Latest news with #AntoniaPhilp
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
'Nurses emailed us praising our hand cream — it was rocket fuel for us'
Jonny and Antonia Philp have already endured enough personal and business challenges to last a career since co-founding Nursem, their range of hand and bodycare products, in 2012. The husband and wife team have claimed universal credit and turned down a Dragons' Den offer, while Jonny has overcome a brain tumour. It has since left him to live by the mantra of 'look after yourself, your health and have fun'. From turning over around £50,000 in their early years, Nursem hit public awareness in 2019 and now anticipate sales of £2.7m this year, with aims of growing their word-of-mouth business tenfold. Read More: How Caroline's Circuits became a midlife fitness empire The company launched in response to a problem encountered by Jonny's wife Antonia as an NHS paediatric nurse, working on intensive care wards and washing her hands between 50 and 100 times daily. After six months, her hands started to crack and bleed with the demands of work. The Philps realised she wasn't the only one, with nearly 90% of the nursing community suffering similar issue, despite trying a raft of hand creams. 'Hand cream sounds like an incredibly simple solution, probably overly simple, but sometimes the best solutions are the simplest because people know how to adopt and use them properly,' says Jonny. Originally called Yes Nurse – 'It was like a Carry On film,' admits Jonny – he paid himself £500 for the first five years alongside Antonia's salary. 'Until children,' he adds. 'That's when things become a lot more real.' He describes the feeling of juggling jobcentre meetings as the co-founders 'tried to survive for six months until we could launch into Boots in time". 'I think the lady looked at me and thought, 'this guy's on another planet'," he adds. "This is not the usual person she would expect to be interviewing. But I'm enormously grateful because, without it, there's no way we could have paid for nursery in those first months.' Read More: 'Why we set up a sustainable mobile operator to save people money' Back at the day job, he says that emails from nurses a decade ago were like 'rocket fuel' for a fledgling business. 'Nurses would say that it's the first time in 25 years that their hands weren't painful at work. Messages like that were like a shot in the arm and kept us going," says Jonny. Newcastle-based Nursem recorded sales of £142,000 (a net loss of £18,000) in their first year before a rebrand and relaunch in 2019 and COVID saw the company grow from a run rate of £150,000 per annum to £2.5m in 18 months. In 2020, Nursem's Caring hand cream was featured on ITV's This Morning. A product was sold every 36 seconds for several weeks while Boots also experienced empty shelves for a period. The publicity saw increased awareness of the company's 'Nursem Promise' where, for every product sold, they donate a month's worth to an NHS nurse or midwife. In 2021, the duo also appeared on Dragons' Den and received offers from all five before later rejecting a stake. This all pales into significance to January 2016 when Jonny was told by a consultant that he had an acoustic neuroma, a brain tumour on the left-hand side of his head. The couple had only been married three months. 'I lived on £500 a month, had enough money to fill the car up and buy some groceries. I was quite happy,' he admits. Read More: Meet the company that finds 'must-haves' to make everyday life easier 'It made me realise that all the dreams you have about building a business were just dreams up until that point. I was going to have to stick my head above the parapet.' Every year, Jonny paused for reflection when undergoing an MRI scan. The tumour was later removed in 2022 and three months of recovery followed. 'It took us 18 months of graft to get us back on track,' he adds. Nursem, says Jonny, is still largely a kitchen table, remote-first business, which employs 13 staff. The business is now driving demand from chefs, florists, mechanics and hairdressers. 'It is the shift towards people who are looking for something that's incredibly effective and cracking on with the rest of the day,' adds Jonny. 'It's the same for nurses in that you can't sit around for 10 minutes waiting for your hand cream to dry when it's a busy day.' A specialist transplant liaison nurse, Antonia has now joined the business full-time but will still be a registered nurse. 