The Founder Reminding us that Burnt Out can have a Comeback Story!

By Rachel Medlock - Guest Editor, Mocha Beauty

It’s easy to romanticise beauty brand ownership. Instagram tells us it looks like viral unboxings, dreamy dispatch stations, and thousands of orders dropping daily. The reality? Tears at the post office, burnout in activewear, and wondering if stepping away means it’s all over.

Lauren Wells, founder of The Facial Co Skincare, knows that tension intimately. She built a business that felt aligned, until it didn’t. Then, after a four-month hiatus that was meant to be permanent, she did something many business owners don’t allow themselves to do. She came back.

When Lauren closed her brand, it wasn’t a business decision; it was a necessary full stop in a season that demanded space.

“I felt a huge shift in my priorities after having baby no. 2,” she shares. “Trying to find time for both of my children, my relationship, my home, myself, it was just a lot. Being present at home is incredibly important to me. At that moment, it felt like stepping away from my business was the only option to help clear some of the clutter in my life.”

The anxiety was real. Seeing orders come through and feeling unable to fulfil them straight away began to wear her down.

“It would keep me up at night,” Lauren admits. “I’d worry I was letting people down. That’s when I knew something had to change.”

It’s a reality many founders know but rarely say out loud: the dream of running a business can begin to feel like a trap if the demands outgrow your capacity to hold them.

For Lauren, pressing stop (or what would become a ‘pause’) was raw, necessary, honest and in that space, something shifted.

“The time away gave me the opportunity to get clear on my evolving goals and my ‘why’,” Lauren says. “I wanted to be everything for everyone, but if you try to offer everything, you never become known for anything.”

That idea, ‘being known for something’, has become a louder conversation in the industry over the past year. We’re seeing a rise in the emphasis on niching, and as Lauren’s story shows, it can be the answer to reclaiming clarity in a space that constantly pushes us to do more, offer more, and show up for everyone.

That meant returning to the original purpose of her range: a sensitive-skin-focused collection that genuinely represented the needs of sensitive and sensitised complexions. She’s now relaunched with five core products — a cleanser, three serums, and a moisturiser.

It wasn’t strategy that lured Lauren back to business. It was art.

“I lost my creative outlet,” she explains. “I’ve done so much of what you see in The Facial Co. The website, label design, packaging, and marketing. I love that part of it. When I was running out of my own Golden Hour Glow Oil, I thought, ‘If I’m missing it, others must be too.’ That was the spark.”

The spark soon became a slow-burning flame, one that grew as Lauren took steps to recalibrate her energy and rebuild her identity beyond business and motherhood.

That’s the part we don’t see on the grid — the background work, the rebuilding of a person before the rebuilding of a brand.

For anyone nodding along, quietly burning out behind a polished Instagram grid, Lauren has a reminder.

“It’s okay to step back. To re-evaluate. To redefine what you want. You can always come back,” she says. “There are no rules, only the ones you create for yourself. Breaking your own rules is actually really liberating.”

She’s under no illusions that what’s seen online reflects the reality of business ownership.

“Everyone’s situation is different; financially, personally, emotionally. Just because someone’s grid looks perfect doesn’t mean they’re not struggling behind it,” she adds. “Focus on what you can control. Protect your peace.”

Running a brand isn’t always empowering. Sometimes it’s exhausting, and it asks too much; the best thing you can do for your business is take a step back for a while.

The Facial Co Skincare is back. Not because it had to be, but because Lauren wanted it to be. That difference matters. It’s not about reclaiming relevance. It’s about reclaiming herself.

In doing so, she’s giving beauty founders everywhere a powerful permission slip to pause, to pivot, and to come back, even when you thought you never would.

And no, it doesn’t make you less of a founder. It makes you a human one.

@thefacialco.skincare