takes funds. Checking each lot takes funds. Saving hold samples takes funds.

Michelle Jacobs: Backers also press for process. Where is the spec. Where is the certificate of analysis to read with your morning bottle and routine log Who covers supply if a crop fails. That push helps. It shifts a brand from founder recall to typed steps. We want to land the right messages, but each message needs a folder behind it. The folder holds the field lot, the extraction log, the lab sheet, the batch tie. Funding gave us hours to assemble that folder well.

We say doctor, gynecologist, consumer and allergy testing, and we want the file behind those words to be complete.

Michelle Jacobs

You often say We see you, we hear you, we are you, and Live Fully, as a daily habit motto. Age Well. How do those phrases show up in the way you write a label for morning or night use, not just an ad

Michelle Jacobs: We see you, we hear you, we are you means we address a woman who studies labels. She scans the Supplement Facts box and the other ingredients line. She checks for third party seals and understands they do not all match. So we hold the front plain and the back precise. Me.No.Pause. names daily dietary supplement for menopause and perimenopause. Let Me Sleep names sleep supplement. Use is stated in plain terms. No claims past what the brand says and what the pack shows.

Sally Mueller: Live Fully. Age Well. explains why we reject shame around looks. We prefer to craft vanity worthy products over awkward ones. That is why a neck serum carries a cooling rollerball and a body cream carries a direct name like The Works. With capsules, vanity worthy means a jar you leave out without apology, with wording you can support. We reject the pause. We trust records. If we cannot document it, we should not state it.

What remains opaque today for a daily user, and what would it take to make Me.No.Pause. fully traceable to the field and shelf

Sally Mueller: What stays visible today is the finished lot tie. Batch code to mix to ingredient lots to certificates of analysis and to the testing we claim. What a shopper still cannot see is the origin tier. Farm name, crop site and date, drying approach, extraction solvent and ratio, standardisation goal where one exists. To close that loop would mean posting those facts per ingredient, per lot, or at least per formula run, and tying them to the code on the jar. That takes effort, but it is straightforward effort.

Michelle Jacobs: It would also mean spelling out clean each time we say it. For us clean has signaled potent, well researched plant based ingredients, with testing as stated, and minus the list we exclude. That meaning belongs in the file, not only in talk. Where a stage stays hidden, label it. Where a seal covers only the plant and not the goods, note it. The careful buyer stores our jars for years. She merits a view of the field past the capsule, or a clear note on why she still cannot see it.

Closing note from the desk

What lingers for the editors is the clear split the founders owned. Inside the firm, batches map to specs and lab pages. Outside, the pack states use and exclusions but leaves out farms, crops and extraction notes. That divide runs wide in supplements, and Womaness states it instead of masking it with adjectives.

The line set out to modernize aging for women in their 40s, 50s and older, with jars fit for an open shelf and files able to back them. The next evidence, in the words of both founders, is to print the field behind the capsule for each lot.

Product spotlight

Me.No.Pause., 46.99 dollars, daily dietary supplement for menopause and perimenopause to keep by toothbrush for morning use. The brand calls it natural, clinically tested and doctor approved, crafted without estrogen, phytoestrogen or added hormones. Use as the label directs and review the Supplement Facts and other ingredients rows for per serving levels and shell helpers. Set the jar beside breakfast and take it at the same time each day, with water and food as directed.

Let Me Sleep, 26.99 dollars, sleep supplement that entered the range in 2021. The brand frames it for homes that hold a small, constant set, for use as directed. Place it on the nightstand and take it 30 minutes before bed only as the label states, spaced apart from morning capsules. Talk with a doctor or pharmacist first if you take medication, are pregnant, or manage a condition, and track sleep for two weeks to see if the pattern shifts.