'We've got three kids and ambitions to grow 10x, but this means we can look after each other and be more present,' adds Jonny. The Nursem Promise If we were going to move the brand into retail on a bigger scale, how do we keep our heart and soul in the nursing community? That's when we realised rather than selling it to nurses, we should be providing it for free to deliver the biggest impact. For some nurses it can be absolutely debilitating and painful while at work. Not all hospitals provide access to moisturisers for staff so we decided to try and tackle it ourselves as a brand. We hear every single day from healthcare professionals how much it helps them. How to be a start-up success It's very easy to get distracted and move into other categories. The way we see the future is to continue to look after hands and become incredibly well known for doing one thing well. My key advice to other budding start-ups would be that if you're going to invest your time and energy, make sure you're tackling something that is a genuine issue that people have and that it affects enough people as well. Obsess over whatever the solution is that you're looking to launch, whether it's a physical product or a service. Think about all the key hurdles to get past and be absolutely brutally honest with yourself and actually work back from that goal. It will make life 10 times easier. Read more: Meet the 'jokers from London' who sold 100,000 blocks of butter in first 10 weeks 'My sofa took six months to arrive — so I built a £20m business' 'I paid myself £4 an hour to get my Rollr deodorant off the ground'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
'Nurses emailed us praising our hand cream — it was rocket fuel for us'
Jonny and Antonia Philp have already endured enough personal and business challenges to last a career since co-founding Nursem, their range of hand and bodycare products, in 2012. The husband and wife team have claimed universal credit and turned down a Dragons' Den offer, while Jonny has overcome a brain tumour. It has since left him to live by the mantra of 'look after yourself, your health and have fun'. From turning over around £50,000 in their early years, Nursem hit public awareness in 2019 and now anticipate sales of £2.7m this year, with aims of growing their word-of-mouth business tenfold. Read More: How Caroline's Circuits became a midlife fitness empire The company launched in response to a problem encountered by Jonny's wife Antonia as an NHS paediatric nurse, working on intensive care wards and washing her hands between 50 and 100 times daily. After six months, her hands started to crack and bleed with the demands of work. The Philps realised she wasn't the only one, with nearly 90% of the nursing community suffering similar issue, despite trying a raft of hand creams. 'Hand cream sounds like an incredibly simple solution, probably overly simple, but sometimes the best solutions are the simplest because people know how to adopt and use them properly,' says Jonny. Originally called Yes Nurse – 'It was like a Carry On film,' admits Jonny – he paid himself £500 for the first five years alongside Antonia's salary. 'Until children,' he adds. 'That's when things become a lot more real.' He describes the feeling of juggling jobcentre meetings as the co-founders 'tried to survive for six months until we could launch into Boots in time". 'I think the lady looked at me and thought, 'this guy's on another planet'," he adds. "This is not the usual person she would expect to be interviewing. But I'm enormously grateful because, without it, there's no way we could have paid for nursery in those first months.' Read More: 'Why we set up a sustainable mobile operator to save people money' Back at the day job, he says that emails from nurses a decade ago were like 'rocket fuel' for a fledgling business. 'Nurses would say that it's the first time in 25 years that their hands weren't painful at work. Messages like that were like a shot in the arm and kept us going," says Jonny. Newcastle-based Nursem recorded sales of £142,000 (a net loss of £18,000) in their first year before a rebrand and relaunch in 2019 and COVID saw the company grow from a run rate of £150,000 per annum to £2.5m in 18 months. In 2020, Nursem's Caring hand cream was featured on ITV's This Morning. A product was sold every 36 seconds for several weeks while Boots also experienced empty shelves for a period. The publicity saw increased awareness of the company's 'Nursem Promise' where, for every product sold, they donate a month's worth to an NHS nurse or midwife. In 2021, the duo also appeared on Dragons' Den and received offers from all five before later rejecting a stake. This all pales into significance to January 2016 when Jonny was told by a consultant that he had an acoustic neuroma, a brain tumour on the left-hand side of his head. The couple had only been married three months. 'I lived on £500 a month, had enough money to fill the car up and buy some groceries. I was quite happy,' he admits. Read More: Meet the company that finds 'must-haves' to make everyday life easier 'It made me realise that all the dreams you have about building a business were just dreams up until that point. I was going to have to stick my head above the parapet.' Every year, Jonny paused for reflection when undergoing an MRI scan. The tumour was later removed in 2022 and three months of recovery followed. 'It took us 18 months of graft to get us back on track,' he adds. Nursem, says Jonny, is still largely a kitchen table, remote-first business, which employs 13 staff. The business is now driving demand from chefs, florists, mechanics and hairdressers. 'It is the shift towards people who are looking for something that's incredibly effective and cracking on with the rest of the day,' adds Jonny. 'It's the same for nurses in that you can't sit around for 10 minutes waiting for your hand cream to dry when it's a busy day.' A specialist transplant liaison nurse, Antonia has now joined the business full-time but will still be a registered nurse. 'We've got three kids and ambitions to grow 10x, but this means we can look after each other and be more present,' adds Jonny. The Nursem Promise If we were going to move the brand into retail on a bigger scale, how do we keep our heart and soul in the nursing community? That's when we realised rather than selling it to nurses, we should be providing it for free to deliver the biggest impact. For some nurses it can be absolutely debilitating and painful while at work. Not all hospitals provide access to moisturisers for staff so we decided to try and tackle it ourselves as a brand. We hear every single day from healthcare professionals how much it helps them. How to be a start-up success It's very easy to get distracted and move into other categories. The way we see the future is to continue to look after hands and become incredibly well known for doing one thing well. My key advice to other budding start-ups would be that if you're going to invest your time and energy, make sure you're tackling something that is a genuine issue that people have and that it affects enough people as well. Obsess over whatever the solution is that you're looking to launch, whether it's a physical product or a service. Think about all the key hurdles to get past and be absolutely brutally honest with yourself and actually work back from that goal. It will make life 10 times easier. Read more: Meet the 'jokers from London' who sold 100,000 blocks of butter in first 10 weeks 'My sofa took six months to arrive — so I built a £20m business' 'I paid myself £4 an hour to get my Rollr deodorant off the ground'Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
'Make sure there is enough mileage in your product' - Nursem co-founder
Nursem, a range of hand and bodycare products, was set up by husband-and-wife team Jonny and Antonia Philp in first created their hero hand cream after NHS paediatric nurse Antonia suffered terrible contact dermatitis from all of the handwashing on the discusses life as a start-up brand and how being on a TV slot helped sell a product every 36 seconds for weeks. Nursem also aims to deliver on its Nursem promise of being able to access free handcare for as many hospitals across the UK. In 2026, they hope to deliver its 1,000th Nursem in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Daily Mail
12-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
The 'MIRACLE' hand cream created by a nurse that's so good one sells every 36 seconds - and it only costs £9.99
If your hands are dry, sore, cracked, or just constantly parched, this is the ' miracle cream ' you need, according to thousands of shoppers. Nursem's Caring Hand Cream, which costs just £9.99, isn't just a bestseller, it's now the most recommended hand cream by nurses. And no wonder. It was created by an NHS paediatric nurse, Antonia Philp, after relentless handwashing on hospital wards left her with severe contact dermatitis. She couldn't find anything that truly healed her skin, only products that temporarily masked the damage, so she made her own. Since then, Nursem has gone from strength to strength, loved not only by everyday users but also by editors, celebrities, influencers and, most importantly, healthcare professionals. The Nursem Caring Hand Cream has won awards, and in January of this year alone, one Nursem product was sold every 36 seconds. I've personally tried and tested the Caring Hand Cream and found it incredibly effective at calming and hydrating my skin. My husband, who has notoriously dry hands, feels the same. Nursem Caring Hand Cream Key Ingredients Soothes inflammation and soreness with medical grade Manuka Honey and White Willow extract. Conditions using a rich blend of Allantoin and Pro Vitamin B5; these immediately moisturise the skin keeping it constantly nourished. Protects with plant oils and Glycerin, to restore the protective barrier that retains the skin's moisture and hydration. Source: Nursem We've repurchased it several times because nothing else compares and now that he uses it too, I'm constantly reordering. And we're not alone in recommending Nursem above other brands, with the hand cream receiving nothing but praise online. One reviewer wrote, 'Having been a nurse for 35 years and now cooking for a living my hands are always being washed. They get so bad they crack and bleed. Nursem has helped my hands enormously and I'll continue to use it. Love it!' Another added, 'This hand cream is the best you can get for sore, red and dry hands. As soon as you put it on, your hands are instantly soothed. I wouldn't use anything else.' A third agreed, writing, 'Best hand cream ever. My hands are finally looking better after trying so many hand creams - thank you.' But what makes Nursem truly stand out is its unwavering commitment to giving back. Through the Nursem Promise, the brand donates a month's supply of hand cream to a nurse or midwife for every product purchased. And in honour of National Nurses Day on May 12, Nursem is doubling that promise for one week only - meaning every purchase results in two Promise Packs donated to nurses and midwives across the UK. Plus, if you're a key worker, you can now save 30 per cent at Nursem, which means you'll get £3 off the bestselling Caring Hand Cream.
